The new client hands over accounts and asks for a growth plan. Without a baseline, the agency can confuse a seasonal rebound, a broken event and its own work. This intake process produces a usable record of the business, measurement conditions and current account performance, with the unknowns visible rather than hidden in a polished deck.
Make this useful for your client. Follow the worksheet, or use the ready-to-copy task with your connected data.
Try this task in 1ClickReport → · See the product workflow →Evidence → Decision → Review
How to run the investigation
Capture the business reality
Record the client’s offer, service area, sales cycle, margins where supplied, capacity and approved budget. Ask which outcome is valuable and which apparent conversions are poor quality. Keep business constraints separate from what the platforms happen to optimize.
Verify access and scope
Connect the correct accounts and confirm that the needed properties and ad accounts are accessible. A successful login is not proof that the right data is available. List missing permissions and keep their owner and resolution status in the intake record.
Build the historical baseline
Review enough history to see weekday effects, seasonality and recent changes. Save the date window, source definitions and tracking caveats. Do not compare a holiday launch with a normal week and call the difference an agency result.
Choose the first evidence-backed task
Prioritize a measurable problem the agency can investigate now. Set a review date and record why it was selected. Save confirmed facts in the client’s context so future sessions do not restart from an empty brief.
Decision worksheet
Use these rows to turn the investigation into an action. Add the actual account, date range, evidence and owner before sharing it with a client.
| What you find | Interpretation | Next move |
|---|---|---|
| Account connected, no visible property | Access is incomplete | Resolve ownership or permissions before analysis. |
| Historical conversion setup changed | Baseline is not directly comparable | Split periods around the change. |
| Business target not specified | Optimization lacks a goal | Ask the client before choosing a success metric. |
Download this worksheet (CSV) ↓
Worked example: an illustration, not a customer result
Suppose a clinic reports 100 leads per month but cannot say how many were genuine bookings. The first plan should include a classification task and measurement check. Promising to reduce the platform’s lead CPA could increase low-quality volume while making the clinic busier and less profitable. The baseline protects both parties from that error.
MAKE THIS YOUR NEXT CLIENT TASK
Run the review on your own data.
Start with one client in 1ClickReport. Connect the client’s relevant marketing sources, select the correct client and use the task below. The analyst keeps client-specific context as you work.
Read the ready-to-use task
Build this new client’s baseline. Ask for the offer, serviceable markets, sales cycle, approved budget and valuable outcome. Confirm accessible accounts, review historical performance and tracking changes, and list missing evidence. Recommend one first task with a review date. Save only confirmed client facts; do not promise growth.
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- Copy the task, then create your account in the new tab.
- Finish setup and connect the relevant client data.
- Return to this page and open the task in AI Analyst ↗. Review the prompt before sending.
Start with one client. Team adds execution and reporting features; Agency adds capacity. Check current plan limits.
A question worth asking
How much historical data is enough?
Enough to understand the client’s normal variation and sales cycle. A new account may have little history; state that limitation and choose a smaller initial test rather than manufacturing a confident baseline.
References and method
Reviewed November 12, 2026. The decision process and worksheets are 1ClickReport’s editorial recommendations. Examples are hypothetical, not customer results. Platform behavior and access can vary; use the current native account view to verify settings.