An agency client onboarding template is a reusable set of five pieces: an intake form, an access checklist, a welcome email, a kickoff agenda and a standard folder and task structure. If you have all five, every new client gets the same experience and your team never starts from a blank page. Below is the full template I use as a starting point for marketing agencies, written so you can copy it into your own tools.
I have built onboarding systems for agencies where the template was the thing that made automation possible. You cannot automate a process that changes every time, so the template comes first.
What an agency client onboarding template should include
A complete marketing agency onboarding template has these parts:
- Intake form that collects business, marketing and reporting details
- Access checklist with one line per platform and clear instructions
- Welcome email sent by the account lead
- Kickoff agenda and a recap template
- Internal structure: Drive folders, project task list, Slack channel and tracker row
Each part is covered below.
Part 1: Onboarding form template
Split the form into sections so it feels shorter. Mark the fields you truly need before kickoff as required and leave the rest optional.
Business basics
- Legal business name and the name customers know you by
- Website URL
- Main contact name, email and phone
- Billing contact, if different
- Business address and service areas
- Hours of operation
- Number of locations
Offer and customers
- Top three services or products you want to grow
- Average job or order value, if you are comfortable sharing
- Ideal customer in one or two sentences
- Customers you do not want
- Seasonality: your busiest and slowest months
Competition and history
- Three main competitors and their websites
- Previous agencies or freelancers, and what worked or did not
- Current marketing channels and rough monthly spend
- Any past penalties, account suspensions or disputes we should know about
Brand and assets
- Logo files or a link to a brand folder
- Brand colors and fonts, if defined
- Photos of team, work or locations
- Words or claims we must not use, such as regulated terms
Goals and reporting
- What does success look like in 90 days?
- Which numbers matter most: calls, form leads, booked jobs, revenue?
- How often would you like updates, and on which channel?
- Who should receive reports?
Keep the onboarding form template in a tool that can send submissions somewhere useful: Google Forms, Typeform, Jotform, a GoHighLevel form or similar. If submissions only land in an inbox, someone has to retype them, and that is where errors start.
Part 2: Access checklist template
Send this as a checklist the client can work through, and track each line as its own task on your side:
- Google Ads: add our manager account or invite our email as admin
- Google Analytics 4: add our email with editor access
- Google Search Console: add our email as a full user
- Google Tag Manager: add our email with publish access
- Google Business Profile: add our email as a manager
- Meta Business Manager: add our business as a partner on the ad account, page and pixel
- Website: CMS login or your developer's contact details
- Call tracking: account login or permission to create one
- CRM: login, or we will create a sub-account for you
- Domain and DNS: who manages it and how to reach them
Each platform changes its menus from time to time, so link to the vendor's own help page for each step instead of writing screenshots that go stale. Add a "Done" column the client can tick.
Part 3: Welcome email template
Subject: Welcome to [Agency], here is what happens next
Hi [First name],
Thanks for choosing us. I am [Name], and I will be leading your account day to day. You will also be working with [Specialist] on [service].
Here are the next three steps:
- Fill in the intake form here: [link]. It takes about 15 minutes.
- Work through the access checklist here: [link]. Each item has instructions.
- Book your kickoff call here: [link].
Once we have access, we start with an audit of your current setup so we can show you what we found on the kickoff call.
If anything is unclear, reply to this email or message me on [channel].
[Name]
Keep it from a real person, keep it under 150 words, and make every step a link.
Part 4: Kickoff agenda and recap template
Kickoff agenda
- Introductions and roles, 5 minutes
- Goals and what success looks like, 10 minutes
- What we found in the audit, 10 minutes
- The plan for the first 30 and 90 days, 10 minutes
- Communication and reporting cadence, 5 minutes
- Open access items and next steps, 5 minutes
Recap template
- Goals we agreed on
- Decisions made
- Action items with an owner and a date for each
- Access still missing
- Date of the next check-in
Send the recap the same day.
Part 5: Internal structure template
Google Drive folder structure
- [Client name]
- 01 Admin: contract, invoices, intake responses
- 02 Brand: logos, photos, guidelines
- 03 Strategy: audit, plan, keyword research
- 04 Content: drafts and approved copy
- 05 Reporting: monthly reports and exports
- 06 Meetings: agendas and recaps
Project task list
Create a standard onboarding list in ClickUp, Asana or whatever you use, with tasks for each access item, the audit, kickoff prep, the first deliverable and the day 14 and day 30 checkpoints. If you use ClickUp, I wrote a separate ClickUp client onboarding template guide.
Communication and tracking
- A Slack channel named with a consistent pattern, such as client-[name]
- A row in your master client tracker with owner, package, start date, renewal date and health status
How to turn the template into an automated workflow
Once the template is stable, most of it can run on its own. A typical flow looks like this:
- Client submits the onboarding form.
- A webhook sends the answers to an automation platform such as Make.
- The scenario creates the Drive folder tree and copies template docs, filling in the client name.
- It creates the project in ClickUp from your template, with tasks assigned to the right people.
- It adds a row to the client tracker in Google Sheets.
- It creates the Slack channel and posts a summary of the intake answers.
- It sends the welcome email with links to the access checklist and booking page.
That is close to the onboarding build I run for an agency: roughly 40 manual setup steps replaced by one form submission, with the workspace ready in under two minutes. The step-by-step version is in how to automate client onboarding with Make.
Template mistakes to avoid
- Too many required fields. Clients abandon long forms. Collect the rest later.
- Free-text fields for structured data. Use dropdowns for things like package and service area so automation can route on them.
- No version control. Keep one master template and date it. Old copies floating around cause drift.
- Generic access instructions. "Give us access" is not an instruction. Name the role and the email.
- Templates that never change. Review the template every quarter with the people who use it.
How I build this
I take an agency's existing onboarding template, tighten it, and then build it into a Make workflow that sets up the whole client workspace from one form. That is what the Agency Onboarding Engine delivers. If you want me to look at your current form and checklist first, request a free teardown and I will send back a short Loom with what I would change.
FAQ
What should a client onboarding template include?
It should include an intake form, a platform access checklist, a welcome email, a kickoff agenda with a recap template, and a standard folder and task structure. Together they cover everything from signed contract to first deliverable.
What questions should be on an agency onboarding form?
Ask for business basics, top services, ideal customers, competitors, past marketing history, brand assets, goals and reporting preferences. Keep the required fields to what you need before kickoff.
Should I use Google Forms or a CRM form for onboarding?
Either works if submissions flow automatically into your other tools. A CRM form such as one in GoHighLevel keeps data in one place, while Google Forms or Typeform are easy to connect to an automation platform.
Can an onboarding template be automated?
Yes. Once the template is consistent, a form submission can trigger folder creation, document copies, project setup, a Slack channel, a tracker row and the welcome email in one run.