Who owns your marketing accounts? Check before you sign

Check it yourself. Sign in to Google Ads, open Admin, then Access and security. Your own email should be on the list with Admin access, the level that can add and remove users. If the account was created inside an agency's manager account, that manager account may hold ownership of it. Google explains the access levels and how to manage them.

If the agency holds it. Ask for Admin access for an email at your business, and ask whose card pays for the clicks. Google's help on client account ownership says the client account still owns its data and can remove a manager's ownership by unlinking. An agency's manager account staying linked while they run your ads is normal.

Check it yourself. Open your profile on Google while signed in, then Business Profile settings and People and access. The label next to your email should read Primary owner. Only the primary owner can hand that role to someone else.

If the agency holds it. Ask the current primary owner to make you primary owner from the same People and access screen. The agency can stay on as an owner or manager to do the work. Google's help on owners and managers says a new owner or manager waits 7 days before managing every feature, so ask early rather than the week you need it.

Check it yourself. Look your domain up at ICANN Lookup. It shows the registrar and, unless a privacy service masks it, the registrant. Then log in to that registrar yourself: the domain should sit in an account you can open, with your business as the registrant.

If the agency holds it. Ask for the domain to be moved into a registrar account in your business name; your registrar's help pages explain its steps. ICANN expects every registrant to keep accurate contact details with the registrar, which is far easier when the account is yours. If you only fix one thing on this list, make it this one: your website and your email both depend on the domain.

Check it yourself. Try logging in to the site's editor or admin screen with your own login. Then find out who pays the hosting or site-builder bill, and whether that account is in your name.

If the agency holds it. Ask for an administrator login and a written answer on what you keep if you part ways: the site itself, a full copy of its files, or neither. Some platforms cannot be moved to another host, and that can be fine, as long as you know it before you sign rather than after.

Check it yourself. Look at the phone number on your Business Profile, your ads and your website. If any of them is not a line you pay for, it is likely a tracking number, which shows which calls came from which ad. Ask whose account it sits in.

If the agency holds it. Tracking numbers are useful, and an agency holding them is common. Ask in writing whether the numbers can move to an account in your name if you part ways. If they cannot, plan to put your own number back on your profile and site before the old ones stop working.

Check it yourself. In Google Analytics, open Admin, then Access management at the account level. Look for your email with the Administrator role. Google's help on managing users says adding users takes Administrator at the account or property level and deleting them takes Administrator at the account level, so account level is the one to have.

If the agency holds it. Ask to be added as Administrator at the account level, with an email at your business. A new property starts with no history, so access to the one already holding your data is worth asking for now.

Check it yourself. In Search Console, open Settings, then Users and permissions. Owners show as verified or delegated. Google's help on owners and users says a property needs at least one verified owner, or no user has access to it.

If the agency holds it. Ask a verified owner to add you as an owner, then verify the site yourself as well, which is simplest once the domain is in your name. That way access never rests on one person's login.

Check it yourself. In Meta Business Suite, open Settings. Under Users, People shows who has access to your business portfolio and Partners shows the businesses you have shared assets with. Your Page and ad account should belong to your own portfolio, with the agency added as a partner. Meta explains the portfolio roles.

If the agency holds it. Meta's help on partner access says only the business that owns an asset can share it with another business, and a partner with full control still cannot share it on. So ask the agency to give your portfolio full control of the Page and ad account, and set up anything new inside your own portfolio with the agency added as a partner.

Check it yourself. Log in yourself and export your contacts to a spreadsheet. If you cannot log in, or the export is not open to you, you do not hold the list yet.

If the agency holds it. Agencies often run clients inside their own CRM account, and that is a normal setup. Ask whose name the account is in, and get in writing that you can export your contacts and conversation history whenever you ask, including on the way out.