Agency operations · Updated September 2026 · 10 min read

The paid ads client onboarding checklist for PPC agencies

A PPC client onboarding checklist gets you from signed proposal to a campaign you can safely launch: account access through each platform's own link flow, a conversion tracking audit, and a budget with a named approver. This guide covers Google Ads, Meta and LinkedIn with the access routes and role names each platform uses today.

By Raj Kumar, Founder, Zunoform

A paper plane on a plaster runway beside a brass key, a thread line and a stack of discs

Short answer

Paid ads onboarding has five parts: link or invite into each ad account using the platform's own access flow (a manager account link for Google Ads, partner access for Meta, a user role for LinkedIn), audit what conversions are tracked and how, confirm the media budget, currency, period and who approves spend, collect the offer and landing page details through an intake questionnaire, and agree launch criteria before anything goes live. Never accept passwords or card details in the process.

Google Ads: send a link request from your manager account; the client accepts under Admin > Access and security > Managers.
Meta: the client shares assets with your business portfolio ID as a partner.
LinkedIn: the client adds your people to the ad account with a Campaign Manager or Account Manager role.
Tracking: list every conversion action, how it fires, and what is not measured.

What does a PPC client onboarding checklist need to cover?

Four areas, each with its own owner. Access is technical and depends on the client acting inside each platform. Measurement is technical and usually depends on the client's developer or website agency. Budget and approvals are commercial and depend on whoever signs off spend. The brief (offer, audience, landing page, claims) depends on marketing and sometimes legal.

The mistake most onboarding checklists make is mixing planning inputs with authorization. A client typing a number into a budget field is not approval to spend it, and a connected account is not proof the landing page is ready. Keep planning, readiness and the launch decision as separate records.

Scope matters too. If the retainer says campaign management, write down whether that includes creative production, landing page changes, tracking implementation and weekly reporting. Most disputes in the first 90 days trace back to one of those four being assumed rather than agreed.

How do you get access to Google Ads, Meta and LinkedIn?

Use each platform's agency route rather than individual logins where one exists. Role names and menu paths are from the platforms' help centers, checked on 28 September 2026; interfaces move, so link clients to the current help article rather than a screenshot.

Platform	Agency route	Roles or access levels	Who must act
Google Ads	Manager account (MCC) link request by Customer ID	Link gives the manager account access; direct users can be Admin, Standard, Read only, Billing or Email only	Client accepts under Admin > Access and security > Managers
Meta (Facebook, Instagram)	Partner access to the client's business portfolio	Full control, or partial access limited to tasks such as managing ads	A person with full control of the client's business portfolio
LinkedIn Campaign Manager	Add named users to the ad account	Billing admin, Account manager, Campaign manager, Creative manager, Viewer	A user who can manage access on the ad account, or via Business Manager if the account is in one
Google Analytics 4	Property-level user	Viewer, Analyst, Marketer, Editor, Administrator; optional No Cost Metrics and No Revenue Metrics restrictions	A GA4 Administrator
Google Tag Manager	Container user	Read, Edit, Approve or Publish	A GTM account Administrator

Sources: Google Ads: Link to a manager account · Google Ads: About access levels · Meta: Give a partner access to business assets · LinkedIn: User roles and permissions in Campaign Manager · Google Analytics: Access roles and data restrictions

Google Ads: link the account to your manager account

Ask the client for their 10-digit Customer ID. In your manager account, open the Accounts icon, choose Sub-account settings, click the plus button, choose Link existing account, enter the ID and send the request. The client's account owner gets an email and accepts in their own account under Admin > Access and security > Managers. Once accepted, the link is automatic.

If a client does not want a manager link, they can invite individual users from Admin > Access and security instead. Standard access covers editing campaigns; Admin adds user management and account linking. Ask for Standard unless you will manage users or linked products. Billing setup is separate: the Billing access level exists for that, and payment details stay with the client.

Meta: partner access, not personal admin

Send the client your business portfolio ID, found in your Meta Business Suite settings. According to Meta's help center, someone with full control of the client's portfolio opens Settings, goes to Partners under Users, chooses to give a partner access to assets, enters your ID, then picks the ad account, Page, pixel or dataset to share and the level of access. Only people with full control of the portfolio can do this.

Partial access limited to managing ads is enough for most campaign work. Ask for the pixel or dataset as well as the ad account; without it you can run ads but cannot audit events. A partner with full control of an asset still cannot share it on to another business.

LinkedIn Campaign Manager: named users with a role

LinkedIn adds people, not agencies, to an ad account, and only members who are 1st, 2nd or 3rd-degree connections of the person adding them. If the ad account sits in LinkedIn Business Manager, access is managed there instead. Campaign manager lets your team create and edit campaigns and ads without billing or user management; Account manager adds user access management. Every ad account must keep a billing admin, which should normally stay on the client side.

How do you audit conversion tracking before launch?

Do this before the first campaign change. The goal is a written list of what counts as a conversion, how it fires, and what is not measured.

List every conversion action in each ad account, its source (tag, GA4 import, offline upload, platform lead form) and whether it is used for bidding.
Submit a test conversion on the current landing page and confirm it arrives where the ad platform expects it. Record the date, device and page version.
Check for double counting: the same form tracked by both a platform tag and an imported GA4 key event.
Check whether enhanced conversions are on. Google hashes email, name, address and phone with SHA256 before sending; the client should confirm this matches their privacy notice.
If the client advertises to users in the EEA, UK or Switzerland, confirm how consent mode is implemented with their consent banner.
Check that auto-tagging and UTM parameters survive redirects to the landing page and into the CRM.
Confirm how offline outcomes (qualified lead, closed deal) could be reported back, even if that is phase two.
Write down what remains unmeasured, and put it in the first report so nobody reads a gap as zero.

Why the audit comes before strategy

Automated bidding optimizes toward whatever the account counts. If a newsletter signup and a sales enquiry are both conversions with equal value, the account will find the cheaper one. Fixing tracking first means your first optimizations work on real outcomes rather than on noise inherited from the last agency.

Source: Google Ads: About enhanced conversions

Source: Google Ads: About consent mode

Which budget and approval questions should you ask?

Ask these in writing. Each answer should name a number, a person or a date.

Scroll sideways to read all three columns.

Question	Why it matters	Red flag in the answer
What is the monthly media budget, and in which currency?	Separates ad spend from agency fees and avoids currency confusion.	A single number that mixes fees and spend.
Is the budget fixed per month, per campaign or per quarter?	Changes how pacing and underspend are handled.	No period given.
Who approves spend increases, and what is the process?	Stops the agency acting on an informal message.	Anyone on the client team can approve.
Who pays the platforms, and on which payment method?	Billing stays with the client; the agency never needs card details.	Client asks the agency to put spend on its own card without a written arrangement.
What cost per lead or return would make this worth continuing?	Gives a decision rule for the first review.	A target taken from an unrelated benchmark.
Are there seasonal peaks, blackout dates or stock limits?	Prevents spend when the client cannot fulfil.	Unknown, with a launch in the peak month.
Who approves ad copy, claims and creative?	Regulated claims and brand rules need a named reviewer.	Approval by silence.

What should the PPC onboarding questionnaire ask?

1. What offer should the campaign promote, and what should the visitor do next?
2. Which audiences, locations and languages are in scope? Any you must exclude?
3. Which platforms do you want to discuss (Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, Meta, LinkedIn, other)?
4. Planned monthly media budget and currency, stated separately from agency fees.
5. Who approves spend, and who approves creative and claims?
6. Proposed landing page URL. Who can change it, and how fast?
7. Who owns conversion tracking today? Which actions count as conversions?
8. What did previous campaigns teach you? Include the period and platform for any figures.
9. Google Ads Customer ID, Meta business portfolio name, LinkedIn ad account name (IDs only, never passwords).
10. Launch timing, capacity limits, seasonal dates or restricted claims we should know about.

Copy and adapt. Question 9 asks for identifiers so you can send link requests; access itself is granted inside each platform.

What does launch readiness look like?

Use Passed, Failed, Not checked or Not applicable for each row, and require a reason for Not applicable.

Scroll sideways to read all three columns.

Area	Evidence that it passed	Hold the launch when
Access	Link accepted and a team member has opened the account and the pixel or tag.	Access is granted but untested.
Budget	Amount, currency, period and approver recorded in writing.	The approver is unnamed or the amount is ambiguous.
Offer and claims	Ad copy and landing page describe the same offer; claims reviewed by the named person.	The ad promises something the page does not show.
Destination	Landing page loads and the form or checkout completes on mobile and desktop.	The conversion step fails in any tested scenario.
Measurement	A test conversion was recorded on the current page version.	Nobody can say what is being counted.
Monitoring	Someone owns the first 72 hours of checks and can pause spend.	No one is available to act on a problem.

What should happen in the first 30 days?

A typical sequence for a client with an existing account. New accounts spend longer on setup and less on audit.

Week 1: access and audit

Send link requests the day the contract is signed. Audit account structure, conversion actions, search terms and wasted spend in the historical data. Save a baseline of spend, conversions and cost per conversion for the last 90 days, noting which conversions you trust.

Week 2: tracking fixes and plan

Fix double counting and missing conversions with the client's developer. Present the campaign plan against the approved budget, including what you will stop, keep and test.

Week 3: launch or restructure

Launch against the readiness table. Make structural changes in one batch and annotate the date, so later performance can be compared before and after.

Week 4: first review

Report on spend pacing, conversions and search terms against the baseline. Keep recommendations tied to the decision rule the client gave for cost per lead or return.

Where Zunoform fits (and where it doesn't)

Zunoform is useful for the questionnaire and the landing page form. The Paid Advertising Client Intake template covers offer, audiences, platforms, budget and currency, landing page, tracking owner and approvers, and tells clients not to paste passwords. Hidden fields capture UTM parameters on lead forms (our UTM builder at /tools/utm-builder helps build the links); the values show on each response and in CSV exports, and they are added as columns to the Google Sheets delivery on the free plan (and sent in webhook and Zapier payloads), so each lead row carries its campaign. Free includes 500 responses a month; Tally and Google Forms are unlimited on free if volume is your main concern.

Zunoform does not request or grant ad platform access, fire ad platform conversion tags on your behalf, or report ad spend. Those stay in Google Ads, Meta Events Manager, LinkedIn and your analytics setup.

Templates for this workflow

Paid Advertising Client Intake

Scope campaign objectives, media budget, landing pages and conversion ownership before buying ads.

Creative Asset Approval

Record a review decision against a specific creative version, with required correction notes when changes are requested.

Campaign Launch Checklist

Record evidence for creative, landing page and tracking checks, then name unresolved blockers and the launch decision owner.

Questions people ask

How do I get access to a client's Google Ads account?

Ask for the client's Customer ID, then send a link request from your manager account (Accounts icon, Sub-account settings, plus button, Link existing account). The client accepts it in their account under Admin > Access and security > Managers. Alternatively, the client can invite named users from Access and security with Standard or Admin access.

What is an MCC link request?

MCC is the older name for a Google Ads manager account. A link request is an invitation from the manager account to manage an existing client account. It gives the agency access without sharing any login, and the client can unlink at any time, which makes it the cleanest way to start and end an engagement.

How do agencies get access to a client's Meta ad account?

The client shares the ad account, and ideally the Page and pixel or dataset, with the agency's business portfolio as a partner. They need the agency's business portfolio ID and must have full control of their own portfolio. Partial access limited to managing ads is enough for most campaign work.

Why can't I be added to a client's LinkedIn ad account?

LinkedIn only lets users add members who are their 1st, 2nd or 3rd-degree connections. If the ad account belongs to a LinkedIn Business Manager, access has to be granted there instead of in Campaign Manager. Check both before asking the client to try again.

Should the agency pay for client ad spend?

Normally no. Keep the client's payment method on the ad platform so billing and invoices sit with the account owner. If an agency does front spend, it should be a written commercial arrangement, not something set up during onboarding. Never collect card numbers in an intake form.

Is a budget in the intake form approval to spend?

No. It is a planning input. Record the amount, currency and period, then get approval from the named approver through the agreed process before launch. Keep a written record of approvals for spend increases too, since that is where disputes usually start.

What is the first thing to check in an inherited PPC account?

Conversion tracking. List every conversion action, how it fires and whether it is used for bidding, then submit a test conversion on the current landing page. Double counting and stale conversions are common in inherited accounts, and every later optimization depends on them.

About the author

Raj Kumar · Founder, Zunoform

Raj Kumar is the founder of Zunoform, the form builder made by Symphonic Grow. He builds the product and writes these guides, checking every competitor price and feature claim against the vendor's own pages before publishing.

Raj Kumar on LinkedIn

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