The contract is signed and the kickoff call is scheduled. What happens over the next thirty days determines whether the engagement produces results in month three or is quietly failing by month six. Both owners and agencies tend to treat this period as setup, and it is, but it is also the clearest signal you will get about how the agency works.
Here is what should happen, roughly in order, and what you should have in hand by day thirty.
Week one: access, diagnosis, and the baseline
Access. The agency needs to get into the ad accounts, the website, the analytics, Search Console, the Business Profile, and the CRM. You should be granting access as a manager or user from accounts the business owns, never handing over ownership. If the agency asks you to create anything in their account instead, that is a problem to raise on day one.
Diagnosis. A serious agency does not start running ads in week one. They audit what exists: what the ad accounts have been doing, where the website leaks, how the profile is set up, what the CRM records and what it does not, and what the last twelve months of leads and jobs look like. This is what a marketing audit actually finds, and it is what the plan is built on.
The baseline. Before anything changes, the numbers get written down: leads by source, cost per lead, booked jobs, revenue, review count, rankings for the core terms, site speed. This is the reference every future report compares to. If nobody establishes a baseline, nobody will be able to tell you what changed.
Week two: the plan and the tracking
The plan. By the end of week two you should have a written plan: what channels, in what order, with what budget, aimed at what outcomes, and what the agency expects to see by when. It should name the specific problems the audit found and how each one is addressed. It should not be a generic package description.
Tracking. Nothing launches until it can be measured. Call tracking, form tracking, conversion tracking in the ad platforms, and lead-source fields in the CRM. If the CRM cannot record where a lead came from, that gets fixed before the campaigns go live, not after.
This is also when you should hear about anything that has to be fixed on your side: a slow website, a profile with a wrong category, a phone that goes to voicemail after four rings.
Week three: the quick fixes and the first launches
Quick fixes. The audit will have found things that can be fixed in days: a broken form, a missing review link, negative keywords, a landing page pointing at the homepage, a profile with the wrong hours. A good agency fixes these before the bigger work starts, because they are free wins.
First launches. Typically the highest-intent channel first: search campaigns restructured or built, the Business Profile cleaned up, the review request automation turned on. Slower channels (SEO content, social, email nurture) start now but are not expected to show anything for a while.
You should be told what launched, when, and what it is supposed to do.
Week four: the first report and the cadence
The first report. It will not show results yet, and it should not pretend to. It should show what was done, what the baseline was, what launched, early data (clicks, calls, leads, even if few), and what is planned for month two. It should be readable in five minutes and it should distinguish what the agency did from what the season did.
The cadence. By day thirty you should know how often you will hear from the agency, who your point of contact is, how to reach them, and when the recurring review call is. If that is still vague, ask.
What you provide
The agency cannot do this alone. In the first thirty days, you owe them: prompt access, a clear answer on which services and areas matter most, your real numbers (revenue, job counts, average ticket, close rate) so the plan is built on truth, photos and any existing content, and a decision-maker who responds within a day or two. The single most common reason a first month goes slowly is an owner who takes two weeks to answer an email.
What should be visible by day thirty
Not results. Systems.
A baseline document. A written plan. Tracking that works, which you can verify by submitting a test form and seeing it in the CRM with a source. The obvious fixes done. The first campaigns live. A report that tells the truth about all of it. And a clear sense of who is accountable for the account.
If those are in place, the engagement is set up to work, and the results question becomes a matter of months. If they are not, you are looking at the early signs of an engagement that will not improve.
Our own first thirty days follow this sequence, and the audit is where it starts.
Frequently asked questions
Should leads increase in the first month?
Sometimes, from the quick fixes and a restructured search campaign. It is a bonus, not the test. The test is whether the systems are in place.
The agency wants to rebuild the website first. Is that normal?
If the audit found that the site cannot convert or track, yes, and it should be explained in those terms. If it is the first thing every new client is told, be skeptical.
How much of my time will the first month take?
A few hours: the kickoff, access, a questions call, plan review, and the first report. More if the site needs content from you.
What if the agency skips the audit and starts running ads on day two?
They are running ads into an unmeasured, undiagnosed account. Ask for the baseline and the plan. If neither exists, you have learned something early.