Scope Creep Examples — SEO & marketing
Migrating years of historical analytics data, never scoped originally
The SEO engagement started fresh with new tracking. The client asks for years of historical analytics data from a legacy platform to be imported and reconciled.
The retainer began with fresh analytics tracking set up on the client's current platform — no migration of historical data from a previous analytics tool was part of scoping. Partway through the engagement, the client asks for several years of historical traffic and conversion data from their old, now-discontinued analytics platform to be imported and reconciled with the current setup, so they can compare year-over-year performance. Reconciling data across two different platforms' differing tracking methodologies is a real analytical task, not a simple export/import.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Out-of-scope clause→ — The retainer scoped current tracking and reporting — reconciling years of historical data from a different, discontinued platform is a distinct, unscoped analytical task.
Suggested change-order wording
Suggested change-order wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
Reconciling the historical data wasn't part of our current scope, which covers tracking and reporting on the current platform going forward. It's a reasonable thing to want for year-over-year comparison, but the two platforms likely measure some things differently, so it needs care to reconcile properly rather than a straight import. I can scope this as a one-time analysis project — want me to put together an estimate?
How this usually resolves
It's worth setting expectations early that a perfect one-to-one comparison across platforms may not be fully possible due to differing tracking methodologies — better to say that upfront than to deliver a reconciled dataset the client later distrusts because the numbers don't line up exactly with what they remember.
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