Signal Intake Triage (Onboarding)

Signal Intake Triage (Onboarding)

1. 01

   Name the client decision the monitoring must inform before opening any tool

   Write one sentence per retainer: which campaign, product line, or positioning choice changes if a signal fires. Monitoring without a named decision becomes a newsletter nobody reads.

2. 02

   Assign each signal source a distinct lens so the stack triangulates rather than duplicates

   Pair one broad discovery feed such as Exploding Topics with one page-level change monitor such as Visualping and one firsthand-voice digest such as Recordal. Three different lenses beat three feeds that surface the same headline.

3. 03

   Set the alert threshold and cadence per source, not per account

   A competitor pricing page warrants immediate alerts; a category keyword warrants a weekly rollup. Document both in the client file so a new account manager inherits the same rhythm.

4. 04

   Define the noise filter in writing before the first digest ships

   State the minimum evidence for escalation, for example a signal must appear in two independent sources or show a measurable change over a 30-day window. This is the guardrail against chasing every spike.

5. 05

   Route every alert to a named human owner with a response window

   Alerts that land in a shared inbox stall. Assign one strategist per client and a 48-hour window to mark each signal as act, watch, or discard.

6. 06

   Log the baseline snapshot on day one

   Capture current search volumes, competitor page states, and citation presence so month-three reporting can show movement rather than assert it.

7. 07

   Schedule a 30-day calibration review with the client

   Ask which alerts proved useful and which were noise, then cut or retune sources. Onboarding is not complete until the filter has survived one real month of output.