Management fees start as soon as we start working on the account (in fact, we'll need payment in order to get started working). This includes the planning phase of the project (though we realize there may be some initial scoping done to even quote the project).
There is a flat setup fee for each campaign.
After the setup phase, regular management fees start at the planned start date of the campaign, even if the campaign is delayed.
For example:
Today is May 15th, and we’re starting a campaign on April 1st. This gives us 2 weeks to set up the campaign, with a setup fee attached to pay for those 2 weeks of work.
April 1st comes, and it turns out that you (or the client) isn’t ready. Maybe the landing page isn’t done yet, or the client failed to provide us with a credit card. The campaign ends up starting on April 12th by the time everything is sorted. Regardless, we will still bill you from April 1st.
This gap between the 1st-12th always includes project management/hand-holding, emails back and forth, etc. from my team, which needs to happen within the context of a retainer. This is why we’ll be billing from April 1st.
There are exceptions. For example, if we decide to postpone for 6 months, or something along those lines (provided there isn’t active work being done by me or my team in that time), then we wouldn’t be charging a fee for that long gap.