Who should own your marketing accounts, assets and data?

Why ownership matters

Marketing accounts build up value over time. Advertising accounts hold campaign history, settings and what has been learned about which searches and audiences work. Analytics holds the record of how people find and use your website. Your business profile holds reviews and photos. Email lists hold your relationships with past customers. All of this belongs to your business.

When an agency or freelancer creates accounts in its own name, or holds the only admin access, that value sits with them. If the relationship ends, you may have to ask for access, wait for it, or start again without the history. Starting over can mean relearning what earlier campaigns already discovered.

Ownership also protects you from disruption you did not cause. A vendor might close, change staff or simply stop responding. If your business holds the main access to every account, none of those situations can lock you out of your own marketing.

None of this assumes bad intent. Many agencies hand over accounts without trouble. Ownership simply makes sure your business is protected whatever happens.

What you should own

As a rule, your business should own every account and asset that touches your customers, your data or your money. Agencies should be added as users with the access they need.

If an account was set up by someone else in the past, find out who owns it now. It is much easier to fix while the relationship is working well.

Watch for accounts tied to a personal email address, whether it belongs to an employee, a former employee or a contractor. If that person leaves, the account can leave with them. Where possible, use a business email address that more than one person can reach, and keep a simple list of every account, its owner and who has access.

How agency access should work

Most marketing platforms let you invite other people as users with specific permissions. That is how agencies should get access. You stay the owner, the agency gets the permissions it needs to do the work, and you can change or remove those permissions at any time.

Understand the difference between owner or admin access and standard user access. The owner or admin can add and remove users and control billing. Standard users can do the work without being able to take the account away from you. Your business should always keep at least one owner or admin login in its own hands, ideally held by more than one trusted person inside the business.

Avoid shared logins. Sharing a password means you cannot see who changed what, cannot remove one person without changing the password for everyone and may break the platform's rules. Individual user access solves all three problems.

When a project ends or a person leaves, remove their access promptly. Review the user list on each account from time to time, and remove anyone who no longer needs it. It takes a few minutes and closes gaps that are easy to forget.

Ownership in contracts

Before you sign, read what the agreement says about accounts, data and creative work. Look for clear statements that the accounts belong to your business, that data collected in them belongs to your business, and that you own the finished work you pay for. Check what happens to accounts, files and access when the agreement ends, and whether any fees apply to the handover.

Be cautious if the agreement is vague about ownership, describes your accounts as the agency's property or ties access to future payments beyond what you owe for completed work. Ask questions, and ask for changes in writing if something is unclear. This guide is not legal advice; for important agreements, consider having an adviser review the terms.

What happens when you change agencies

If you own your accounts, changing agencies is mostly a matter of updating who has access. You remove the outgoing agency's users, invite the new agency and give it what it needs. Your history stays in place, so the new team can see what has already been tried and build on it.

If you do not own your accounts, the change can be harder. You may need the outgoing agency's cooperation to transfer them, and some history or settings may not come with them. That is why it pays to check ownership early, long before you plan to make a change.

Whatever your situation, plan the handover so campaigns and tracking keep running while access changes hands.

An ownership checklist

Use this checklist to review your accounts now, not when you are about to leave an agency.

• Your business is the owner of each advertising account and controls the billing.
• At least one person inside your business has admin access to analytics and the tag manager.
• Your business is listed as the registrant of your domain.
• Your business holds the main login for your website and hosting.
• Your business is the owner of each social media profile and business page.
• Your business profile on search and maps is owned by your business.
• Finished creative files and brand assets are stored where your business controls them.
• Customer data and email lists live in accounts your business owns.
• Every agency or freelancer has its own user access, not a shared login.
• Former staff and vendors have been removed from every account.

Frequently asked questions