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6 min read

Agency contracts, lock-ins, and who owns your accounts

What to check before signing, and why account ownership matters more than the notice period.

Contract terms get skimmed because they feel like the boring part of choosing an agency. They are usually the part that costs you money, and almost always the part that decides how painful leaving is.

Two clauses matter more than the rest: how you exit, and who owns what when you do. This guide covers both, plus the terms worth negotiating before rather than after signing.

The short version

  • A fixed term is only reasonable if it buys something in return — better rates, guaranteed capacity, or a defined body of work.

  • Ask whether work continues at full scope during the notice period, and get the answer in writing.

  • Your social accounts, ad accounts and tracking should be owned by your business, with the agency granted access as a user.

  • Running campaigns inside an agency's ad account means the spend history, audiences and optimisation data stay with them when you leave.

  • Agree whether raw files, strategy documents and content calendars transfer on exit — before production starts, not after.

rolling versus fixed-term

A fixed term — commonly six or twelve months — is not automatically unreasonable. Social media work compounds, and an agency committing senior time to a strategy has a fair argument that a one-month exit makes planning impossible.

The question is what the commitment buys you. A fixed term in exchange for better rates, guaranteed capacity, or a defined body of work is a trade. A fixed term with no corresponding commitment on the other side is just a lock-in.

OmniNova's own position, for transparency: engagements run on a rolling basis with a notice period agreed at the outset. That is a choice, not an industry standard, and reasonable agencies structure this differently.

what a fair notice period looks like

Notice exists so neither side is left stranded. An agency needs enough warning to wind down and reassign people; you need enough time to bring the work in-house or move it.

What matters more than the length is what happens during it. Ask explicitly whether work continues at full scope through the notice period, or whether it quietly degrades once notice is given. Get the answer in writing — this is where goodwill tends to evaporate.

account and asset ownership: the clause that matters most

This is the single most expensive thing to get wrong, and the easiest to fix before signing. If an agency creates assets or accounts under its own ownership, leaving can mean losing them.

Social accounts
Your channels should be registered to your business, with the agency added as a user or admin. An agency that creates the account under its own credentials controls it.
Advertising accounts
Ad accounts should sit inside your own Business Manager, with agency access granted through partner permissions. Running your campaigns inside the agency's account means the spend history, the audiences and the optimisation data are theirs, not yours — and that history has real value.
Pixels, tags and measurement
Tracking should be installed on your property, under your account. Rebuilding conversion history after a move is not just administrative — it costs you the learning the platforms have accumulated.
Raw files and working assets
Ask whether you receive raw footage and working files or only finished exports. Finished exports cannot be recut for a new format. The difference is usually a licensing question, so raise it before production rather than after.
Content calendar and documentation
Strategy documents, calendars and response libraries are commonly treated as the agency's working material. Agree up front whether they transfer, because they represent months of accumulated decisions.

terms worth agreeing before you start

None of these are unusual requests. An agency reluctant to put them in writing is telling you something useful.

Defined deliverables
Specific outputs and cadence, not a description of activity. This is what makes a scope dispute resolvable.
Approval process and turnaround
Who approves, in what window, and what happens if approval does not arrive. Slow approvals are a common cause of missed schedules and later disputes about whose fault that was.
Reporting cadence and format
What you receive, how often, and whether it includes interpretation or only figures.
Confidentiality
Mutual, covering your commercial data and any material shared during the engagement.
Exit and handover
What is transferred, in what format, and within how long. Specify it while everyone is still getting along.

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