Week one is an audit of the whole account. Week two assigns your brand manager and produces a priority plan you approve. Weeks three and four are execution on the top blockers. Most accounts show measurable ACoS improvement inside the first 30 days. After onboarding, expect to spend about 2 hours a month.
The short version
- Week 1: full audit. Listings, ads, inventory position, account health.
- Week 2: brand manager assigned, priority plan built, you approve it.
- Weeks 3 to 4: execution on the biggest blockers. First measurable movement.
- Ongoing: about 2 hours per month from you, mostly the bi-weekly call.
- Ask for the plan in writing before anyone touches your account.
What the first eight weeks look like
I run Flapen with 50 operators managing about 70 brands, at about 1.4 brands per operator. That ratio is what makes this timeline possible. An account manager carrying ten brands cannot audit properly in week one, so onboarding stretches to fill whatever capacity is left over.
| Week | What happens | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Full account audit: listings, ads, inventory, account health | Grant user permissions, share context |
| 2 | Brand manager assigned. Priority plan built from the audit | Review and approve the plan |
| 3 | Execution begins on the top blockers | Approve creative and major decisions |
| 4 | First measurable movement, usually in ACoS | Bi-weekly review call |
| 5 to 6 | Listing and creative work lands. Campaign restructure | Approve as needed |
| 7 to 8 | Cadence settles. Weekly written updates, bi-weekly reviews | About 2 hours a month from here |
Week 1: the audit
Nothing should be changed in week one. The audit looks at listing quality, primary image click-through rate, conversion rate, ad performance, traffic channel activation, pricing, and return rate, and produces a scale, fix, or kill view on each product.
An agency that starts changing bids on day two has not diagnosed anything. It is doing the thing that looks like work.
Week 2: the plan and the person
Two deliverables. A named brand manager who becomes your single point of contact and coordinates across the specialist teams, and a written priority plan built from the audit that you approve before execution starts.
Ask what the plan is ordered by. It should be ordered by impact on cost of customer acquisition, not by what is easiest to ship.
Weeks 3 to 4: first movement
The fastest lever is usually conversion, not ads, because if your conversion rate is low no amount of ad spend fixes it. Expect listing and image work early, alongside campaign restructuring.
Measurable ACoS improvement within the first 30 days is a reasonable expectation for most accounts. It is not a guarantee, and be suspicious of anyone who promises a number before the audit.
How much of my time does onboarding take
More at the start than after. During onboarding, budget a few hours across the first two weeks for context sharing, access, and approving the plan. Once the cadence settles, about 2 hours a month, mostly the bi-weekly strategy call.
A full brand launch from scratch is different and heavier. That runs about seven months and needs 4 to 6 hours a week from you, because you are approving product selections, creative direction, and sourcing decisions rather than reviewing an existing account.
What to give the agency on day one
- User permissions on your Seller Central account. Never the credentials, and never a new account in their name.
- Your actual margins, landed cost per unit included. Without it nobody can set an ACoS target that means anything.
- Inventory position and supplier lead times.
- What you have already tried, particularly what failed.
- Your decision threshold. What you want to approve versus what they should execute without asking.
Point five saves the most friction. Agree it in week one.
What most agencies will not tell you
Onboarding length is mostly a function of caseload, not complexity. Ask how many brands your named manager carries. At two or three, a real audit fits in week one. At ten, onboarding takes as long as the gaps in their calendar allow, and you will be told your account is unusually complex.
The second thing: the honest answer to "when will I see results" depends on which lever is broken. Ad efficiency can move in weeks. A conversion problem needs new images and copy, which means production time. A sourcing or margin problem cannot be fixed by an agency at all in the first quarter, and an agency that does not tell you that early is selling you the wrong service.
Ask during onboarding which of those three you have. A straight answer in week two is worth more than an optimistic one in week one.
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Our onboarding starts with the audit, before anything gets changed, at Flapen.
