Accounts, data, domains and content. The clauses that decide whether leaving costs you a month or a year.
This is the least interesting part of choosing an agency and the most expensive one to get wrong. Nobody thinks about asset ownership while signing, and everybody thinks about it while leaving.
The list, in order of how much it hurts to lose
The domain first. It should be registered to the company, in a registrar account the company controls, with the billing card of someone who will still work there in three years. A domain held by a supplier is the single point at which a dispute can take your business offline.
Then the ad accounts. A Google Ads account created inside an agency manager account can be moved, but only with the agency’s cooperation, and the historical conversion data that makes the account perform is not always portable. Create the accounts yourself and grant access; the same applies to Meta via Business Manager.
Then analytics and Search Console. Years of history is the baseline that makes the next agency’s work measurable. Losing it means nobody can prove what changed, which conveniently means nobody can be held to anything.
Then the site and the content. Code, CMS, page copy, photography, video and the design files. If a rebuild is part of the engagement, the contract should say the deliverables are yours on payment, including source files.
The clauses worth reading twice
Intellectual property assignment: work is yours on payment, not on completion of the contract term. Notice period: long lock-ins are sometimes justified by real set-up cost and are more often there because the work cannot survive a monthly decision — ask which. Data portability: an explicit obligation to export and hand over analytics, ad and CRM data on request.
And a plain transition clause: on termination, the agency will transfer ownership of all accounts and provide a handover within a stated number of days. Agencies that intend to behave well will sign this without argument.
How to grant access without giving up ownership
The pattern is the same across every platform: you create the asset under an account the company controls, then grant the agency administrative access to it. In Google Ads that means your own account linked to their manager account. In Meta it means your Business Manager owning the assets and granting partner access. In analytics it means your property with users added.
Access can be revoked in an afternoon. Ownership cannot, which is the entire distinction. Any supplier who resists this arrangement is telling you something useful before you have signed anything.
Domains and email deserve special care
The domain should be registered to the company, in a registrar account the company controls, with billing on a card that is not in one person’s name. This is the single point at which a dispute can take the business offline, and it is remarkably often held by whoever built the first website in 2016.
DNS is part of it. If a supplier controls the DNS, they control where your email goes, which is a larger exposure than the website. Keep the registrar and DNS in your own account and grant access rather than handing over the keys.
Tools you should hold the licence for
Anything holding your data: the CRM, the email platform, call tracking, the CMS. An agency licence covering your data means your customer list lives in someone else’s account, which is both a commercial risk and, depending on where you operate, a data protection question you have not answered.
Tools that are purely the agency’s working equipment — rank trackers, crawlers, design software — are reasonably theirs.
If you are already in the wrong position
Fix it while the relationship is good. Ownership transfers are routine administration between parties who like each other and become leverage between parties who do not. Ask now, in a friendly email, before there is any reason for the answer to be complicated.
Common questions
- Should the agency or the client own the Google Ads account?
- The client. Create the account under your own Google account and grant the agency administrative access through their manager account. This keeps the conversion history — which is what makes the campaigns perform — with you if the relationship ends, and avoids depending on the agency’s cooperation to move it.
- Who owns website content an agency creates?
- You should, on payment, and the contract should say so explicitly with an intellectual property assignment clause. Without one the default in many jurisdictions is that the creator retains copyright and you hold only a licence to use it — which becomes a problem precisely when you want to leave.
- What should be in an agency exit or transition clause?
- Transfer of ownership of all accounts created for you, export of analytics, advertising and CRM data, delivery of source files and credentials, and a handover document — all within a stated number of days of termination. Agree it at signing; it is almost impossible to negotiate once notice has been given.