Most agencies spend the first 30 days of a new client relationship presenting their grand strategy. Big decks. Lots of frameworks. Impressive-looking matrices.
We spend the first 30 days reading. Not producing — reading. The strategy comes after we understand what’s actually happening, not before.
Here’s the specific list of what we look at, and why each one matters.
#Key summary
- Week 1 is access and orientation — get read access to every platform and check attribution before looking at performance data
- Week 2 is a channel-by-channel audit: search terms, audience setup, GSC signals, email health, GA4 conversion mapping
- Week 3 is client conversation — the data shows what happened, the client explains why
- Week 4 is the first recommendations, in a specific order: fix measurement, stop waste, improve what’s working, new initiatives last
#Week One: Access and Orientation
Before we can assess anything, we need to see it. The first week is mostly admin — but important admin.
We get read access to Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, GA4, Google Search Console, and any other active platforms. We look at GBP (Google Business Profile) if there’s a local component. We ask for the previous agency’s strategy documents if they exist, and the most recent reports.
Most clients assume we’ll immediately find something wrong. Sometimes we do. But the first week is about orientation, not diagnosis. We’re mapping the terrain before we start making calls about it.
One thing we always check in week one that most agencies skip: attribution setup. Before we look at performance data, we need to know whether the data is trustworthy. A GA4 account showing 40% of traffic as “direct” usually has UTM gaps. A Google Ads account showing high conversion volume might be counting micro-conversions (time on site, page views) as primary goals. We look at the measurement layer before we look at the numbers it’s producing.
If the data isn’t reliable, everything else is built on sand.
#Week Two: Channel-by-Channel Audit
Once we have access and trust the data source, we go through each active channel methodically.
Google Ads: We pull the search terms report first, always. Not the keywords — the actual search terms that triggered spend. This one view tells us more about account health than any other. Are we spending on relevant queries? Is there obvious waste? Are the match types making sense? We also check conversion actions — what is the account actually optimising for, and does that map to what the business cares about?
Meta Ads: We look at the audience setup, the objective selection, and the creative library. The objective question matters more than most people realise — if the account is set up to optimise for Traffic instead of Leads or Sales, you can have a technically well-structured account that is pointing in the wrong direction. We also look at whether exclusions are in place: existing customers excluded from acquisition campaigns, recent converters excluded from retargeting pools.
SEO and organic: We run a GSC check — top queries, top pages, click-through rates. We’re not doing a full technical audit in week two (that comes later), but we’re looking for obvious signals. Pages ranking in positions 4–10 with strong impressions and low CTR are low-hanging fruit. Content gaps where competitors are appearing and we aren’t.
Email: If they have email, we look at list health, open rates by segment, and the automation flows in place. The most common finding is a welcome sequence that was set up once and never touched, and a broadcast list that’s been hammered with promotional emails until the engagement rates tanked.
GA4: We map the conversion events to the business goals. Are the events that matter to the client actually being tracked as conversions? Are there tracking issues showing up in the real-time view? Is there a significant (not set) or (unassigned) traffic problem that needs addressing?
#Week Three: Talking to the Client
By week three we have enough data to have a useful conversation. Not a strategy presentation — a conversation.
We ask the client questions that the data can’t answer. What have customers told them directly about how they found the business? What sales conversations happen after a lead comes in — are the leads actually converting to customers? What did the previous marketing do that they want to keep, and what frustrated them?
The data shows us what happened. The client can tell us why it happened — and sometimes the answer is completely outside the marketing accounts. A spike in form submissions three months ago wasn’t a campaign win; it was because a competitor closed down. A drop in leads in January wasn’t the algorithm; it was because the client was on holiday and stopped answering their phone.
We also ask about the business itself. What’s actually selling well right now? What margins look like across different services or products? Where is the business trying to grow? Marketing strategy that ignores business strategy is just tactics in a trench coat.
#Week Four: First Recommendations
By the end of week four we have enough to make meaningful recommendations. Not a full strategy — that takes longer. But a clear view of the highest-leverage moves.
We prioritise in a specific order:
Fix measurement first. If the data isn’t trustworthy, nothing else matters. Attribution problems, tracking gaps, and wrong conversion actions all get fixed before we start optimising campaigns.
Stop obvious waste second. If the search terms report is full of irrelevant queries eating budget, we fix that immediately. Not a strategy move — a hygiene move. Every dollar wasted on the wrong query is a dollar that could be working.
Then improve what’s working. The fastest path to better results is almost always improving a campaign that’s already showing positive signals, not building something new. We look for what’s working and ask why, then figure out how to do more of it.
New initiatives last. New campaigns, new channels, new creative directions all come after the foundation is solid. Most agencies want to start here because it feels more impressive. We save it for when there’s a stable base to build on.
#What 30 Days Actually Looks Like
The first month isn’t glamorous. It’s spreadsheets, data pulls, access requests, and a lot of reading.
But it’s also where the biggest mistakes get caught before they cost money — and where we start building the picture that makes everything after it more likely to work.
The clients who get the most out of working with us are the ones who let us do this properly instead of rushing us to “just start running ads.” The ads will run. The work we do in the first 30 days is what makes them worth running.
