Remote Work Onboarding Checklist for Marketing Teams

Run a speed test from fast.com or speedtest.net at the desk where you'll actually work. Anything below ~50 Mbps down / 10 Mbps up will choke Zoom client calls and slow Figma multiplayer sessions. Record the result so IT can authorize a stipend or mobile hotspot if you fall below the bar.

Open a ticket with IT referencing the speed test result. Standard remediation is a stipend toward an upgraded plan or a company-issued LTE/5G hotspot. Don't proceed to client video work until the connection is stable — choppy first impressions on agency-side calls do real damage.

From the IT MDM portal, install your team's standard kit: HubSpot or Marketo desktop helpers, Slack, Zoom, Figma, Asana or Monday, Loom, Canva, the Adobe CC apps you need, and Google Tag Assistant. Skip personal-account installs — everything must be on the SSO-managed instance.

Authenticate Okta (or your IdP) and verify SSO into HubSpot, GA4, Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, LinkedIn Campaign Manager, and Looker Studio. Confirm VPN connects automatically when on untrusted networks — required before pulling any first-party customer data.

Run a Zoom test call with a teammate. Check that the mic picks up clearly without echo, the camera is at eye level, and a key light fills the face — on-camera quality is part of the brand impression on agency and client calls.

Pick a spot with a door that closes and minimal hallway traffic during calendar hours. If you handle client confidential briefs or revenue numbers, the room must be private — open kitchen tables don't satisfy most MSAs.

Submit the home-office stipend request for monitor, chair, and external keyboard if you don't have them. Marketers spend long days in Figma, Looker Studio, and the GA4 explorer — laptop-only setups create RSI within months.

Use the approved Zoom background from the brand asset library, or a clean physical wall. Avoid competitor logos, political signage, or anything visible to a client that hasn't cleared brand review.

Set Slack working hours so async-first teammates know your overlap window. Pin your time zone and core hours to your profile — campaign launches across regions break when reviewers can't see who's online when.

Get added to the editorial calendar board, the active campaign briefs, the lead-routing project, and the relevant HubSpot teams (so your sends and CRM access show the right ownership). Confirm with your manager that you can see every project you're expected to ship against.

Daily standup, weekly campaign review with the demand-gen lead, and the monthly content audit should all be on your calendar before week one ends. Recurring rituals are how a remote team keeps the editorial calendar from drifting.

Agree with your manager on where status lives — Loom video for design walkthroughs, Asana comments for blockers, Slack thread for time-sensitive sign-off. Putting brief approvals in DMs is the most common way a remote marketing team loses an audit trail.

Turn on MFA in HubSpot, GA4, Google Ads, Meta Business Manager, LinkedIn Campaign Manager, and your CDP (Segment, RudderStack, etc.). Account takeovers on Meta Ads Manager are the highest-impact incident a marketing team faces — six-figure spend can disappear in an afternoon.

FileVault on macOS or BitLocker on Windows. Required for any laptop that pulls customer lists, segment exports, or first-party PII out of the MAP or CDP. Send confirmation to IT.

If your role touches EU/UK contact lists, lookalike seed audiences, or geo-targeted campaigns, you fall under GDPR processing rules. This determines whether the extended privacy training is required before you can run sends or pixel-based audiences.

Module covers lawful basis (consent vs. legitimate interest), data subject access requests, the 72-hour breach notification rule, and the firm-specific cross-border transfer mechanism. Required before access to any segment containing EU/UK contacts is granted.

Marketers are top targets for spearphishing — fake DocuSign links from "the agency", invoice fraud impersonating media buyers, fake Meta Ads policy notices. Pass the KnowBe4 (or equivalent) module before you start handling vendor invoices.

Get viewer-or-better on the team's GA4 property and pinned Looker Studio dashboards (channel attribution, lead funnel, blog traffic, paid pacing). Confirm the UTM convention doc is bookmarked — drift across campaigns is the leading cause of unreliable attribution reports.

Work with your manager to set 3–5 quarterly KPIs that ladder to the team OKRs — MQL volume, pipeline contribution, organic sessions, ROAS, content velocity, whatever the function owns. Document them in the 1:1 doc so the WBR review has a baseline.

30-day review with your manager: tech is stable, the editorial calendar makes sense, KPIs are agreed, security training is logged. Capture any open gaps in the notes field — these become the input to the 60-day check-in.