Signal Intake Triage (Onboarding)

Signal Intake Triage (Onboarding)

1. 01

   Write the client's decision list before opening any monitoring tool

   Capture the three to five decisions the account team actually makes each quarter (content calendar slots, launch timing, positioning claims) and reject any signal source that cannot inform one of them.

2. 02

   Assign each source a lane: discovery, change detection, or people-watch

   Discovery feeds surface rising topics, page-diff tools catch competitor and regulatory edits, and people-watch digests track what named experts publish firsthand. One lane per source prevents three subscriptions doing the same job.

3. 03

   Set a baseline snapshot on day one for every page and topic you will monitor

   Without a starting capture, week-six alerts have nothing to diff against. Record the baseline date so the first client report can show elapsed time, not just a change.

4. 04

   Define the noise ceiling in writing, per source

   State how many alerts per week the account team will actually read. A page monitor firing 40 times a week on a pricing page gets muted by week three, so cap it or narrow the selector.

5. 05

   Map every signal to a named owner and a response window

   Content lead owns topic spikes within 48 hours, account director owns competitor changes within one business day. Unassigned alerts become screenshots nobody acts on.

6. 06

   Build the client relevance filter as a scored shortlist, not a vibe check

   Score each candidate signal on category fit, client audience overlap, and time-to-mainstream. Anything scoring low on two of three stays in the archive and out of the retainer report.

7. 07

   Schedule the first review at 30 days and log what got acted on

   Count signals surfaced, signals escalated, and signals that changed a deliverable. That ratio is the honest onboarding benchmark for the rest of the engagement.