The short answer: in the first 30 days a competent paid media agency should secure access, verify tracking, agree measurable goals, build and launch the first campaigns, and hand you an honest first report. It should not promise final results, and you should not judge return on investment yet. Month one is about building a foundation you can trust and starting the learning that makes months two and three work.
If you are about to hire an agency, or you hired one recently and are unsure whether the first weeks look right, this checklist tells you what to expect, what to ask and what to question. It reflects how we run onboarding ourselves and what we have seen go wrong elsewhere. Your agency may sequence things a little differently, and that is fine as long as the foundations come first.
Week 1: access, tracking and goals
The first week should look unglamorous. You should expect:
- Account access. The agency gets access to your Google Ads, Meta, analytics and tag manager accounts, or creates new ones that you own. You should be the owner. We explain why in our guide to who should own your ad account.
- A tracking audit. They should check what is being measured today and whether it is correct before spending money. If conversion data is wrong, everything built on it is wrong. Our 20-minute tracking test shows what a basic version of this check looks like.
- A goals conversation. What counts as a lead or sale? What is a customer worth? What is the most you can pay to get one? A good agency pushes you for these numbers because it cannot optimise without them.
- A baseline. Current performance recorded, so later progress can be measured against something.
If an agency launches ads on day two without asking about tracking or goals, that is not speed, it is skipping the foundations.
Week 2: strategy and build
By the end of week two you should have received a short written plan. It does not need to be long, but it should cover:
- Which platforms and why (and why not others).
- Target audiences or keyword themes.
- Budget split between channels and between testing and proven spend.
- The conversion actions being tracked and what each is worth.
- A testing plan: what will be tested first and how success will be decided.
- The reporting schedule and what numbers will be in it.
The plan should be specific to your business. If you could swap your company name for any other and the document still made sense, ask for more.
This is also the week where ads, landing pages and creative are prepared. Ask to see ad copy and landing pages before launch. You know your customers’ language and legal limits better than any agency does.
Week 3: launch and watch
Campaigns go live, ideally in a controlled way: not every audience and product at once, but a core set that can produce readable results. In the first days after launch the agency should be checking:
- That ads are approved and serving.
- That conversions are actually being recorded, with a test conversion.
- That spend is pacing as planned.
- That search terms or placements are relevant, with early negatives or exclusions added.
You should expect some changes in the first fortnight after launch, but not constant tinkering. Platforms need a learning period, and large daily edits can restart it. A good agency can explain why it changes something and when it will stop to let data accumulate.
Week 4: first report and review
At around day 30 you should get a report and a review call. This first report will probably not show a clear return, and an agency that claims it does is either lucky or selling. What it should show:
- Spend, clicks, conversions and cost per conversion, clearly defined.
- What was learned: which audiences, keywords or creative looked promising and which did not.
- What will change in month two, and why.
- Any problems found, such as slow pages or a confusing form.
For a view on what reports should and should not include, read our piece on the numbers to demand from an agency report.
What results are realistic after 30 days?
It depends on budget, market and sales cycle, but a fair expectation is that you see the first leads or sales, that cost figures are still unstable, and that the pattern becomes clearer in months two and three. We set out a realistic timeline in how long paid ads take to work.
Judge month one on process quality: Was tracking verified? Was the plan clear? Were questions asked? Was communication prompt? Those predict months two and three better than the first month’s cost per lead does.
What should you provide as the client?
Agencies fail when clients are absent too. Be ready to provide:
- Account access within a day or two.
- Honest numbers on margins, lead quality and capacity.
- Fast feedback on creative and landing pages.
- A named contact who can answer questions in 24 hours.
- Information about what happens to leads after they arrive. If nobody calls them back for three days, no agency can fix that with ads.
Which red flags should worry you in the first month?
- No access to your own accounts, or accounts held in the agency’s name with no handover terms.
- Guaranteed results such as a promised return or number of leads by a date.
- Pressure to spend more before tracking is confirmed.
- Reports full of impressions and clicks with no conversion data.
- Vagueness about changes. You should be able to get a list of what was changed and why.
- Long lock-in contracts with no exit clause in the first months. We discuss what to check in how to vet an agency before you sign.
A one-page checklist to keep
By day 30, can you tick these?
- You own and can log into every ad account.
- Tracking was audited and a test conversion was recorded.
- Goals, values and targets are written down.
- You received a written plan and approved the ads.
- Campaigns are live and a change log exists.
- A first report arrived with definitions you understand.
- You know what happens next month and why.
If five or more are ticked, you are probably in good hands. If three or fewer, raise it directly and early. Most agency relationships that go badly were showing warning signs in the first month, and nobody asked.
Questions to ask in the first call
Come to the kick-off with a short list. Who will be my day-to-day contact, and how quickly do they reply? How often will you change things in the account, and how will I be told? What do you need from me in the first two weeks? How do you decide when to move budget between campaigns? What will month two look like if month one goes well, and if it goes badly? An agency that answers these clearly and without defensiveness is signalling that it works to a process. Vague or hurried answers in a sales call tend to become vague or hurried work later.
Finally, put the key points in writing: access, goals, budget, reporting dates and notice period. A one-page summary agreed by both sides avoids most disagreements that would otherwise appear in month three.