# How to Audit an Inherited Agency as a Fractional CMO | Crank Source: https://wearecrank.com/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding/audit-inherited-agency How to audit an inherited agency as a fractional CMO: evaluate contracts, performance, workflows and make the stay, fix or exit decision in your first 90 days. --- Fractional CMO # How to Audit an Inherited Agency **as a Fractional CMO.** Auditing inherited agency work is the single most important task in your first 90 days — it determines whether you build on solid ground or inherit someone else's problems. [Talk to WeareCrank ](/contact) On this pageContents 1. [Why Inherited Agency Audits Define Your First 90 Days](#why-inherited-agency-audits-define-your-first-90-days) 2. [What an Inherited Agency Audit Actually Covers](#what-an-inherited-agency-audit-actually-covers) 3. [Running the Commercial and Contractual Review](#running-the-commercial-and-contractual-review) 4. [Assessing Performance Against Inherited Benchmarks](#assessing-performance-against-inherited-benchmarks) 5. [Process, Integration and Day-to-Day Workflow Audit](#process-integration-and-day-to-day-workflow-audit) 6. [Making the Stay, Fix or Exit Decision](#making-the-stay-fix-or-exit-decision) 7. [Turning Audit Findings into a Structured Handover Plan](#turning-audit-findings-into-a-structured-handover-plan) TL;DR For fractional CMOs stepping into an existing client relationship, auditing inherited agency work is the single most important task in the first 90 days — it determines whether you build on solid ground or inherit someone else's problems. * Inheriting agency relationships is one of the highest-risk moments in any fractional CMO engagement * An audit inherited agency situation requires structured evaluation before any new strategy is set * Poor agency work left unexamined can quietly undermine results for months * The first 90 days set the tone for accountability, spend efficiency, and strategic direction * A formal audit process gives you an objective baseline to measure everything that follows ## Why Inherited Agency Audits Define Your First 90 Days ![Why Inherited Agency Audits Define Your First 90 Days](/images/fcmo/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding--audit-inherited-agency/01.png) You almost never start from scratch. Step into a fractional CMO role and you will typically find an SEO agency on retainer, a paid media team running campaigns, maybe a content arrangement that has been quietly rolling for two years with no clear brief. Each comes with its own contracts, reporting rhythms, and unexamined assumptions about what good looks like. Most of them have never been properly scrutinised. That is the moment that defines the engagement. Not the strategy deck. Not the first board presentation. The audit. Skipping it carries real consequences. Build a new marketing direction on top of agency work that nobody has actually evaluated and you take on the problems with the relationships. Bad link profiles. Misdirected ad spend. Thin content. Tracking gaps that have been sitting there for months. None of it disappears because you have a new plan — it surfaces later, at the worst possible time, and by then it is your problem to explain. That is why the [new client audit](/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding/new-client-audit) exists as a structured process rather than an informal walkthrough. A repeatable framework. One that tells you what is actually in place — what is working, what is wasted, and what is quietly doing harm. The first 90 days carry a specific kind of pressure. You need to demonstrate value quickly, but you cannot commit to a direction before you understand what you are working with. Auditing inherited agency work resolves that tension directly. It gives you a documented baseline — evidence of what the situation looked like before you arrived. When results improve, you have proof. When problems surface, you have context. There is a political dimension here that fractional CMOs often underestimate. Existing agency relationships carry internal history. Someone chose those agencies. Someone signed off on those budgets. Challenging them without objective evidence puts you in a difficult position. A structured audit gives you neutral ground — you are not questioning a past decision, you are assessing a current state. That distinction matters more than most people expect. A common mistake we see is treating the audit as purely a performance review. Numbers only tell part of the story. What you are actually examining is strategic fit, contractual obligations, communication quality, reporting integrity, and whether the agencies involved genuinely understand the client's business. We see this constantly during technical audits — an agency hitting its own KPIs while the broader commercial objectives drift. The metrics look fine. The business does not. So what should the audit actually cover? At minimum: * Strategic alignment between agency activity and commercial goals * Reporting integrity — are the numbers real, and do they measure the right things * Contract terms and exit clauses you may have inherited without reading * Communication patterns and whether the client has genuine visibility * Work quality across deliverables, not just headline performance figures Done properly, this is not a defensive move. It is how you establish credibility, protect the budget, and give yourself the information you actually need to lead. The first 90 days are when trust is built or lost — and nothing builds it faster than demonstrating you know exactly what you have walked into. Ready to structure your fractional CMO engagement from day one? WeareCrank builds the operating frameworks that make engagements work. [Talk to WeareCrank](/contact) ## What an Inherited Agency Audit Actually Covers ![What an Inherited Agency Audit Actually Covers](/images/fcmo/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding--audit-inherited-agency/02.png) Fractional CMOs almost never start fresh. They walk into existing agency relationships — contracts already signed, retainers already running, tools already embedded. None of it was chosen by them, which means none of it has been tested against their priorities. Inherited agency An agency relationship that a fractional CMO did not commission, inheriting instead from a previous leadership team, founder, or interim arrangement — including active contracts, embedded tooling, and ongoing deliverables. This distinction matters more than most people acknowledge. An agency you selected yourself can be briefed properly, held accountable, and replaced if needed — with full context behind every decision. An inherited agency arrives with history: informal agreements, legacy working rhythms, and expectations that were never written down. The audit is how you make sense of that before it starts making decisions for you. A thorough audit covers four distinct domains. **Commercial** — Start with the contracts. Notice periods, scope commitments, performance clauses (or the absence of them). Many inherited retainers run on rolling monthly terms with no defined outputs — spend continues regardless of results. That's not unusual, but you need to know it. Mapping the commercial position first tells you what leverage you actually have before you do anything else. **Performance** — What has the agency actually produced, and has it moved the metrics that matter? Output quality, KPI attainment, the gap between what was promised at pitch and what's landed in practice. Poor performance isn't always grounds for immediate termination. Sometimes it reflects a broken brief rather than a failing agency. But you can't make that call without the data in front of you. **Process** — How does the agency integrate with the internal team? Is there a clear communication cadence, or does contact happen reactively? Are workflows documented anywhere, or does institutional knowledge live in email threads? We see this constantly during audits — a technically capable agency held back by poor briefing, slow approvals, and no escalation path. **Cultural fit** — Harder to quantify, but it compounds fast. Does the agency communicate in a way that works for the team? Are they proactive or reactive? Do their values around transparency align with how the business actually wants to operate? Cultural misalignment rarely improves on its own. #### Pros * Gives you an objective baseline before making any resourcing decisions * Identifies whether underperformance is the agency's fault or a structural briefing problem * Surfaces contractual risks — notice periods, auto-renewals, committed spend — before they become expensive surprises * Creates a documented record that protects you if relationships need to be wound down #### Cons * Takes time and access to data the business may not have kept consistently * Can create tension with agency contacts if they sense they are being evaluated * Results may be inconclusive if historical briefs and performance benchmarks were never formally set To make this practical, work through a defined set of questions in each domain. **Audit checklist by domain** **Commercial** * What is the contract term and notice period for each agency? * Is there a defined scope of work with measurable deliverables? * What is the monthly or annual committed spend, and does it vary by performance? * Are there any auto-renewal clauses approaching in the next 90 days? **Performance** * What KPIs were agreed at the start of the engagement? * What does actual output look like against those KPIs? * Has there been a formal review in the last six months? * Are the deliverables still aligned with current business priorities? **Process** * Who owns the agency relationship internally, and is that person still in post? * How often does the agency communicate proactively versus waiting to be chased? * Are briefs documented, or is work initiated verbally or informally? * How are feedback and revisions managed? **Cultural fit** * Does the agency's communication style work for the team? * Do they raise problems early, or do issues surface late? * Is there transparency about capacity, resourcing, and who actually does the work? * Would the current CMO have chosen this agency given a free selection process? The answers won't always point cleanly toward keep or replace. Some agencies score well commercially but poorly on performance. Others have strong cultural alignment but fixable process problems. The audit gives you the information to make that call deliberately — not on instinct, and not based on whoever's opinion you inherited along with the contract. ## Running the Commercial and Contractual Review ![Running the Commercial and Contractual Review](/images/fcmo/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding--audit-inherited-agency/03.png) Before you touch a single keyword ranking or backlink profile, understand what contracts exist between your client and their current or previous agency. This part of the audit gets skipped constantly. And that's exactly how inherited situations become inherited problems. One question drives everything here: what obligations is your client carrying right now, and how do those obligations affect what you can actually do — and when? ### What to Pull Together First Ask your client to locate every signed document connected to the agency relationship. The original service agreement, addenda, change orders, statements of work, any email threads that effectively agreed a change in scope. Don't assume these are organised or complete. Most aren't. We see this constantly during audits — clients send over one PDF and assume that's the full picture. It rarely is. Once you have the documents, work through four specific areas. **Notice periods.** Check how much notice is required to terminate, and from what point that clock starts. A 30-day clause and a 90-day rolling clause have very different implications for your transition timeline. The rolling element matters most — if the notice window resets automatically each month, your client may need to act immediately to avoid locking in another full cycle. **Exclusivity clauses.** Some agency agreements restrict the client from engaging another agency for the same services during the contract term. Less common in SEO than in paid media, but they do appear. If one is present, you need to know whether your client is technically in breach just by having you audit the work — and whether that creates any risk before you go further. **Auto-renewal traps.** These clauses roll contracts forward automatically — often for three, six, or twelve months — if neither party serves notice within a defined window. A common mistake we see: clients miss that window and are already committed to another term before they've even decided they're unhappy. Document the dates carefully. **Scope-creep provisions.** Look for language that separates what's included in the retainer from what triggers additional charges. In some contracts, requesting an audit report or data export from the incumbent agency counts as out-of-scope work and gets billed. Know this in advance, so your client isn't charged just for asking for their own campaign data. #### ⚠ Assuming Clean Contract Records Most clients do not have tidy contract files. Agreements get signed by different people, addenda get added informally, and renewal notices get missed. Never proceed with a contractual review based on whatever the client sends first — ask directly whether there were any amendments, verbal agreements confirmed by email, or changes to the original scope. Check twice before concluding a contract is straightforward. ### How to Document Findings Without Causing Panic Clients get anxious during this part. Especially when they realise they're locked in longer than they thought. Your job is to present what you find as information, not as a crisis. Build a simple summary table — one row per obligation, with columns for clause type, exact wording (quoted, not paraphrased), the practical implication, and a recommended action. That separation between what the contract says and what to do about it matters. It gives clients something concrete to hand to their legal or commercial team if needed. Don't speculate in writing about what clauses might mean legally. Note what you observe, flag what needs legal interpretation, and recommend they confirm ambiguous points with their own counsel. Your role here is to audit the commercial position so the SEO transition can be properly planned — not to give legal advice. #### What to do when you find a restrictive clause 1. Step 1: Identify the clause type — is it a notice period, auto-renewal, exclusivity, or scope provision? 2. Step 2: Confirm whether the clause is still active — check contract dates and any termination or amendment history. 3. Step 3: If the clause is active, assess the practical impact — does it affect your ability to start work, access data, or formally engage? 4. Step 4: If it's a notice or auto-renewal clause, calculate the earliest possible exit date based on the contract language. 5. Step 5: If it's an exclusivity clause, flag immediately to your client and recommend they take legal advice before proceeding. 6. Step 6: If it's a scope provision that might create billing risk, advise your client to request data or access in writing and document everything. 7. Step 7: Record all findings in the contractual summary document and present with recommended next actions, not conclusions about legal standing. ### When the Clause You Find Changes Everything Here's the kind of situation this review exists to catch. A client brings you in to audit an agency they're unhappy with. They're confident they're on a rolling monthly contract — 30 days' notice and they're out. Three weeks into the audit, you find a clause buried in the original agreement: the contract auto-renews on a 90-day rolling basis, and written notice must be served no fewer than 45 days before the renewal date. Their renewal date was two weeks ago. No notice was served. They're now committed for another 90 days. That's not a disaster — but it changes the plan entirely. The tricky part is that clients who discover this after they've already stopped paying or sent informal cancellation emails face a much messier situation. Finding it during the audit means you can actually use the window. Complete the full review, build out the technical and content roadmap, prepare a proper handover brief. When the exit date arrives, the transition is clean rather than scrambled. ### What You're Feeding Into the Broader Audit The contractual review doesn't sit in isolation. What you find here directly shapes the sequencing of everything else — technical, content, and performance reviews all follow from knowing what timeline you're actually working to. A 90-day notice period gives you 90 days to build the full picture before the account moves. An exclusivity clause may affect how you're formally engaged in the interim. Feed the contractual findings into the master audit document with clear dates and flags early. The rest of the process shouldn't be planned around assumptions that turn out to be wrong. ### Need support structuring your inherited agency audit? WeareCrank works with fractional CMOs to build structured audit frameworks that protect engagements from day one. [Talk to WeareCrank](/contact) ## Assessing Performance Against Inherited Benchmarks One of the harder problems in auditing an inherited agency relationship is fairness. The KPIs in place were set by someone else — often under different commercial pressures, with a different understanding of what "good" looked like at the time. Judging the agency against those original targets without understanding the context behind them isn't a rigorous audit. It's confirmation bias with a spreadsheet. Start by establishing what the inherited baselines actually represent. Pull the original brief or statement of work if it exists. Map each KPI back to the business objective it was meant to serve. Was organic traffic being tracked because the business needed leads — or because a previous marketing leader liked traffic as a proxy metric? Was keyword ranking the headline measure because it tied to revenue, or because it was easy to put in a slide deck? The intent behind the metric matters as much as the number itself. Once you have that context, you can reframe performance against current objectives. This doesn't mean discarding the legacy data — historical trend lines are genuinely useful. But it does mean separating what the agency was asked to do from what the business actually needs now. So how do you hold both views at once? Build a parallel view. One column showing performance against inherited KPIs. Another showing the same activity measured against the objectives you're working toward. That parallel view is what gives you a defensible basis for any performance conversation. #### The Risk of Inherited Standards Judging an agency by new standards they were never briefed on is unfair and counterproductive. Without a formal reset conversation, you risk misattributing failure and losing an agency that could still perform well under clearer direction. The reset conversation matters more than most fractional CMOs expect. Before drawing any performance conclusions, you need a documented moment where both sides agree on: * What the new objectives actually are * What the measurement framework looks like going forward * Which historical data gets treated as context rather than verdict This isn't about protecting the agency. It's about protecting the integrity of your audit. Skip this step, and any performance assessment you produce is open to challenge — internally and externally. On timing: SEO does not move at the same pace as paid media. We see this constantly during technical audits — a fractional CMO arrives mid-way through a content programme or technical remediation and starts drawing conclusions after four weeks. That's not enough time. A fair window in organic search is typically three to six months from the point of a clear, agreed brief. Not from the date you walked in the door. What you can assess immediately is different. Process quality. Communication standards. Output volume. Whether the work being done is directionally correct. Outcome metrics need more time. 6–12 months The typical timeframe SEO practitioners cite for significant organic performance shifts following a strategic change, making short assessment windows unreliable for inherited campaigns. Source: Google Search Central documentation and widely cited industry guidance To structure this practically, work from a scorecard that separates inputs from outputs. Inputs are things you can verify right now: deliverable quality, strategic alignment, reporting transparency, technical execution. Outputs — traffic, rankings, leads, revenue attribution — go in a second column with a clearly flagged review date. This separation stops the audit from collapsing into a conversation about last quarter's rankings when the real question is whether the agency is doing the right work right now. The scorecard should also flag data gaps. Inherited accounts often have inconsistent tracking, missing baseline dates, or analytics configurations that make attribution murky. Documenting those gaps is part of the audit — it tells the business what the data can and cannot support, and it gives the agency a fair chance to be assessed on what's actually measurable. Not on gaps that existed before they could address them. Type: comparison \[Image placeholder: Inherited KPIs vs. Current Business Objectives Scorecard\] Alt: Audit scorecard layout showing two columns: inherited KPIs with historical performance data on the left, and current business objectives with forward-looking metrics on the right, with rows for technical execution, content output, reporting quality, and outcome metrics A practical scorecard layout for auditing inherited agency performance: separate inputs from outputs and flag data gaps clearly. What you're building through this process isn't a verdict on the agency's past. It's a foundation for a fair, evidence-based relationship going forward — one where accountability is clear, the data is honest about its own limits, and whatever decision comes next is actually defensible. ## Process, Integration and Day-to-Day Workflow Audit Performance data tells you what happened. Workflow tells you why — and whether the problems are fixable or baked into the structure of the relationship itself. The commercial and performance reviews are the obvious starting points when you inherit an agency. But the operational layer is where the real risk tends to sit. A poorly integrated agency can underperform silently for months before it shows in the numbers — and by that point, you're already accountable for results you had no real control over. ### Who Briefs, Who Approves, and Who Owns What Start by mapping the communication chain. In most inherited relationships, briefing and approval processes have evolved informally over time. Someone in a previous role became the de facto contact. Decisions got made over email threads that no longer exist. The agency learned to work around formal processes because it was faster. We see this constantly. You need to know who currently has authority to brief the agency, who holds sign-off on deliverables, and whether those are even the same person. In organisations with brand, demand gen, and product all pulling in different directions, the agency is often receiving conflicting instructions with no one assigned to arbitrate. Ask the agency to walk you through a recent project from brief to delivery — what came in, from whom, in what format, and what the feedback loop looked like. Then ask your internal team the same question separately. The gaps between those two accounts are your first real diagnostic. ### Asset Storage and Knowledge Ownership Where does work live? It sounds basic. It rarely is. Agencies frequently hold assets, credentials, and institutional knowledge the client has never formally taken custody of. Campaign files, historical keyword research, link prospecting lists, tracking configurations, content calendars — any of these might exist only inside the agency's own systems. If the relationship ended tomorrow, what could you actually access and what disappears with them? That question defines how much operational leverage the agency holds over you, regardless of what the contract says. Check whether your organisation has a defined location for agency-produced work — a shared drive, a project management tool, a DAM — and whether the agency is actually using it. Many aren't, and the client has either accepted that quietly or never pushed the point. ### Direct Access and Governance Bypass One of the more significant risks in inherited agency relationships is direct access — login credentials, platform permissions, or communication channels that bypass your marketing governance entirely. This might mean admin rights to Google Analytics, Search Console, your CMS, or your paid media accounts, granted by someone who has since left. It might mean the agency is publishing content directly without a review stage, or making technical changes to the site without any change management process in place. A common mistake we see is assuming these access levels were intentional and current — often they're neither. This isn't about distrust. It's about auditability. If something changes on your site or in your data layer and you can't trace it back to an approved instruction, you have a governance problem that sits well above any individual agency relationship. Audit every platform your agency has access to. Check the permission level, the account they're using, and when access was last reviewed. Revoke anything that exceeds what the current scope actually requires. > In my experience, workflow opacity is a greater practical risk than underperformance. Poor results are visible and fixable; a process where the agency operates without consistent oversight means decisions are being made — and occasionally mistakes embedded — before you even know work has started. ### Rebuilding a Governance Layer If there's no defined governance — no briefing template, no approval stage, no asset handover process — you're not in a position to judge the agency fairly until you've introduced one. Some of what looks like poor agency performance in inherited relationships is actually poor process on the client side, compounded over time. That doesn't mean accepting the status quo. It means being precise about what you're changing and why, so that future performance gets measured against a process that actually functions. Set out clearly how briefs will be submitted, what turnaround expectations are, what the review and sign-off chain looks like, and where completed work will be stored. If the agency pushes back on any of that, it's useful information in itself. #### Workflow Audit Questions to Ask * Who holds the authority to brief the agency — is it one person or multiple stakeholders? * Who has final sign-off on deliverables, and is that documented? * Does the agency receive conflicting direction from different internal teams? * Where are agency-produced assets stored, and does your team have direct access? * What happens to work, files, and data if the relationship ends today? * What platform access does the agency hold, and at what permission level? * Has any agency access been granted by someone who has since left the organisation? * Is the agency publishing or deploying anything directly without a client review stage? * Does a formal briefing template exist, and is it being used consistently? * How are changes to the website or tracking configuration requested and approved? Work through these questions with your internal team and the agency separately. Discrepancies between the two accounts point to process gaps — and those gaps are worth resolving before you draw any conclusions about whether the agency is actually performing. ## Making the Stay, Fix or Exit Decision You've completed the audit. You have data on performance, processes, commercial terms, and how well the agency actually integrates with your team. Now comes the part where many marketing leaders stall. The findings are on the table. But converting them into a recommendation feels politically loaded — especially when the agency relationship predates your tenure and other stakeholders have history with them. Separate what the evidence shows from what feels awkward to say out loud. That's the discipline required here. An audit of an inherited agency engagement only has value if it produces a decision. Not a report. A decision. > Your job is to recommend what the data supports, not what makes the handover feel easier. There are three legitimate outcomes from a well-run audit: retain as-is, retain under a formal performance improvement plan, or exit with a managed transition. Treating this as binary — stay or go — is where teams get it wrong. The middle path exists. And it's often the right call. **Outcome 1: Retain as-is** Retain without conditions when the evidence is broadly positive. The agency is hitting agreed KPIs, their processes work cleanly alongside your team, the contract is fair for the scope, and there are no serious compliance or quality concerns. Any underperformance needs a credible external explanation — market conditions, budget cuts, a strategic shift your organisation made mid-campaign. If the audit clears them, don't manufacture a reason to switch. Changing an agency purely because they weren't your choice introduces disruption that your programme will absorb. **Outcome 2: Retain with a performance improvement plan** This is the right path when performance is genuinely mixed. Some things are working. Specific deliverables, reporting standards, or processes aren't. Before committing to a plan, confirm the problems are isolated — not systemic. A common mistake we see is treating vague dissatisfaction as fixable gaps. They're not the same thing. If the issues are specific to one channel, one team member, or one reporting process, a structured improvement plan with a defined review period is reasonable. If the problems run deeper, a PIP becomes a delay mechanism, not a solution. The plan needs three things: * What changes * By when * What happens if it doesn't That last part is non-negotiable. A performance plan without a defined exit trigger isn't a plan. **Outcome 3: Exit with a managed transition** Exit is the right recommendation when the audit shows sustained underperformance across multiple dimensions — contractual terms carrying ongoing risk, integration that can't be fixed without a full operational reset, or a fundamental mismatch between what the agency delivers and what your strategy now requires. This is disruptive. It carries real short-term SEO risk. We see this constantly during audits: critical information — site access, technical history, link data — sits with the outgoing agency and nowhere else. A managed transition, typically four to twelve weeks, protects continuity. Document all active workstreams. Secure access credentials. Transfer reporting baselines. Brief any incoming agency on what exists rather than leaving them to start blind. #### Stay, Fix or Exit Decision Framework 1. Score each audit dimension: performance, process, commercial, integration, and compliance 2. Identify whether underperformance is isolated or systemic across multiple dimensions 3. Apply the retain criteria: consistent KPI delivery, fair contract, clean integration 4. Apply the fix criteria: specific, measurable gaps with evidence the agency can address them 5. Apply the exit criteria: systemic failure, contractual risk, or strategic misalignment 6. Document the recommendation with evidence references before presenting to stakeholders **Presenting the recommendation** Frame it around commercial and strategic impact when you take this to senior stakeholders. Not personal preference. The audit gives you exactly the evidence base to do that — the benchmarks you assessed, the contractual terms you reviewed, the process gaps you identified. If you're recommending exit, be specific about transition risk and how you'll manage it. If you're recommending a performance plan, be specific about the timeline and the review gate. Vague recommendations get pushed back or quietly shelved. The inherited agency audit process exists precisely to give you an objective foundation for a decision that's otherwise easy to get wrong — through inertia, or through overreaction. Neither serves your programme. ## Turning Audit Findings into a Structured Handover Plan An audit without a clear output is just a long document nobody acts on. By this stage, you have worked through the commercial and contractual position, assessed performance against inherited benchmarks, reviewed day-to-day workflows, and made your stay, fix or exit call on the incumbent agency. Now you need to convert all of that into something people can actually execute. ### From Findings to Priorities Sort every audit finding into three buckets. **Immediate actions** — anything carrying commercial, legal or reputational risk. Contract break clauses approaching, shared credentials, tracking recording bad data. These move in the first two weeks, without waiting for a strategy sign-off. **Short-term fixes** — process gaps, reporting inconsistencies, performance issues dragging results but not yet critical. Schedule these across weeks three to eight. **Longer-term structural changes** — agency relationship restructuring, channel strategy shifts, technology decisions that need planning, budget approval and time. These feed into your 90-day roadmap and beyond. This sorting exercise is what stops the audit becoming a paralysis document. Every finding gets an owner, a category and a timeline. Without that structure, findings just accumulate. We see this constantly — a thorough audit that produces no movement because nobody was assigned to act on it. ### Structuring the Handover Brief Whether you are transitioning away from an agency, onboarding a new one, or restructuring an in-house and agency hybrid, the handover brief should cover five things: 1 #### Current state summary What exists, what is working, what is not 2 #### Access and asset inventory Every platform, login, licence and creative asset, with ownership confirmed 3 #### Outstanding commitments Paid media budgets, contracted deliverables, renewal dates 4 #### Performance baseline The benchmarks you are inheriting and the targets you are setting 5 #### First 30-day actions Specific tasks, owners and deadlines that move immediately Keep it short and precise. This is a working tool, not an internal strategy document. Attach the supporting audit data separately. The brief itself should be something people can act from, not just reference. ## Ready to **audit your inherited agency**? WeareCrank helps fractional CMOs build structured audit frameworks that protect engagements from day one — and give you the evidence base to make every resourcing decision with confidence. [Talk to WeareCrank ](/contact) [Fractional CMO Guide](/what-is-a-fractional-cmo) You might also find helpful [ New Client Audit Framework A structured process for auditing everything you inherit as a fractional CMO from day one. ](/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding/new-client-audit) [ Your First 90 Days as a Fractional CMO How to sequence priorities, build credibility, and set up your engagement for long-term success. ](/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding/first-90-days) [ Agency Performance Review What to measure, when to review, and how to hold agencies accountable to commercial outcomes. ](/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding/agency-performance-review) [ Building Your Client Operating Model How fractional CMOs design operating cadence, access protocols, and escalation systems. ](/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding/operating-model) [Back to Client Onboarding](/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding) ## More on Client Onboarding [New Client Audit & Baseline PackEstablish a commercial, channel, data, vendor, and asset baseline.](/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding/new-client-audit)[90-Day Operating PlanSequence diagnosis, stabilisation, learning, and evidence-based scaling.](/fractional-cmo-client-onboarding/90-day-operating-plan)