How to leave your marketing agency without losing your accounts

Give notice first and you can find yourself locked out of accounts that were never in your business’s name. Work in this order instead: find out who holds each account, get your own admin access, copy what can be copied, move the ad billing, then send notice with one written request. It is written for local service businesses, where most leads come through the phone number on the Google profile, but the steps apply to any business.

Already locked out of one account? Go straight to its fix:

• Business Profile held by an agency or ex-employee: Business Profile recovery
• Business Profile suspended: the suspension guide
• Google Ads: Ads account recovery
• Website or domain: website and domain recovery
• Texting registration rejected: A2P 10DLC rejections
• Not sure who holds what: the free account ownership check
• The agency is stalling: when it stalls or refuses

Read your contract before you tell the agency

Notice, renewal and the accounts at the end

From the signed agreement and any later order forms, find:

• Notice: how many days, in what form and to whom; put the deadline on your calendar.
• Renewal: whether the term renews on its own, and the last date to cancel.
• Exit costs: any termination fee, and what is owed for work done.
• Fees against ad spend: whether the agency’s fee is shown apart from what Google charged. Google requires an agency that adds a fee to disclose it in writing before the first purchase and on every invoice.
• The accounts: who the contract names as owner of the ad accounts, domain and numbers, and how fast they must be handed over.

Who owns the website, the copy and the photos

Paying for a website does not make you its copyright owner. Copyright starts with the author, which for work by an agency’s staff is usually the agency (17 U.S.C. 201), and a transfer of it to you is valid only in a writing signed by the owner (17 U.S.C. 204). If no clause assigns the design, text, code, logo and photos to your business, ask for one in the exit (more on this). An assignment covers only what the agency owns, so also ask for a list of the stock photos, fonts, themes and plugins on the site and whose license covers each.

This is not legal advice; confirm with counsel.

List every account your marketing runs on

The account that causes trouble later is the one left off this list: a domain renewing on the agency’s card, a tracking number on the Google profile, a pixel in the agency’s Meta portfolio.

Account	Where to check	Yours when	Watch for
Domain	ICANN Lookup	Your business is the registrant	Only the registrant can approve a move to another registrar
Website and hosting	The site’s Users screen, the host	You have an admin login and a full backup	A site you cannot copy cannot move
Google Business Profile	Business Profile settings, People and access	Your email is the Primary owner	The primary owner decides who else gets in
Google Ads	Admin, Access and security	You have Admin access and the customer ID	Ads on the agency’s monthly invoice stop when it unlinks
Local Services Ads	The account administrator on the profile	The administrator works for you	Google warns the administrator 14 days before the move into Google Ads; reports do not move with it, so save leads and reports first
Google Analytics	Admin, Access Management	You are an account Administrator	A property in the agency’s account has to be moved out
Tag Manager	Admin, User Management	You are an account Administrator	Google support cannot add you later
Search Console	Settings, Users and permissions	You are a verified owner	A removed owner’s leftover token lets them back in
Facebook and Instagram	Meta Business Suite settings	Every asset sits in your portfolio	Ad accounts and datasets created in the agency’s portfolio stay there
Tracking phone numbers	The provider behind each number	The account is in your business’s name	A port needs the account holder’s signed authorization
CRM or GoHighLevel	Which agency account holds it	You are an Admin with a recent export	Only the agency owner, or an admin it authorizes, can send it
Email on your domain	Your email admin console	You are a super administrator	Google asks the current admins before promoting anyone

The order that keeps leads coming in during the switch

Before you give notice: get in and take copies

Ask for your own access first, on a business address you will keep. Access to your own business’s accounts needs no reason.

• Business Profile: ask to be made an owner now. A new owner waits 7 days before managing every feature or transferring primary ownership.
• Google Ads: Admin access, the level that can unlink manager accounts, the customer ID and how the account is billed. Then check Admin, Access and security, Managers: if the agency’s manager is set as owner in the Owner column, its admins can change user access in your account, including removing your users, so move billing and unlink it promptly after notice.
• Analytics and Tag Manager: Administrator at the account level if the account holds only your business. If your property or container sits in the agency’s own account beside other clients, account-level Administrator would let you manage users across all of them, which the agency can fairly refuse, so ask for Administrator on your Analytics property and Publish on your Tag Manager container instead. In Tag Manager, choose Admin, then Export Container to save your tags.
• Search Console: ask to be added as an owner, then verify yourself with your own token, ideally a DNS record, the only way to verify a Domain property.
• Website: an admin login and a backup of both the database and the files.
• Domain: look up the registrar and expiry date (reading the result). If your business is the registrant, log in to the registrar and make sure the account email is yours.
• Meta: with no business portfolio of your own, create one and note its ID under Settings, then Business portfolio info.
• Tracking numbers: ask which provider issues each number on the profile, ads and site, in whose name, and for a bill under 90 days old, which HighLevel’s port checklist asks for.
• Email: confirm the super administrator works at your business.
• CRM: a contacts export. In GoHighLevel only Admins can export, and the file holds only the columns visible in the Contacts table, so turn every column on under Manage Fields first.

Then make copies. Download the ads build, since change history reaches back only 2 years (how, with read-only access), and export call recordings and logs: HighLevel notes that porting a number does not carry over recordings or conversation history.

Move the ad billing

If the agency pays Google for your ads, move that before you give notice: an account on monthly invoicing stops serving once the paying manager account is unlinked, and the agency can unlink at any time.

• The agency’s card or bank account. If the agency pays on its own payments profile, switch to yours under Billing, then Settings, then Payer details, then “Change who pays”. Google then asks you to complete advertiser verification again, even if the account was verified, with a deadline shown in the account, so have your business documents ready, and expect to pay any open balance by credit or debit card.
• The agency’s monthly invoice. An invoice moves only to another paying manager, such as your next agency’s; to use your own card, call Google Ads support before the unlink (both routes).

Give notice with one written request

Send this with your notice, from an address the agency does not administer. It asks for whatever you could not get beforehand.

Subject: Notice and account handover

Hi Sam,

We are ending our agreement under the notice terms in our contract. Please complete these within 7 business days of this email and confirm each one in writing:

• Google Business Profile: make this email address the primary owner.
• Google Ads: Admin access for me, our customer ID, and how the account is billed today.
• Analytics: Administrator on our property, or the property moved into our own account, whose ID is below my name.
• Tag Manager: Publish on our container, plus a container export.
• Search Console: add me as an owner.
• Facebook and Instagram: our Page and Instagram account removed from your business portfolio so we can add them to ours, with the Instagram login; the ad account and dataset shared to our business portfolio, whose ID is below my name.
• Domain: the registrar and registrant on file, then either a move into our own account at that registrar or the transfer code. Please do not change the registrant until we agree on the order.
• Website: an administrator login and a full backup, files and database together.
• CRM: a full contacts export, or a transfer of our sub-account to our new provider.
• Phone numbers: for each tracking number, the provider, the account number, the service address and any port-out PIN on the account, a billing statement from the last 90 days, a signature on the port authorization our new provider sends, and an export of call recordings and logs. Please keep the numbers active until the port is complete.
• A list of every other login you hold for us.

Until each item is confirmed, please do not delete or change the profile, campaigns, audiences, site, numbers or contact records.

Thanks, Maria

Analytics account ID: (from our own Analytics account) Meta business portfolio ID: (from Settings, Business portfolio info)

What stops working the moment an agency lets go

• The agency’s conversion tracking and audiences. Conversion tracking run from the agency’s manager account (the count of calls and forms that tells Google which clicks paid off) stops counting conversions from clicks after the unlink, and its shared remarketing lists (audiences of past site visitors) stop filling and drop out of your account: any ad group that targets one, or campaign that excludes one, stops running. Before the unlink, set up tracking in your own account, and rebuild those audiences on your own tag or take them off the campaigns.
• The domain renewal. For a .com or other generic domain, registrars send expiry notices to the registrant a month and a week ahead; if that is the agency, so are the reminders.

After the handover: remove the agency and change the locks

• Meta. If you still rely on an old ad account or dataset the agency shares with you, remove only its access to your assets for now, not the partner: Meta’s partner removal page does not say what removal does to assets shared your way. Once you no longer need them: Settings, Partners, Options, Remove from business portfolio. Meta’s security checklist adds: remove users whose email addresses are not related to your business.
• Instagram. Change the password, make the email, phone and two-factor method your business’s, and check who still has Shared access under your profile, then Menu.
• Search Console. Remove the former owner and their unused tokens, or they can re-verify. If a token is your Analytics or Tag Manager tag, revoke their Analytics edit rights or Tag Manager Publish and Admin permissions instead of deleting it.
• Google Ads and the profile. Remove the agency’s users under Access and security, then unlink its manager account. On the Business Profile, owners can remove users and managers cannot.
• Logins the agency touched. On the Google account behind your profile and ads, check the recovery email and phone and the 2-Step Verification phone; Google can take up to 7 days to trust a new one. Delete agency administrators on the site’s Users screen, put registrar and hosting logins on your email, and change every password the agency knew.

When the agency stalls or refuses

If the agency holds your Business Profile

Google’s third-party policies say “all end customers must retain ownership or co-ownership of their Business Profile at all times,” allow the agency 7 business days after you give notice to return exclusive control, and ban holding a profile “hostage in exchange for money.” Report a violation through the complaint form on Google’s third-party tips page, or, with no access at all, request ownership from the profile; the owner has 3 days to respond. Google says it may not reply to you personally about a complaint, so send the ownership request at the same time rather than waiting. The Business Profile recovery guide covers every case.

If the agency controls your Google Ads account

Look under Admin, then Access and security, for an email at your business with Admin access. If there is one, remove the agency yourself once billing has moved. If not, ask for an Admin invite and your customer ID, which Google requires the agency to give you; with no active admin left, the Account Access Request form asks for proof of ownership. Even when the agency’s manager created the account, the client account still owns its data and can unlink. The Ads recovery guide covers each case.

If your Facebook and Instagram assets sit with the agency

• Created in the agency’s portfolio. An ad account created there is permanently part of it, and a dataset, which holds your pixel, cannot move either. Ask for shared access (Settings, Partners, Add, “Ask a partner to assign you their assets”: Meta’s steps) and build new ones in your own portfolio.
• Claimed by the agency. Claiming an existing ad account into a portfolio “may permanently move it” there, so if yours predates the agency, ask whether it was shared or claimed, and treat a claimed one as agency-created.
• Owned by you, shared with the agency. Still yours; a partner cannot share it onward.
• The Page and its Instagram account. A Page cannot be transferred, but once the agency removes it from its portfolio, add it to yours: Settings, then Pages, then + Add, then “Add an existing Facebook Page”. Removal starts by disconnecting the Page from Instagram, so reconnect them afterward, and remove the agency’s staff, who “can still access and manage the Page.” Adding Instagram asks for its username and password, so you need the login itself.
• Your portfolio, controlled by a former contractor. Ask the current admin for full control first. If that fails, request it through Business Support Home under “Business Manager admin dispute,” with ID, proof of ownership (a domain name assignment agreement counts) and a signed attestation letter.

The domain, the account that opens the others

For a .com, .net, .org or other generic domain, ICANN’s Transfer Policy makes the registrant “the only party that has the authority to approve or deny a transfer request,” and the registrar must give the registrant the transfer code within five calendar days unless the registrant can generate it. A change of registrant brings a 60-day lock on moving registrars unless the registrar let you opt out first, so move registrars first and agree on the order with the agency.

A .us or other country-code domain follows its own registry’s rules, outside ICANN’s reach. In June 2026 ICANN’s Board adopted recommendations to rewrite the Transfer Policy, including its locks and the change-of-registrant rules. Until the new policy takes effect, the rules above apply, so check your registrar’s current terms. If the agency is the registrant, ICANN cannot transfer or return a domain name to anyone; the website and domain guide covers that case.

If the agency keeps Analytics, Tag Manager or your email

• Tag Manager is left out of Google’s admin recovery process, and you cannot ask support to add users, so your container export is the only copy: import it into a new account your business administers.
• Analytics recovery for an account with no administrator needs an analytics.txt file proving you own every site in the account, which rules it out inside an agency account holding other clients’ sites. Ask the agency to move the property, or start a new property and tag in your own account. Whoever moves the property needs Administrator on both accounts, so give the agency temporary Administrator on your new account, choose “Replace existing property permissions” in the move, then remove the agency.
• Workspace email. With proof you own the domain, a user can ask to be promoted to super administrator, but Google contacts the current admins first and promotes you only if they are inactive and unresponsive.

If your CRM sub-account sits under the agency

By default only the agency owner, or an admin it authorizes, can transfer a sub-account, so ask it to send yours to your new agency’s HighLevel relationship number (an ID the new agency gives you). The transfer removes a sending domain the agency assigned and any Mailgun or SMTP email-sending setup, a HIPAA-enabled sub-account needs the receiving agency to have the HIPAA Compliance add-on, and numbers move with it automatically only when both agencies use LC Phone, HighLevel’s built-in phone service (their texting registration moves too); otherwise the agencies and the Twilio account owner move them separately.

Going in-house? The agency can eject the sub-account into a paid HighLevel agency plan in your name; you then reconnect Google, Facebook and Instagram, redo the email-sending setup and domains, and find automations set to draft. Numbers move with it only if both sides are on LeadConnector’s phone service; otherwise port them separately. Active subscriptions such as a WordPress site hosted through HighLevel must be cancelled before the eject, so back the site up and move it first. Calendar syncs and Stripe also need reconnecting.

If the agency holds your tracking numbers

47 CFR 52.34 requires an interconnected VoIP provider to facilitate an “end-user customer’s” valid porting request. The port has to be requested by whoever’s name the provider account is in, so if that is the agency, you need its signed authorization. This is not legal advice; confirm with counsel.

HighLevel estimates about 2 to 4 weeks to port fewer than 50 numbers once the documents are in, and says not to cancel or release a number with the old provider until the port is confirmed complete. If the agency will not sign, put a number your business owns on the profile, ads and site now, after reading the suspension guide’s phone number caution.

When the switch needs a lawyer

Call one when the agency is the registrant and will not move the domain, claims a website your contract says nothing about, refuses to give up a Workspace or Meta admin role, or still holds the Business Profile after Google’s complaint form and an ownership request have failed.

Set up the next agency so leaving is easy

Google tells agencies to make the business the owner of its profile and themselves the manager. Create the Google Ads account yourself and accept the agency’s link request; a manager that links an existing account does not own it by default. Keep two administrators of your own on every account: Tag Manager warns that a single administrator who becomes unavailable can cost you your tags. And get the contract in writing, as Google’s advertiser guide advises, with a copyright assignment.

Ask whoever you hire next, us included, to name in the contract which accounts will be in your business’s name. At Beyaoshy those are the ad accounts, the Business Profile, the domain and website, the CRM and the tracking numbers. Our pages on Google Business Profile, Google Ads, websites, GoHighLevel and reviews cover each rebuild.

Questions about leaving a marketing agency

Do I own my website if I paid the agency to build it?

Not automatically. Copyright starts with the author, which for work by an agency’s staff is usually the agency, and a transfer to you is valid only in a signed writing, so ask for an assignment clause if the contract lacks one.

Can I keep my tracking phone numbers when I switch agencies?

Yes, if the provider account is in your name or the agency signs the port authorization. Whoever’s name the provider account is in has to authorize the port, and keep the numbers active until the port is complete.

Will my Google Ads history survive the switch?

Yes, if you keep the same account. Google says unlinking from a manager account does not cost an account its own campaign history, and your Admin can unlink even the manager that created it. In a new account, campaigns copied through Google Ads Editor arrive without their performance history.

Our agency created our Facebook ad account. Can we take it with us?

Not if it was created inside the agency’s portfolio: Meta says it cannot be transferred out, and neither can a dataset, so ask for shared access and build new ones. Your Page is different: the agency can remove it from its portfolio so you can add it to yours.

Sources

55 cited

Every figure and rule above links to its source where it appears. Rules change, so confirm anything legal with counsel.

• Google Business Profile Help, third-party policies
• Google Business Profile Help, transfer primary ownership
• Google Business Profile Help, request ownership of a profile
• Google Business Profile Help, owners and managers
• Google Business Profile Help, tips for working with third parties
• Google Ads policy, transparency requirements for third parties
• Google Ads policy, advertiser guide to working with third parties
• Google Ads Help, about unlinking accounts from a manager account
• Google Ads Help, ownership of client accounts
• Google Ads Help, access levels
• Google Ads Help, manage access to your account
• Google Ads Help, sign in and the Account Access Request form
• Google Ads Help, change the payments profile on a postpay or prepay account
• Google Ads Help, make a billing transfer (monthly invoicing)
• Google Ads Help, copy and paste campaigns
• Google Ads Help, about change history
• Google Ads Help, Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max
• Google Analytics Help, move a property
• Google Analytics Help, when no one has administrative access
• Tag Manager Help, users and permissions
• Tag Manager Help, container export and import
• Search Console Help, owners, users and permissions
• Search Console Help, verify site ownership
• Google Workspace Admin Help, recover administrator access
• Google Account Help, set up recovery options
• Google Account Help, turn on 2-Step Verification
• ICANN Lookup
• ICANN, Transfer Policy (updated February 21, 2024)
• ICANN Board, approved resolutions of June 7, 2026 (Transfer Policy Review)
• ICANN, Expired Registration Recovery Policy
• ICANN, lost domain names
• ICANN Contractual Compliance, submitting a complaint
• Meta Business Help, add an ad account to a business portfolio
• Meta Business Help, create a dataset for your Meta pixel
• Meta Business Help, create a business portfolio
• Meta Business Help, find your business portfolio ID
• Meta Business Help, remove a Facebook Page from a business portfolio
• Meta Business Help, add a Facebook Page to a business portfolio
• Meta Business Help, add an Instagram account to a business portfolio
• Meta Business Help, about connected business assets
• Meta Business Help, give a partner access to business assets
• Meta Business Help, ask a partner to share assets with your business
• Meta Business Help, remove partners from your business portfolio
• Meta Business Help, make a business portfolio more secure
• Meta Business Help, request full control of a business portfolio
• Instagram Help, share an Instagram account with someone
• HighLevel Help, sub-account transfer guide
• HighLevel Help, eject a sub-account to a new agency
• HighLevel Help, moving phone numbers: migration guide
• HighLevel Help, export contacts to a CSV
• 47 CFR 52.34, number porting and interconnected VoIP providers (Cornell LII)
• 17 U.S.C. 201, ownership of copyright (Cornell LII)
• 17 U.S.C. 204, transfers of copyright ownership (Cornell LII)
• WordPress Advanced Administration Handbook, backups
• WordPress Documentation, Users screen