Amazon Agency Onboarding: What to Expect in the First 90 Days

Amazon agency onboarding should start with secure account access, clear business objectives and a careful review of the account.

Having done that the Agency should then go on to turn the approved priorities into action and monitor what happens.

By the 90 day review you should have proof of completed work, a useful baseline, a list of open risks and a plan for the next quarter. You should not be looking for a guaranteed uplift in sales.

The exact sequence depends on your contracted services, account condition, approvals, and whether the work involves Seller Central, Vendor Central, or both.

90-Day Onboarding Timeline at a Glance

Use the timeline to work out what will be delivered, who needs to sign off and how you'll know when it's complete.

These planning checkpoints are just examples and don't represent guaranteed SalesDuo service levels. A PPC only project, a full service account or a Vendor Central project for instance could have very different planning timelines.

It's not enough to just tick off a milestone.

Ensure you get the relevant document, the name of the person responsible, any approvals, the date and a note as to what's still not clear.

If approval is taking longer than anticipated then just wait to mark it as complete.

Who owns what during onboarding?

The person who does the job isn't necessarily the one who makes the call.

Make sure you've got both roles identified in the kick-off plan particularly with regard to budgets, claims listing, account health and inventory changes.

Before Kickoff: What the Brand Should Prepare

Onboarding may take longer if you sign the contract and as a result the data, the approvals and the permissions end up with various different teams.

Before the kickoff call, collect:

• Signed statement of work
• Included marketplaces
• Included workstreams
• Key contacts
• Approval process for creative
• Budget approvals
• Product fact approvals

Also bring the latest sales and ad reports (with dates and definitions).

Include:

• Top ASIN and SKU priorities
• Gross margin and contribution assumptions where available
• Supply limits
• Price and category positioning
• Known seasonal events
• Existing product photos
• Brand guidelines
• Approved claims
• Previous test notes
• Open account-health or catalog cases

If any other agency have been working on the account previously then please bring any transition docs that you're allowed to share.

Pick one brand sponsor to resolve the cross team decisions.

For instance the marketing lead would approve the images, finance would approve the budget/margin changes and supply chain would own the inventory data.

The onboarding tracker should have a named approval owner for each one rather than just having one contact for all of them.

Create a separate checklist for account access.

Never ever share the main account password with any agency.

Always use the approved method for external partners to access each account and workstream.

Review permissions separately for Seller Central, Amazon Ads, and Brand Registry.

Amazon Ads supports account-specific user roles and permission controls. Review Amazon's account-access instructions before inviting or changing users.

Brand Registry uses separate protection and selling roles. Review Amazon's Brand Registry roles guide and avoid granting brand ownership or administrative authority merely to provide routine advertising or content support.

Check external service-provider authorization before granting access. For Seller Central, Amazon distinguishes internal secondary users from external Authorized Partners. Agencies and other outside providers should use the applicable authorized-provider process rather than being added as internal staff.

Business verification of new service providers effective 1 Sept 2026 refers to providers of services who tentatively may supply services through the Amazon platform in some form, requires verification, permission set, and re-authorization after 365 days. Please verify that your agency is fully verified and only allows for the services that you have agreed to.

Manage Amazon Ads and Brand Registry access separately because their permissions and roles are not interchangeable. Record who approves, reviews, renews, and revokes each authorization.

At kick off ask the agency to explain which docs are required immediately, which can come later and which activities have to cease until access or approval is obtained.

This keeps the account secure and doesn't impact the performance of any other tasks.

This helps protect account access while making dependencies visible. Work that does not require the missing permissions may continue, but affected tasks should remain blocked until the appropriate approval or access is granted.

Days 1–30: Discovery, Permissions, and a Prioritized Baseline

The first month will give you a good picture of the account and a ranked action plan.

Don't judge this phase solely on the number of listing edits or campaign changes.

A useful baseline helps both teams to agree on what "before" means, what data we can trust and what problems are the biggest risks.

The audit should be in line with the contract.

For a broad program, it may review:

• Seller Central or Vendor Central operations
• Top ASIN economics
• Inventory risks
• Active suppression or policy cases
• Catalog quality
• Listing content
• Advertising history
• Search-term coverage
• Organic visibility
• Reporting setup

If you're hiring an agency purely for PPC, find out how they're going to let you know about any stock or catalog issues and ensure they don't just treat that as part of the fee.

A good audit should be able to distinguish between the urgent risks and the planned improvements.

For instance an active product suppression (which stops sales) may require immediate action following approval.

A bigger creative project might require new photos, a product fact sheet and legal sign off before we can actually get started.

Both of them go in the tracker, they just don't have the same level of urgency.

The baseline should contain the relevant marketplace and account type and have clearly defined metrics.

If an agency is comparing ad-attributed sales against total channel revenue or is using different reporting windows the result can be very misleading.

Record changes in:

• Price
• Ad spend
• Inventory
• Promotions

This ensures that the subsequent reviews have the appropriate context.

A useful first-action backlog should include:

• Issue
• Affected ASIN or workstream
• Business risk
• Evidence
• Proposed action
• Owner
• Approver
• Review date
• Current status

A high-priority task may still be blocked for a valid reason.

The important thing is to make that reason visible.

What to Ask at the Day-30 Check

Ask to review the baseline, prioritized audit, and approval log together.

Questions should include:

• Which problems were found?
• Which urgent risks were handled?
• Which numbers are still unreliable?
• What was approved?
• What changed?
• What still cannot move forward?
• Who needs to act next?

An audit presentation without clear owners, evidence, and an action list is not the same as an implementation plan.

At the same time, a good audit may uncover work that is outside the signed scope.

If you have work that is out of scope of an engagement, record it in a separate document, indicate its business impact, and request stakeholder approval before updating the engagement with it.

Days 31–60: Approved Execution and Decision Cadence

Once the first audit is approved, the work should move from recommendations to controlled action.

Depending on the contract, this may include:

• Advertising tests
• Approved listing changes
• Creative production
• Catalog fixes
• Account-health follow-up
• Inventory-risk escalation

Only work that is within the scope of the service agreement that has been signed are yours to do.

The agency should execute only the work included in the signed agreement and approved by the appropriate brand owner. Any new workstream, deliverable, or additional fee should follow a documented scope-change and approval process.

Give the agency a clear approval process.

A title change may need brand or compliance approval.

A product image may need new photography.

A bid or budget update may need a spending limit from finance.

A suppressed ASIN or policy issue may depend on an Amazon response.

An inventory shortage may make it a bad idea to send more traffic to the product.

The action log should connect each task to a baseline, hypothesis, or risk.

For example, if a product page is missing specification images, the tracker might include:

• Approved creative request
• Responsible designer
• Approver
• Upload date
• Review after publishing
• Final status

The status should say whether the work was published, rejected, resubmitted, or is still waiting.

For advertising changes, ask for:

• Purpose of the test
• Time period
• Products included
• Budget limits
• How results will be reviewed

Do not call a test successful only because a few days of attributed orders improved.

Other factors include inventory changes, attribution, promotions, and category demand.

A Fictional Day-60 Milestone Tracker

Suppose eight milestones were due for review.

Five were accepted by the client, two were delayed because product-image approval came late, and one was waiting for Amazon review.

The milestone acceptance rate would be:

5 ÷ 8 × 100 = 62.5%

Here is just a sample. It is not a target, a benchmark, or a SalesDuo result.

It measures client-accepted milestones among the eight that are due for review, not the performance of the agency as an independent unit. The two delays in client approvals and the pending Amazon review must be handled differently on follow-up. Call any milestone out prior, formally intentionally postponed or canceled using the previously adopted reporting rule.

The rate alone does not tell the full story.

The three open milestones have different causes and need different next steps.

The project owner should add new dates for the two approval delays and a follow-up or escalation date for the Amazon case.

Do not hide blocked work inside a completed total.

What to Ask at the Day-60 Check

Please request a dated change log and proof that all tests have been completed.

Request a dated change log showing which approved tasks and tests are complete, in progress, blocked, or awaiting review. Check the evidence for completed work and confirm the owner and next action for each outstanding item:

• Which features or updates have gone live?
• Is anything still waiting for approval?
• Has the project scope changed?
• Have any budget assumptions changed?
• How does the current data compare to our starting baseline?
• Are there any other factors that might have affected the results?
• What is included in the next sprint?
• Who is responsible for clearing each blocker?

Days 61–90: Evaluate Signals and Agree on the Next 90 Days

By this stage, the agency should help separate project progress from longer-term business results.

Here are some early signs that show progress:

• Complete approval logs
• Resolved access issues
• Accurate reporting
• Implemented fixes

Sales, contribution margin, organic search position, and advertising returns are also important, but there may be more lag before we begin to see clear signals of revenue from these areas.

They can also change for reasons unrelated to agency work.

Ask for a side-by-side comparison of the starting baseline and the current period for the workstreams in scope.

Clearly note which:

• ASINs
• Countries
• Accounts
• Channels

are included.

Also ask for context around:

• Stockouts
• Price changes
• Promotions
• Seasonality
• Returns
• Ad spend

Tracking ad performance, build ad-attributed sales separately from your entire marketplace sales. Be sure to keep in mind the source of data, time period, attribution settings, and any inventory, price, promotion, or budget alterations in variances.

A fair day-90 review should separate:

• Completed actions
• Tested ideas
• Waiting items
• Decisions that cannot yet be made

Example: A listing may have been updated but does not have enough traffic to have any confident conversion comparison.

An ad test might show good results at first, but if there isn’t enough inventory, it may not be possible to spend more.

In either situation, we shouldn’t rush to call it a success or a failure.

For the next quarter, let’s rank our plan by impact and dependencies instead of just listing everything we want to do.

For each proposed project, ask for:

• Owner
• Required brand approval
• Expected evidence
• Resource needs
• Decision date

If a campaign depends on replenishment, set the stock checkpoint first.

If catalog work depends on approved claims, give the compliance owner a real deadline.

Keep copies of:

• Audit findings
• Project boards
• Change history
• Creative files
• Reporting definitions
• Approved budgets
• Relevant support-case records

Your brand should be able to understand what happened without depending on one agency employee or a private dashboard.

What to Ask at the Day-90 Check

Ask:

• What was delivered against the agreed scope?
• Which tasks are still open, and why?
• What did we learn with reasonable confidence?
• Which metrics are still too early or unclear to judge?
• What should we continue?
• What should we stop?
• What should we change?
• Is there an approved and resourced plan for the next 90 days?
• Can the team show the records behind its recommendations?

If Your Onboarding Is Running Behind

Start by figuring out what’s actually causing the delay.

A delay in getting product photos approved isn’t the same as waiting for an agency to send a status update.

A review of Amazon’s policies is a different issue than having a contract dispute.

Inventory shortages, busy times, or simply missing that essential data can all lead to schedule derailments.

Please provide a written note that includes the following details:

• The issue
• Who is responsible
• Which milestone is affected
• The next action to take
• The escalation date

For each delayed item, request the last completed action, relevant approval or case reference, the current blocker, and the next follow-up date. A documented Amazon review or pending brand approval is different from an agency failing to carry out an agreed task or provide an update.

Not every delay is the agency's responsibility, but repeated missed commitments without clear explanations are a warning sign.

For each delayed milestone, document the cause, responsible owner, supporting evidence, next action, and revised review date. Escalate when the assigned team repeatedly misses agreed deadlines, fails to provide updates, or cannot show what work has been completed.

If the partnership continues after onboarding, use a separate process for managing your Amazon agency.

The first 90-day plan helps set a starting point for your work. It does not take the place of regular management.

If you are switching from another provider, make sure to save your past reports and permission records.

For the detailed process, see SalesDuo’s guide to switching Amazon agencies.

What to Do Before Your First 90-Day Plan Is Approved

Ask for a written milestone plan covering:

• Initial audit
• Approved changes
• Review dates
• Evidence
• Escalation process

Make sure the plan also explains what your team needs to provide and approve.

That is more useful than a vague promise to “grow fast” without explaining what will happen first.

If you need one accountable partner across multiple Amazon workstreams, explore SalesDuo's Amazon agency services.

Book Your 1:1 Growth Call to discuss your onboarding requirements, account access, approval responsibilities, and the level of managed support your brand needs.

Frequently Asked Questions about Amazon Agency Onboarding

What Happens in the First Week With an Amazon Agency?

Most teams confirm the scope, meeting owners, account access, data requests, and any active risks.

The agency needs to keep track of what’s missing and what can be started safely.

The agency shouldn’t rebuild every campaign until it understands the account.

If you are still comparing agency models rather than preparing for kickoff, see SalesDuo's complete Amazon agency guide.

What Should the Agency Deliver by Day 30?

Ask for:

• Dated performance baseline
• Risk-ranked audit
• Named owners
• Issue log
• Approval log
• Prioritized next-action plan

These checkpoints are only suggestions and not official contract deadlines.

When Should an Amazon Agency Start Changing PPC Campaigns?

Urgent campaign corrections may be made early when they are within the agreed scope, have the required account permissions and approvals, and address a documented business risk.

Larger structural or strategic campaign changes should follow an appropriate review of the baseline, budget limits, and measurement plan.

Who Owns the Amazon Account and Advertising Data?

Your brand should keep ownership of its account and business data.

Give outside partners authorized, removable access with only the permissions needed for their work.

Review Seller Central, Amazon Ads, and Brand Registry permissions separately.

How Do Seller Central and Vendor Central Onboardings Differ?

The access, reports, order flow, and approvals may differ.

Seller Central work may include listings, offers, and fulfillment.

Vendor Central work may include purchase orders and retail-side issues.

Define the scope for each route with the account owner.

What Should I See by Day 60?

Ask for a change log that shows:

• Approved work that went live
• Tests completed
• Blocked work
• Reasons for delays
• Next-sprint decisions

Expecting all sales to increase by day 60 is not a realistic goal.

How Should I Judge Results at Day 90?

Compare completed work with a consistent performance baseline.

Review changes in stock, price, seasonality, ad attribution, and other factors before giving the agency full credit or blame for the result.

Then approve a ranked and properly resourced plan for the next quarter.

Is There a Standard Amazon Agency Onboarding Fee?

There is no universal Amazon agency onboarding fee. Some agencies include setup within their management fee, while others may charge separately for an initial audit, account setup, or implementation work.

Confirm any onboarding charges, included deliverables, and payment terms in your proposal. For broader fee structures, see SalesDuo's Amazon agency pricing guide.

About the Author

Meet Srushti P. Borle, an SEO Content Writer Intern at SalesDuo who enjoys turning complex ideas into clear, easy-to-read content. She focuses on creating smooth, engaging content that readers can understand and enjoy. Outside of work, she loves reading, exploring new ideas, and finding simple ways to present detailed topics.