You sold performance monitoring on the proposal, and the contract is signed. Now delivery has three days before someone asks why nothing is live yet.
Onboarding is where many retainers wobble. Teams either rush a PageSpeed screenshot into Slack, or disappear into setup for two weeks and lose the client's attention. A repeatable workflow fixes that because every client moves through the same phases, owners, and outputs.
This guide is the process layer. For a copy-and-paste audit list, use our Site Audit Checklist: Onboarding a New Client for Performance Monitoring. Here we cover who does what, in what order, and what "done" looks like before the first monthly review.
What successful onboarding produces
Before you open a tool, agree on the finish line. For most agency retainers, onboarding is complete when you can show:
