Who owns your Google Ads, analytics and domain? Check before you switch agencies

Your website, domain, ad accounts, analytics and business listings should all be in your business's name, with agencies and freelancers given access to them, not the other way round. It sounds obvious, and it's easy to get wrong without noticing, usually because a supplier set something up quickly at the start and nobody checked whose name went on it.

The trouble is that it matters most at exactly the moment it's hardest to fix: when you want to change supplier. If you haven't yet decided whether to switch, start by working out how to tell if your agency is doing a good job.

Why it matters

There are three reasons.

• History. A Google Ads account holds years of data on what worked, and your analytics holds the record of where your customers came from. Start again and you lose both.
• Learning. Automated bidding in ad platforms learns from your conversion data, and a new account starts that learning from scratch.
• Leverage. If a supplier holds your accounts, they hold a lot of power over how the relationship ends, whatever the contract says.

None of this assumes bad faith. It's often down to haste rather than malice: someone set up an account under their own login to get going quickly. It still needs fixing.

What you should own, and the role to hold

Every platform names its roles differently, so here's what each one means.

Google Ads

Google Ads has five access levels: Email only, Billing, Read only, Standard and Admin. An Admin can give people access to the account, change their access levels, and accept or remove links to manager accounts. Agencies commonly manage clients through a manager account of their own, which is normal and fine, as long as the account itself is yours and someone in your business is an Admin.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics 4 has five roles: Administrator, Editor, Marketer, Analyst and Viewer. Google describes the Administrator as having full control of Analytics, including managing users. Someone in your business should be an Administrator at account level, not merely a Viewer.

Google Tag Manager

Tag Manager has two layers of permissions. On the account, an Admin can create containers and manage users. On each container, the permissions run from Read through Edit and Approve to Publish, which is the one that lets changes go live. Your business should hold Admin on the account.

Google Search Console

Search Console distinguishes between owners and users. A verified owner has proved the site is theirs with a verification token, a code Google gives you to put on the site. A delegated owner has simply been handed ownership by a verified one. Only owners can add and remove users and owners, link Google Analytics and change settings, so your business should be a verified owner.

Google Business Profile

A Business Profile can have several owners but only one primary owner. Managers can do most things, but they can't add or remove users or remove the profile. Your business should be the primary owner.

Meta

Facebook and Instagram are managed through a business portfolio in Meta Business Suite. Your business should own the portfolio and give the agency access to it, rather than the agency keeping your pages and ad accounts inside its own.

Your domain

The registrant is the person or organisation a domain is registered to. For .uk domains the registry is run by Nominet, and the registrant is recorded there whichever registrar you use. Moving a domain to another registrar and changing who the registrant is are two different things, so check both. The registrant should be your business, not your web designer, a former employee or a former agency, and the registrar login should be yours. If the registrant is wrong, your registrar can tell you how to change it.

Check yours in an afternoon

Work through the list below. Your ticks are saved in this browser.

• Our domain's registrant is our business, and we hold the registrar login.
  What good looks like

  The registrar's records name your business as the registrant, and someone in the business can log in to the registrar account with a business email address.

  Takes fifteen minutes. Covered in full above.

• We hold an administrator login to the website and the hosting account.
  What good looks like

  Someone in the business can log in as an administrator to the website's content system and to the hosting account, without asking anyone.

  Takes fifteen minutes. Covered in full above.

• Someone in our business is an Admin on our Google Ads account.
  What good looks like

  In Google Ads, under Access and security, a person in your business is listed with Admin access, using a business email address.

  Takes ten minutes. Covered in full above.

• Someone in our business is an Administrator on our Google Analytics account.
  What good looks like

  In Google Analytics, a person in your business is listed as an Administrator at account level.

  Takes ten minutes. Covered in full above.

• We hold Admin on our Google Tag Manager account.
  What good looks like

  In Google Tag Manager, a person in your business has Admin on the account, not only on a container.

  Takes ten minutes. Covered in full above.

• We are a verified owner in Google Search Console.
  What good looks like

  Search Console lists someone in your business as a verified owner of the property, not only as a user added by someone else.

  Takes ten minutes. Covered in full above.

• We are the primary owner of our Google Business Profile.
  What good looks like

  In the profile's settings, someone in your business is shown as the primary owner.

  Takes ten minutes. Covered in Google Business Profile: how to set one up properly, in the right order.

• We own our Meta business portfolio, and the agency has access to it.
  What good looks like

  Your business owns the Meta business portfolio holding your Facebook page, Instagram account and ad account, and the agency has been given access as a partner.

  Takes twenty minutes in Meta Business Suite. Covered in Choosing a social media agency: the questions to ask first.

• We own our email marketing account and our customer list.
  What good looks like

  The email marketing account is registered to your business, and you can export the full customer list yourself.

  Takes fifteen minutes. Covered in full above.

• None of these depend on one person's personal email address.
  What good looks like

  Every account above uses a business email address, and at least two trusted people can get into each one.

  Takes an hour to change any that do. Covered in full above.

That last one is easy to miss. An account set up under a founder's or a former employee's personal login can be very hard to recover when they leave. Use an address the business controls, and make sure at least two people can get in.

The accounts people forget

The table covers the big ones. These are easy to overlook, and just as awkward to get back:

• Email, and the domain's email settings. If your email runs on your domain, whoever controls the domain's settings controls where your email goes.
• Tracking phone numbers. If a supplier set up call tracking numbers on your ads or website, find out who owns them, because customers may have saved them.
• Review platforms. The accounts on review sites and directories where your customers leave feedback.
• Social media handles, including any created for a campaign and then left dormant.
• Stock image and font licences, which are often bought in the supplier's name and may not transfer to you.
• Website backups. Know where they are, and how to restore one without the supplier.
• Design files. The original, editable files for your logo, templates and key designs, not just the finished images.

Add any that apply to your own checklist.

When a former employee or an old supplier holds an account

This can be fixed, though it takes longer, and how you go about it depends on whether you can still reach the person.

If you can reach them: ask them in writing to add someone from your business with the top-level role (Admin, Administrator, primary owner or verified owner, depending on the platform), and then to remove themselves once the handover is confirmed. Be specific about which account and which role.

If you can't reach them: each platform has its own way for a business to prove its right to an account. For a website's Search Console property, for example, you can verify ownership yourself using one of Google's verification methods. That's one reason keeping control of your domain and website matters so much: it's often the key that unlocks everything else. For other platforms, use their support process, and be ready to show evidence that the business is yours, such as company details, invoices or access to the domain's email.

Whatever the route, fix one account at a time, write down what you did, and keep the new logins somewhere the business controls, not in one person's head or inbox.

If something isn't in your name

Ask for it to be transferred, in writing, and keep the request polite and specific: which account, which role you need, and by when. Most suppliers will simply do it. If one won't, check what your contract says about ownership of accounts, content and intellectual property, and take advice from your own solicitor if you need to. Each platform also has its own support process for account access, and it's sensible to try that before things escalate.

Switching agencies without losing your history

If you're planning to change supplier, the order matters.

1. Before you give notice, check who owns every asset in the table above, and fix anything that isn't in your name. It's much easier while the relationship is still working.
2. Record what exists. Take dated screenshots of your ad accounts' settings and campaigns, export your key reports, and note what tracking and integrations are in place.
3. Give notice, and ask for a handover in writing: account access in your name, all logins, all files and content created for you, and a short note of what was set up and changed.
4. Add the new supplier to your accounts with the access they need. Don't let them create new accounts to replace ones you already have unless there's a good reason.
5. Remove the old supplier's access once the handover is complete and the notice period has ended.
6. Check your tracking still works with a test enquiry, because tracking is easily broken during a handover.

Writing it into the contract

The easiest time to settle ownership is before any work starts. A marketing contract should say, in plain words, that:

• all accounts created for your business are in your business's name;
• your business owns the content, designs and data created for it, once paid for;
• the supplier will hand over access and files promptly at the end.

This isn't legal advice, and your own solicitor is the right person for the wording. But if a supplier objects to any of those three points, you've learned something useful before signing, which is exactly what the questions to ask a marketing agency before you sign are for.

Our GA4 and tracking fix is a fixed £2,500, and it starts by checking what you own and whether your tracking works.