How to switch marketing agency without losing your accounts or your data

Start here, before any difficult conversation. Write a list of every account that touches marketing.

• Ad accounts on each platform you advertise on.
• The tracking pixel and any tag manager container.
• Product feeds and merchant accounts.
• Analytics properties.
• Email and CRM platforms.
• The domain, the website admin and the social profiles.

For each one, write down two things: whose name or business the account is registered under, and who has admin rights. The goal is simple. Accounts and data should be in your name, with your people as admins and the agency as a user with the access it needs.

One DTC agency's red-flag list names an agency that refuses to share login credentials, or won't add you as admin to ad accounts, as a red flag¹. The same list suggests asking what happens to your ad accounts if you end the contract¹. That agency sells paid media services, so read it as one seller's view. We share it, and it is a view, not a statistic.

A common objection is "changing agencies means losing our account history". Only if the accounts were never yours. If they are in your name, history stays where it is and only the people change. If they are not, fix that first, and ideally before you say anything about leaving.

Whose name are your ad accounts and pixels in? If you can't answer in ten seconds, that is your first task.

Take copies while everyone is still friendly. Aim to have these in a shared folder you own:

• Account history. Campaign, ad set and ad-level exports, with dates and spend.
• Settings. Audiences, exclusions, conversion events, naming conventions and tracking set-up, including your UTM parameters rules.
• Creative files. Original assets, not only the uploaded versions.
• Reports and notes. Past reports, test logs and anything that records why a decision was taken.
• Access list. Who has which level of access on which account.

Export before you give notice, not after. Handover goodwill varies. A folder you already hold does not depend on it.

Read your contract before talks start, not after. That covers the phrases people search for: exit clause, notice period and ad account ownership. A trade article on revenue-share contracts lists the early termination fee, the notice period, remaining financial obligations and the handover process as things to check². Look for:

• Notice period. How long, and from when it counts.
• Minimum term. Whether you are tied in, and what leaving early costs.
• Account and data ownership. A clause stating that accounts, pixels, data and creative belong to you.
• Handover. Whether the contract commits the agency to a handover, and what it includes.
• Fee structure. If part of the fee is a revenue share fee, check what revenue it is calculated on and what the baseline is. The same article shows that one headline percentage gives very different fees on total revenue and on incremental revenue, and it discusses a base fee plus a share². It recommends putting the revenue basis, the source of truth and the baseline in writing before the first invoice².
• After exit. Whether a revenue share continues after the contract ends, and for how long.

Ask for the handover in the contract, not as a promise in the pitch. Your counsel decides what the clauses mean for you.

Plan an overlap, if your contract allows it, with a clear list of what moves and when. A workable handover has:

1. A written inventory of every account, with owner and admin named.
2. Access first. New admin access is granted and tested before the old access is removed.
3. Tracking checks. Confirm that conversions and the pixel still record orders after the change.
4. A change freeze. Avoid redesigns, big promotions or new campaigns while ownership moves, if you can.
5. A named person on each side who answers questions.
6. A sign-off list. Both sides tick off what moved.

Keep the tone professional. You may need answers from the old team a month later.

We can't promise that nothing dips, and we found no independent research that says how often it does. What you can control is whether the new team starts from your history and your tracking, rather than from zero. That is why access, exports and measurement come first. Performance is a matter for the next agency's work, and judging it needs a fair baseline.

You do not need a long RFP (request for proposal, a formal document inviting agencies to bid). A one-page brief is enough to start. If you do run an RFP for paid media, keep it to the decisions that matter.

A short brief covers:

• Goal. The business outcome in money terms: profit, payback, cash.
• Constraints. Margin, stock, delivery capacity and budget limits.
• Current set-up. Channels, accounts and tracking, with who owns what.
• Data you will share. And what you won't.
• Decisions you need. What you want recommended and by when.
• How you want to be told. Reporting format and definitions.

Then ask your shortlisted agencies the same questions, such as questions to ask a paid media agency. Compare answers, not slideshows.

Judge the new agency on measurement and margin, not on first-month ROAS. Early numbers are noisy, and a platform ROAS figure can look good for reasons that have nothing to do with the agency.

Look for:

• Agreed definitions of revenue, margin and customer metrics, in writing.
• Tracking that reconciles with your own orders.
• A plan for answering the incrementality question: what would have happened without the spend.
• Clear reasons for each decision to scale or cut.

Example (illustrative): Two agencies each present the same month. One shows a high ROAS and no margin figure. The other shows a lower ROAS, with contribution margin after media and a note on what is uncertain. The second one is what a finance director can use.

Our view: compare agencies on how honestly they report, then on how they perform.