Marketing Agency Intake Form Template
Qualifies marketing engagements before the pitch — channels in play, monthly spend, in-house capacity, and the result that would pay for the retainer.
Good marketing starts with an honest baseline. Tell us where things stand — including what isn't working — and we'll bring a point of view to the first call.
Agencies lose more margin to bad-fit clients than to bad campaigns, and bad fit is visible on day one if you ask the right five things. This intake asks them: what marketing must deliver, what already exists, what it all costs monthly, who does the work in-house, and what outcome would justify the retainer.
Channels and spend travel together. The active-channels multi-select and the monthly-budget band answer the same underlying question from two sides: how mature is this marketing operation? A company running paid search, lifecycle email, and content on under $2,000 a month is spread fatally thin — that diagnosis writes itself before the call. Note the budget question deliberately bundles media and agency fees into one number, because prospects quoting media-only budgets is the oldest source of quote-stage surprise in the industry.
The capacity question changes the proposal. "Who handles marketing today?" is not small talk. An agency serving a no-one-honestly client must sell execution; the same agency serving an in-house team must sell strategy and stay out of the team's lane. Proposals that miss this distinction read as tone-deaf regardless of quality. The honest option labels ("no one, honestly") give permission for the true answer, and the true answer is the useful one.
Payback, in the client's words. The closing long-answer asks what result would make the partnership pay for itself. It converts vague ambition into an accountability sentence you can quote in the proposal, the kickoff, and the quarterly review. Clients who write "30 demo requests a month" get performance plans; clients who write "feel less invisible" get brand plans. Either way, the retainer now has a definition of working.
Not asked. Brand adjectives and audience personas — that is a branding questionnaire's territory, and there is a separate template for it. Contract terms, ad account IDs, analytics access — those follow the agreement, not the enquiry.
Who runs this. Growth and full-service agencies gate their proposal calendar with it. Freelance marketers use it to filter projects that cannot fund the work. Fractional CMOs send it before the first advisory session. It pairs naturally with the pipeline: enable email notifications so enquiries hit your inbox, and let the webhook create the deal in your CRM with every answer attached — the channel and spend fields make triage a ten-second job.
Tuning it. Swap the goals list to your specialty (a PPC shop will split "more qualified leads" into search and social lanes). Raise the budget bands to match your minimum retainer. And consider a Logic rule that reveals an extra "which platforms?" question only when paid social is among the active channels — depth for the relevant, brevity for everyone else.
Frequently asked questions
Can enquiries create deals in our CRM automatically?
Yes — the webhook posts each submission as signed JSON in real time, so your CRM or automation tool can open a deal with every answer attached.
How should we set the budget bands?
Edit the options so the lowest band sits just under your minimum retainer. Prospects self-qualify against visible bands far more gracefully than against a required open number.
Can we ask platform-specific follow-ups?
Add show rules in the Logic panel keyed to the channels answer — for example, reveal a "which ad platforms?" question only when paid social is selected.
Does the form filter out bot submissions?
Spam defenses run automatically: honeypot, timing analysis, and an invisible proof-of-work challenge that engages only when abuse patterns appear.