Switching marketing agencies: what you take, and what you never had

Before switching marketing agencies, take inventory of three things, in this order. What is opened in your company's name and leaves with you. What you believe you own, but actually sits with the supplier. And what you never had, because nobody ever wrote it down. That inventory happens before you give notice, not after. While the contract is running, every request is a formality. The day after notice, the same request becomes a favour.

This page is for the owner or general manager of a Quebec industrial or B2B SME who is thinking about leaving a marketing supplier. It does not tell you whether to leave. The questions for choosing the next one are in how to choose a B2B marketing agency. This page is only about what walks out the door with you.

Why the inventory comes before the notice

An honest supplier will hand over what is yours, even after a tense exit. The problem is rarely bad faith. It is that nobody on either side ever made the list. Access was created over the months, by whoever was there, with whatever email address was at hand.

Take, as an illustration, a structural steel fabricator on the South Shore that has worked with the same agency for four years. The website has been rebuilt twice. The campaigns have moved between platforms. Three people have rotated through the account at the supplier. When it is time to leave, nobody at the fabricator knows who administers the company page, or where the files from the shoot two years ago are stored. None of that is fraud. It is simply what happens to a relationship that lasted without anyone keeping the register.

Taking inventory while the relationship is still good costs one meeting. Doing it afterwards costs weeks of email, and sometimes an asset.

What leaves with you, if it is in your name

Everything opened in your company's name follows you. The words that matter are in your name. Check each item on its own:

• The ad accounts. They should be opened under your company, with the supplier working in them as a guest. If they are opened under the supplier's company, read who should own the Meta ad account before anything else.
• The domain name and the website. The domain registered to the company, and an administrator login held by someone on your staff.
• The company pages on social platforms. At least one administrator should be one of your employees, not only the supplier.
• The videos and photographs delivered. The final files, in every format delivered, stored on your side and not only behind a sharing link.

One simple test applies to each of these: can someone at your company remove the supplier's access without asking the supplier's permission. If the answer is no for even one of them, that is the first thing to fix. And it gets fixed while you are still a client.

What you think you have, and do not

This is the category that hurts, because it surfaces at the worst possible moment.

Access created with the wrong address. An account opened with the email address of someone at the supplier belongs, in practice, to whoever receives the password reset emails. If that person left the agency two years ago, nobody really has it any more.

The right to use the footage. Having the file does not mean having the right to use it everywhere, forever. A licence can be limited in time or in media, and the limit tends to appear the day a new supplier wants to recut the video for a campaign. The raw footage is physically with the producer. If the contract says nothing, getting it back depends on their goodwill. The difference between holding a file and holding the rights is covered in who owns the raw video footage.

Music and stock images. A soundtrack bought by the producer may have been bought under the producer's own licence, for one specific use. If the next supplier re-edits the video, the track does not necessarily come along. Ask in whose name each licence was purchased.

The reports. If your results history lives only inside the supplier's reporting tool, it leaves with their subscription. Monthly reports should sit with you, as files, as they are produced.

What you never had

That leaves the category no clause can recover: what was learned. Which messages reached plant managers. Which ones pulled in requests worth nothing. Which audience was dropped, and why. If that knowledge was never written down, it lives in one person's head at the supplier. It does not leave with you, because it was never yours.

This is often the real loss in a change of supplier, more than any file. The next one reruns tests that were already done, on your budget. The only protection is to demand it along the way: a written record of what was tried, what was kept and what was dropped. A serious supplier already has it in their reports. If they cannot produce it, you have just learned something about what you were paying for.

When this inventory is pointless

Three situations where this page does not really apply.

Your supplier delivered a single project, finished and paid for, with the files. You have no relationship to leave, only a folder to archive. Check that the licence covers the use you have in mind, and move on.

Nothing was ever produced or opened. Some relationships amount to posting on pages you already owned. There is nothing to recover, and that in itself tells you what to demand from the next supplier.

The exit is already adversarial, or the contract carries penalties. This is no longer a marketing question. Read the agreement with your own counsel before sending anything. This page tells you what to ask them to check, not how to interpret your contract.

What is settled in advance with us

I would rather a client be able to leave with what they paid for, and the Signal Program is written that way. The client owns the ad accounts. The content licence is for life, with no time limit. After the 3-month minimum engagement, the client can stop at any time, with no annual commitment. And because we are two people, and the person who shoots is the person who runs the accounts, nothing is relayed through an account manager who might one day leave with the memory of your file.

The full logic of working with a long-cycle B2B firm is on the B2B marketing agency page. If you are already comparing replacements, the questions to ask before signing are in how to choose a B2B marketing agency. Ask the one about leaving first.