Warehouse Readiness Gate (Onboarding)

Warehouse Readiness Gate (Onboarding)

1. 01

   Confirm the client's warehouse is the system of record before any activation tool is scoped

   Composable platforms such as Hightouch and DinMo read directly from Snowflake, BigQuery, or Redshift, so a warehouse that is not the trusted source will push stale segments into paid channels.

2. 02

   Inventory every event source and tag each one as first-party, vendor-supplied, or inferred

   Open-source collectors like Jitsu can stream from web, app, email, and CRM sources, but the client must agree on which sources are allowed to write identity keys.

3. 03

   Map the identity graph and name the merge key for each profile

   Document how anonymous sessions stitch to known users, which field wins on conflict, and who owns the resolution rule after handoff.

4. 04

   Score consent coverage per region and flag any segment that cannot legally be activated

   A profile that unifies cleanly but lacks a lawful basis for email or SMS will fail at send time, not at build time.

5. 05

   Set a freshness threshold for each destination and write it into the scope document

   Real-time sync to ad platforms and a nightly warehouse refresh are different products; the retainer should price the one the client actually needs.

6. 06

   Run one end-to-end test segment from source to destination and record the elapsed time

   Pick a low-risk destination, push a 500-record audience, and confirm the count matches on both sides before the build phase starts.

7. 07

   Assign named owners for schema changes, destination credentials, and incident escalation

   Agencies that leave credential rotation with the client's IT queue typically wait days for a fix that should take minutes.