Onboarding a New LinkedIn Lead Gen Client: What an Agency Needs and What to Set Up in Week One

TL;DR: To start LinkedIn lead gen and outreach for a new client, an agency needs five things from them: a clear offer and ICP, an exclusion list (current customers, open deals, people never to contact), the names of competitors, executives and creators to track, access to the LinkedIn account and mailbox that will send, and one person on the client's side who approves the launch. In traxy, which we make, you put each client in its own workspace, let traxy draft the lead criteria and signals from the client's website, load the exclusions and Tracking, review the first high intent leads, connect the client's own sender accounts and test the first campaign on sample leads with nothing sent. The client approves the launch, then the campaign sends LinkedIn and email outreach from the client's accounts, or every message waits for approval in a review queue.

This guide is the intake checklist for one new client: what to ask for, in what order, and what to set up in the first week. How agencies keep many clients apart is covered in how agencies run a separate traxy workspace for each client, and the wider operating model is in the LinkedIn lead gen playbook for agencies.

What does my agency need from a new client to start LinkedIn lead gen and outreach?

You need the client's offer, who they sell to, who they never want contacted, whose LinkedIn audiences to watch, the accounts the outreach will send from, and a named approver. Everything else (the lead criteria, the signals, the campaigns) you can build from those inputs. If any of them is missing, the work stalls in a predictable place: no exclusion list means existing customers get cold messages, no sender access means leads pile up with nobody reaching out, and no approver means the first campaign waits.

traxy runs the whole LinkedIn GTM for that client end to end. It finds high intent leads from the client's social intent (what people post, comment on and like on LinkedIn, the people who view the client's profiles, and people who engage with the client's competitors and the creators its buyers follow), keeps only people with a 50%+ match to the client's ICP, enriches and researches each one, and runs personalized LinkedIn and email outreach to them from the client's own connected accounts. That outreach runs on autopilot once the client approves the campaign, or the client can approve every message before it sends. The intake below feeds both halves: the first four items shape who becomes a lead, the last two decide how the outreach goes out.

The short version, to send to the client before the kickoff call:

1. Offer. The one service or product this first campaign sells, the problem it solves and a concrete next step you can offer a lead.

2. ICP. Buyer roles, departments, seniority and locations, plus the size, industry and other company details of the accounts they sell to.

3. Exclusions. Current customers and open deals as company domains, and any people or email addresses that must never be contacted.

4. Who to track. The client's founders, executives and sales leads on LinkedIn, their company page, three to five competitors and the creators their buyers follow.

5. Senders. The LinkedIn account and the mailbox the outreach will come from, and the person who can complete the sign-in for each.

6. Approver and reporting. One person who signs off the launch, and where the client wants to see leads and replies (for example a shared Slack channel).

Intake checklist: offer, ICP, exclusions, competitors and creators to track

The intake call should end with a written offer, an ICP you can type into lead criteria, an exclusion file and a list of LinkedIn profiles and company pages to track. Each maps to a place in the client's traxy workspace.

The offer

Ask what the client wants to sell first, and keep it to one offer for one buyer segment. traxy's agency outreach guide recommends one service and one buyer segment per campaign with a clear offer (agency outreach). If the client sells three services, pick the one with the clearest buyer and add the others as later campaigns in the same workspace. Write down the proof the client is happy for you to mention and the next step you will offer, such as a short call or a relevant resource. traxy prepares the message drafts from the offer, the lead's signal and the research, so a vague offer gives you vague drafts.

The ICP

Ask for the people and the companies separately, because traxy's lead criteria hold both: roles, departments, seniority and locations for people, and size, industry, revenue, funding and keywords for companies. Useful questions:

• Which titles sign the contract, and which titles use the product but never buy it?

• Which industries and company sizes close, and which ones never do?

• Which countries or regions do they sell to?

• What problems, topics or situations make someone a good fit right now? These become the client's signals: buyer pains, product mentions, triggers and keywords.

You don't have to type the ICP from scratch. Website-based setup drafts it: enter the client's website and traxy drafts the lead criteria and signals, then shows a lead preview. The client's answers are what you use to correct that draft.

The exclusions

Ask for an export of current customers and open deals as company domains, plus anyone the client has promised not to contact. In traxy, company domains go on the Blocklist (Settings > Blocklist, one at a time or as a CSV), which keeps them out of future lead discovery. Specific emails and LinkedIn profiles go on the Do not contact list (Settings > Do not contact, or a CSV with kind and value columns), which stops outreach to them. Load both before the first campaign. More on this step is in how to exclude customers and competitors from prospecting.

Competitors, executives and creators to track

Ask for LinkedIn URLs, not names, so there is no guessing. In traxy, Tracking watches a profile's posts and qualifies the people who engage against the client's ICP. Each tracked profile gets a relationship tag: competitor, teammate, influencer, investor or custom. A sensible first list:

• The client's own people, tagged teammate: founders, executives and sales leads who post. Their engagers already know the client.

• The client's company page, added by domain or LinkedIn company page under Targeting > Companies. traxy reads the page's posts for engagers who fit the ICP.

• Three to five competitors, as people or company pages. People who engage with a competitor's posts are looking at the problem the client solves.

• Creators and voices the client's buyers follow, tagged influencer. Ask the client's sales team whose posts their best customers like.

There are no tracking limits on profiles, posts or company pages, so you can add more as the client names them.

Accounts: the client's LinkedIn and email senders

Outreach for the client goes out from the client's own LinkedIn account and mailbox, connected as sender accounts in the client's workspace, so the client (or the person whose account it is) has to complete the sign-in. Sending needs connected sender accounts.

What to agree with the client before the call where you connect them:

• Whose name the outreach goes out under. Usually the founder or a sales lead. In traxy each account belongs to a sender name, and a sequence that uses both LinkedIn and email needs one sender name with both channels connected (sender accounts). So if the founder's LinkedIn account sends, their mailbox should sit under the same sender name.

• Who completes the sign-in. You add a sender under Outbound > Sender accounts, pick the account type and sender name, and finish the sign-in flow, which may open in another tab. Book a short call with the account owner for it, or ask trax, the traxy agent, to help connect the sender.

• Which workspace is open. The accounts you connect belong to the workspace that is open. Confirm you are in the client's workspace before signing in.

• Sending limits and active hours. Each account keeps its own limits, active hours and ramp-up, and campaigns can't override them. Agree these with the client up front, especially for a LinkedIn account that hasn't sent much before. LinkedIn sets its own rules, and no tool can promise an account will never be restricted.

• An email signature. If one is set, it is added to sequence and one-off emails. LinkedIn messages don't use it.

Two things to tell the client so there are no surprises later: removing or disconnecting a sender can stop future messages from that account (it doesn't recall messages already sent), and replies from LinkedIn and email land in the client workspace's inbox, one conversation per lead. If the client switches on Profile views in their workspace, traxy picks up profile views of the sender accounts connected there and can turn those viewers into leads. More on the sending side is on LinkedIn outbound with traxy.

Week one setup: workspace, signals, first leads, sample test

In week one you create the client's workspace, draft and correct the targeting, load exclusions and Tracking, review the first leads with the client, connect senders and test the first campaign on sample leads with nothing sent. The days below are a suggested order for your team, not a promise of how long setup takes; some clients send their intake answers quickly, others take longer to find their customer export. The order:

Day 1: workspace and website-based setup

1. Create the client's workspace from the workspace menu. A new workspace gives the client separate targeting and lead data; creating another workspace depends on paid access (members and workspaces).

2. Enter the client's website. traxy drafts the lead criteria and signals and shows a lead preview. Fix what's off under Targeting > Lead criteria and Targeting > Signals using the client's intake answers.

3. Invite the people who need access from Settings > Team and choose each person's role. The app disables actions a role can't perform, and billing and API keys need the matching permission. Check the email address and role before you send each invite.

Day 2: exclusions and Tracking

1. Upload the Blocklist and Do not contact lists from the intake.

2. Add the tracked profiles and company pages with the right relationship tags. Paste single posts by URL under Targeting > Posts when one post is worth mining, such as a competitor's launch post.

3. Switch on Profile views under Targeting > Signals if the client wants their profile viewers as leads.

Days 3 and 4: first leads

1. Review the first leads with the client. Each lead shows the post, comment or like behind it and a Warm, Related, Activity or ICP match label. Only people with a 50%+ match to the client's ICP count as leads. Ask the client to mark a sample as good or bad fit and say why.

2. Tighten the criteria if the leads drift. After you save new criteria, traxy can check active leads and offer to move the ones that no longer match to Done.

3. Use social intent search if the client wants a first list beyond what Tracking has found so far: describe the person and the need in plain English and traxy searches 71M+ scanned LinkedIn likes, posts and comments.

4. Save the audience as a shared view, for example "Warm leads, VP Sales and above, engaged with a competitor". Campaigns and routes use shared views, and a shared view updates as leads change.

Day 5: senders and the sample test

1. Connect the client's senders as described above, in the client's workspace.

2. Create the first campaign under Outbound > Campaigns, or ask trax. Give it the shared view, the offer and the research you need on each lead, such as what the company sells or a role it is hiring for (create a campaign). traxy researches each lead for those facts, groups leads by signal and prepares a personalized message variant for each group. If a required research fact isn't found, the lead stays in traxy and you can choose to skip it in the campaign.

3. Test it on sample leads. The test runs the plan on sample leads so you can check the research and the drafts. Nothing is sent. Check that the research supports each claim in the drafts, and ask trax to revise the plan if it targets the wrong audience or uses wording the client won't like (review and launch).

By the end of the week you should have a client workspace with corrected targeting, a first set of reviewed leads, connected senders and a tested campaign waiting for the client's approval. Signals outside LinkedIn, such as hiring, funding or a job change, come from research on each lead in the campaign, not a live event feed, so set expectations about that in the kickoff.

Approvals: who on the client side approves the launch

Name one approver on the client's side, usually the person whose account sends or the head of sales, and have them sign off the sample test and the launch review before anything goes out. In traxy, confirming Launch is the campaign launch approval, so the agency should only confirm it once the client has agreed.

What the approver looks at:

• The sample test. The research and drafts for a handful of sample leads. This is the moment the client sees what their outreach will say.

• The launch review. Before launch, traxy shows who joins, who is skipped (held by another campaign or contacted before), the sender, the steps and the delivery mode.

• The delivery mode. Choose to approve every message in a review queue, or let the approved campaign send on its own. You can start a new client on per-message approval: each message and its scheduled step waits in the queue, where it can be edited and saved, then approved one at a time or with Approve all.

Once the client is happy with the messages, you can switch the campaign to send on its own. From then on the campaign runs on autopilot because it was approved once, and you can pause or change it anytime. Switching to automatic doesn't release messages already waiting in the queue, so review those separately. Replies, unsubscribes and hard bounces stop a lead's sequence, and campaigns run in priority order so one lead never gets two campaigns at once.

Who holds the approval is an agreement between you and the client. Members get the roles documented in members and workspaces. If the client approves in a call or in Slack and your team clicks Approve, write that down in your process. If the agency runs everything from an AI chat through the traxy MCP, the same rule holds: the AI shows what it will do and asks for a yes before anything sends or launches.

Reporting cadence and what to show

Agree on a weekly lead report in the client's Slack and a short monthly review, and show the client who engaged, why they fit, what was sent and what came back. Because the client's leads, campaigns and integrations belong to its workspace, everything you report is scoped to that client.

Weekly: leads in the client's Slack

Connect Slack in the client's workspace and add a route from a shared view to the client's channel. traxy can send lead alerts, lead-reply notifications, repeat-engagement events and a daily summary to Slack channels, and a route can deliver automatically or manually with an ICP match threshold. A good setup is a weekly lead report per client to that shared channel, then the outreach. The full setup is in how to send a client's LinkedIn leads to their sales team in Slack.

Monthly: what happened and what changes

• Where leads came from. Insights shows lead volume, trends, audience breakdowns and the top profiles or posts bringing in leads for a date range. Each tracked profile shows the leads it surfaced, so the client sees whether their founder's posts or a competitor's audience brought in more buyers.

• What was sent and what came back. The inbox holds every reply to the client's campaigns, one conversation per lead across LinkedIn and email.

• Meetings. If the client's Google Calendar is connected, traxy matches calendar meetings to traxy leads, and you can record the outcome of each one.

• A CSV for the client's CRM with the columns you choose, from Leads > export.

• What changes next month. Criteria you tightened, profiles you added to Tracking, the next offer or segment you plan to test.

Report records, not forecasts. A lead with a 50%+ ICP match and a visible source is a reason to reach out, not a promise of a meeting or a sale, and traxy does not promise any number of meetings for a client. For content clients, the qualified engagement report shows a format that names who engaged with which post.

How is this different from setting up the agency's workspaces?

This checklist is for one client at a time. If you are deciding how to structure all your clients, how to run many workspaces from one AI chat, or whether to resell traxy, start with a separate traxy workspace for each client and traxy for agencies. An agency can resell traxy or run it as a managed service for its clients, with each client in its own workspace and outreach sent from the client's own connected accounts. Keep your agency's own new-business prospecting in a separate workspace from client work.

What are the limits?

• Extra workspaces need paid access. Creating another workspace depends on paid access; see pricing for plans.

• Sending needs the client's connected accounts. Each account's limits, active hours and ramp-up apply, and no tool can promise zero LinkedIn restriction risk.

• LinkedIn is the native signal source. Hiring, funding, job changes and custom signals come from research on each lead, not a live event feed.

• Profile views don't show private-mode viewers, because LinkedIn doesn't reveal them.

• Tracking a company page finds engagers with its posts, not every employee or every buyer at that company.

• Messages are reviewed before they go. traxy prepares the drafts, and the client approves the launch or every message. It is not a fit for a client who wants outreach sent with no review at all.

• No guaranteed results. Onboarding well makes the leads and the messages better; it doesn't guarantee meetings or revenue.

FAQ

What should I ask a new LinkedIn lead gen client on the kickoff call?

Ask for the first offer, the buyer roles and company types, the regions they sell to, current customers and open deals to exclude, LinkedIn URLs for their executives, company page, competitors and the creators their buyers follow, whose LinkedIn account and mailbox will send, and who approves the launch.

Do I need the client's LinkedIn login?

To send from the client's LinkedIn account, it has to be connected as a sender in the client's traxy workspace, and the sign-in happens in the connection flow, which may open in another tab. Book a short call with the account owner so they can complete it.

Can the client approve every message before it sends?

Yes. Choose per-message approval at launch review and each message waits in a review queue until it is approved. You can switch the approved campaign to send on its own later.

How do I keep the client's current customers out of the outreach?

Put their domains on the Blocklist and specific emails or LinkedIn profiles on the Do not contact list in the client's workspace before the first campaign. Launch review also shows who is skipped because another campaign holds them or they were contacted before.

Can one campaign send LinkedIn and email for the client?

Yes. Connect the client's LinkedIn account and mailbox under one sender name and a sequence can mix LinkedIn and email steps. Replies, unsubscribes and hard bounces stop it.

How should I report to the client?

New leads sent to the client's Slack channel through a route from a shared view, a weekly lead report there, plus a monthly review of where leads came from, replies, meetings and what changes next. Report what happened, not a forecast.

Can my agency run traxy for clients as a managed service?

Yes. An agency can resell traxy or run it as a managed service for its clients. See traxy for agencies.

Related reading

• How agencies run a separate traxy workspace for each client

• The LinkedIn lead gen playbook for agencies

• How to send a client's LinkedIn leads to their sales team in Slack

• The qualified engagement report for content clients

• LinkedIn outbound with traxy

Running LinkedIn or outbound for clients? See how agencies use traxy.