Harvest Advertising Inc — agency cost | harvestadvertisinginc.com
From signed brief to live campaign, expect 4-12 weeks: 2-4 weeks for onboarding, 1-5 weeks for build, and 60-90 days of spend before optimization data is meaningful.
The first step is the contract. Standard agency agreements carry a 3-6 month initial term with 30-day written termination notice. Retainer agreements run 6-12 months, with 30-60 days' notice to end after the initial term. This commitment gives the agency time to onboard, launch, and begin optimizing.
Onboarding — from signed contract to first live campaign — takes 2-4 weeks. During this phase the agency sets up ad accounts, tracking pixels, and access permissions, and aligns on the creative brief. Missing product feeds or absent tracking can push this phase past the 4-week mark.
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Build time depends on campaign complexity. A simple display ad is designed, built, and launched in 1-2 weeks. A medium shopping campaign with feed optimization takes 3-5 weeks. Most campaigns take 6-12 weeks from brief to launch in total: 4-6 weeks for simple campaigns and 3-4 months for full integrated ones.
After launch, the optimization phase begins. Meaningful optimization data arrives after 60-90 days of spend. Pulling a campaign before this window closes means judging performance on noise rather than signal — a common reason campaigns are cancelled prematurely.
Budget also affects timing: a first testable PPC month costs $1,000-$3,000, and programs below this threshold often cannot generate enough data to optimize within the standard 60-90 day window. See the [ad rates page](/ad-rates-cpm-cpc) for CPC and CPM benchmarks to estimate your media budget.
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