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Summary
The onboarding questionnaire is the first step in launching a successful paid advertising campaign. It enables us to capture vital details about your business, target audience, campaign goals, and technical requirements. With this comprehensive information, we can design, launch, and optimise campaigns that deliver real results, all whilst staying compliant with industry policies and legal regulations.
In this guide, we detail what to expect during onboarding, how to prepare the necessary information, and why each element is crucial to your campaign’s success.
Launching a paid advertising campaign can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. The onboarding questionnaire simplifies the process by gathering all the information we need to design campaigns that meet your specific objectives.
Why the onboarding questionnaire matters
The onboarding questionnaire is essential for several reasons:
1. Customisation: It captures unique business details, such as your company overview, unique selling points, and marketing goals. This helps us craft ad messages that reflect what sets your business apart.
2. Efficiency: Sharing key details upfront eliminates the need for extensive back-and-forth communications, speeding up the campaign setup process.
3. Data-driven strategy: Detailed insights into your target audience, budget, and performance expectations allow us to build a data-driven campaign. This enables continuous optimisation and ensures that every pound is invested wisely.
4. Compliance: Including questions about industry-specific rules and data privacy (e.g. GDPR/CCPA) ensures that your campaigns adhere to regulatory standards and platform policies from the very start.
How your onboarding questionnaire guides our GorillaAudit®
The detailed responses you provide in the onboarding questionnaire form the backbone of our GorillaAudit, a five-stage strategy analysis and review process you approve at each stage to ensure that your paid advertising strategy remains fully aligned with your vision. For example, if you’re an ecommerce brand, we specifically ask whether your product images are readily accessible via your Shopify store or if you want to upload custom visuals and lifestyle shots. This not only clarifies your creative asset requirements but also ensures that every subsequent stage, from research to campaign planning and optimisation, is fully informed by your input.
Whilst this multi-stage strategy planning process is separate from the questionnaire itself, the initial steps build directly on the data you provide. Here’s an overview of how we use your input to shape a successful campaign:
Stage 1: Onboarding and Alignment
We begin by discussing your questionnaire responses, clarifying your chosen target channels, and establishing clear goals and KPIs to measure success. This initial alignment ensures we thoroughly understand your objectives and any brand or regulatory frameworks we need to incorporate before moving forward, setting a strong foundation for your campaign’s success.Stage 2: Research and Initial Audit
We conduct an in-depth competitive analysis to pinpoint gaps and opportunities in your market. Using insights gathered, our team formulates an initial strategic hypothesis, such as positioning your brand by cost or premium appeal, and creates an overview of how your budget will be strategically allocated. This stage ensures our direction aligns precisely with market realities and your objectives.Stage 3: Campaign Planning
We design the structural blueprint of your campaign, mapping out how each ad group and audience segment aligns with your sales funnel. Our team refines audience definitions to ensure accurate targeting, and for Enterprise clients, we implement additional brand protection measures or regulatory compliance checks. This careful planning stage guarantees your campaign structure supports your goals effectively.Stage 4: Ad Development and Setup
With the campaign structure in place, we create impactful ad creatives and copy tailored to your objectives, selecting the optimal ad types and formats for each channel. Enterprise clients benefit from advanced brand safety measures and regulatory reviews, ensuring all creative assets resonate with your audience whilst adhering strictly to brand standards and industry regulations.Stage 5: Final Quality Assurance (QA) and Compliance
Before launch, we conduct comprehensive technical and quality assurance checks, verifying tracking codes, budgets, platform settings, and compliance elements. Rigorous brand-safety evaluations and compliance reviews are conducted for regulated industries. You’ll review all final details, giving approval only when everything meets your standards, ensuring a smooth and compliant campaign launch.
Completing the onboarding questionnaire is crucial because it supplies the detailed information underpinning each strategic stage. The insights you share enable us to tailor our research, refine audience segmentation, craft bespoke creative elements, and set up a robust campaign structure. Simply put, your responses guide each step of our multi-stage strategy, ensuring that every phase aligns with your business objectives for a truly customised advertising approach.
What our onboarding questionnaire covers
Our onboarding questionnaire is divided into seven key sections:
1. Business information
This section lays the foundation for your campaigns by capturing essential company details:
Basic details: Business name, website, VAT status, and contact information.
Objectives: What do you want to achieve? Examples include boosting sales, generating leads, or increasing brand awareness.
2. Audience insights
Since targeting the right audience is essential, we dive deep into your ideal customer profile:
Demographics: Who are your ideal customers? Share details like age, gender, income, and location.
Behaviours and interests: What hobbies, brands, or products do they engage with?
Pain points: What problems do your products or services solve for your customers?
Geographic focus: Which regions or countries should be targeted?
3. Brand assets
Strong branding creates consistency across all campaigns. In this section, we request the following:
Logos and visuals: High-quality logos, lifestyle shots, or product imagery. If you use Shopify, we can access product images via partner access.
Brand guidelines: Fonts, colour hex codes, and messaging preferences for consistent branding.
Creative input: Ideas for offers, promotions, or themes you’d like us to focus on in your campaigns.
4. Platform access
To set up and optimise your campaigns, we require access to your advertising accounts:
Provide partner access to your advertising accounts on Google, Meta (Facebook/Instagram), TikTok, LinkedIn, or others.
If you prefer, login credentials can also be shared safely through our encrypted password vault.
5. Budget and performance goals
This section ensures that your campaign is aligned with your financial and performance expectations:
Ad spend: Share your monthly budget so we can plan campaigns in line with your available resources.
KPIs: Define targets for key metrics, such as cost per acquisition (CPA), return on ad spend (ROAS), or lead generation.
Previous campaign data: If available, share insights on past performance to help us refine our strategy.
6. Campaign and offer focus
In this section, we pinpoint the specific focus areas of your campaign:
Priority products or services: Highlight any products, services, or landing pages you want to focus on.
Offers and incentives: Ideas for promotions such as free shipping, discounts, bundles, or time-limited offers.
Tone and messaging: Preferences for ad copy style (e.g. professional, conversational, or light-hearted).
7. Compliance and policy considerations
Providing compliance details is optional for companies that are not subject to strict regulatory or data privacy requirements. However, if your business operates within a regulated sector or handles sensitive customer data, these details are required:
Industry-specific rules: Information on whether your business falls under any regulated categories (such as housing, credit, healthcare, or alcohol) so that strategies can be tailored accordingly.
Data privacy requirements: We ask for confirmation that your customer data collection complies with laws like GDPR, CCPA, or other relevant regulations to ensure that proper consent has been obtained. If you’re unsure whether your data collection practices meet these legal requirements, our team can review your processes, recommend appropriate adjustments, and even help implement consent management tools to ensure you’re fully compliant.
Brand and regulatory guidelines: Details on any internal guidelines or mandatory disclaimers for ad creatives, including who will review and approve them.
Channel-specific requirements
Different advertising platforms require different inputs. Below is a breakdown of what we'll need for each major channel:
How to be ready for the onboarding process
The more information you share about your business, audience, and objectives, the better the results we can deliver with your campaigns. Here are some tips to ensure a smooth onboarding experience:
1. Provide key details: Gather all relevant branding assets, guidelines, audience data, and account credentials beforehand.
2. Focus on your audience: Think carefully about your ideal customer’s needs, preferences, and online behaviours. The more specific you can be, the better we can target them.
3. Upload assets securely: Use tools like Google Drive to share high-quality visuals, videos, and other essential files with our team securely.
4. Ask questions: If you’re unsure about any section of the questionnaire, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team.
If you’re also signing up for social media management or email marketing, be sure check out our other preparation guides:
A thorough onboarding questionnaire sets you up for success
The quality of your paid advertising campaigns directly depends on the detail and clarity provided during onboarding. By thoroughly completing the questionnaire, you empower our team to design a highly customised strategy that accurately reflects your business goals, audience preferences, and market positioning.
With GoGorilla, your onboarding questionnaire isn't simply a formality. It is the foundation for measurable results. Partner with us today, and leverage our data-driven approach to ensure every pound spent translates directly into tangible business growth.
