Advertising Agency Transition: The Handover Order That Keeps Your Ad Accounts and Analytics

An advertising agency transition goes safely when you work in a fixed order. First confirm who owns each account. Then record who holds which access level, make sure you hold an administrator login, and save what the agency keeps outside your accounts. Only after that do you unlink the agency and remove its users.

By Avi Vatsa, CEO, Exchange Four Agency. Avi leads the team that installs and runs AI-leveraged revenue systems for owner-led companies. His background spans law, technology, and marketing; he also co-founded Dialora, an AI voice-agent platform for automated lead capture and booking. (Marketer of the Day #1411)

Why does the order of an advertising agency transition matter?

Most advice on leaving an agency is about contracts and timing. Timing and the plan for the first months are covered in how to switch marketing agencies without losing a quarter. This guide is about one narrower thing: the order in which you touch the accounts.

Two mistakes are easy to make. One is removing the agency before you hold administrator access yourself. The other is letting the agency leave with records that never lived inside your accounts. Do the checks first and the removals last.

The rules in this guide come from Google's own help pages for Google Ads and Google Analytics, read on 30 October 2026. Those are the only two platforms it makes rules about. It does not cover moving an Analytics property to a new owner.

What should you ask the agency for before anything changes?

Start with a written list. Ask the agency for every platform it runs for you, every login it uses, and the name of the person who holds each one. Ask for the files it keeps on its own side too: monthly reports, tracking sheets, naming notes and creative source files.

You cannot check what you do not know exists. If you handed over access in week one, the marketing agency onboarding checklist is a useful list to read in reverse. For the contract side, marketing agency contract terms lists the clauses worth rereading at this point.

Other platforms are not covered here. Each platform's own help pages decide how ownership and access work there, so ask the agency to list every platform and every login before the handover starts, and read the matching help page for each one.

Who owns the Google Ads account?

Confirm this before anything else, because ownership decides who can change access. Google Ads Help, on ownership of client accounts, states the basic rule.

"A client account can only have one owner."

The agency's manager account may be that owner. It may also be linked to your account without owning it. Ask the agency which it is, and ask for the answer in writing. The same page explains what protects you.

"Users of the client account do not have permission to transfer ownership but can always unlink a manager with ownership."

That matters for the order of work. If your own login sits in the client account, you can always remove a manager that owns it, without the agency's agreement. You still need the right level of access, covered below.

The page adds one more point about your data.

"The client account still owns its data and has the ability to remove ownership access by unlinking."

Your account history belongs to your account. What you can lose is everything the agency keeps outside it, which is why the save list comes before the removal.

Which access level does each person hold?

Every person with access to Google Ads has an access level. Google Ads Help, on access levels, says how it is set.

"Each time you grant access to your Google Ads account, you can select the features a user can impact by assigning an access level."

The page also explains why a manager link carries weight.

"If you've accepted an invitation to link to a manager account, users with admin access to the manager account can receive notification emails and manage your campaigns."

So the agency's people can reach your campaigns through the manager link and through any access granted to them directly. Both need a place on your list. In Analytics, access is also granted per person. Analytics Help, on users, says where.

"You can add users at the Analytics account or property level."

The guide to what access to give a marketing agency covers the levels themselves. Here you only need a record of who holds what, in one table of every grant. The numbers below are an illustrative example, invented to show the arithmetic. They are not a benchmark and not a real company.

In this example there are 11 grants, and the agency holds 6 of them. At the end of the handover, 6 grants should be gone and 5 should remain. If the count after is not 5, someone still has access who should not, or someone on your side lost it.

Add a column to your own copy for the level each person holds.

Do you hold administrator access yourself?

Check this before you touch the agency's access. The unlink page sets two conditions. Google Ads Help, on unlinking, says:

"You must have administrative access to the manager or client account to unlink the account from your manager account."

And it adds a detail about which login counts.

"You must be logged in with an email address that has admin-level access to the specific Google Ads client account."

Notice the second condition. Admin access on the agency's manager account is not the same as admin access on your own account. Sign in and find out which you hold now, while the agency is still cooperating.

Analytics has the same shape. Changing users needs the Administrator role.

"To add or modify users or user groups, you need to have the Administrator role at the account or property level."

Removing them needs it at account level.

"To delete user accounts or user groups, you need to have the Administrator role at the account level."

If the only administrator is an agency employee, you cannot make that change yourself. Add yourself as an administrator while they still can, and check the result by signing in.

Why must one administrator always remain?

Analytics has a built-in safeguard that shows the principle.

"As a safety measure, if you are the last user who has the Administrator role, you cannot delete yourself."

That rule is about one person deleting themselves, but the lesson is wider. At the end, someone on your side must hold the administrator role, because that is the level that adds and removes people. Our advice, which is not a Google rule, is to keep two administrators on your side, so one lost login does not leave you stuck.

What should you save before the agency's access is removed?

The agency's own files go when the agency goes. Save these while everyone still answers email. Take a dated file export where the platform offers one, and a dated screenshot where it does not.

1. The account structure. A list of campaigns with budgets, locations, schedules, ad text, keyword lists and negative keyword lists.
2. The conversion setup. Each conversion action or key event, what it counts, and how it is counted.
3. The tracking identifiers. The account IDs and tag or measurement IDs, so a new agency can match your history.
4. Monthly reports. Every report the agency sent, in a file you hold, with the definitions it used.
5. Audience and customer lists. Anything the agency built or uploaded for targeting.
6. Billing records. Invoices and the name on the payments profile. One help page warns that this part is handled separately.
7. The grant table. The one you built above, with the date you saved it.
8. The agency's own files. Tracking sheets, naming notes and creative source files.

The warning on billing comes from the access levels page.

"Google Ads users can't directly add or remove users from the payments profile or change existing user permissions."

So check who sits on the payments profile, and do not assume that removing someone from the ad account removes them there. Our guide to transferring your Google Ads and Meta accounts out of an agency covers billing and conversion history in depth, so this article does not repeat it.

In what order do you do the handover?

The full sequence, first check to last:

1. Get the platform and login list. Written, from the agency, naming a person for each login.
2. Confirm ownership in each Google Ads account. Find out whether the agency's manager owns your account or only links to it.
3. Build the grant table. Every person, every platform, every level.
4. Confirm your own administrator access. Sign in to Google Ads with the login you plan to keep, and to Analytics with yours. Do not rely on being told you have it.
5. Add a second administrator on your side. One more person you control.
6. Save the export list. Then ask the agency to confirm in writing that its own files have been sent.
7. Plan the Google Ads unlink and any new link together. An account can have only one direct manager, so do not leave this to the last day.
8. Unlink the agency's manager account. Use your admin login and the steps on Google's unlink page.
9. Review the Google Ads user list. Remove any agency person who was also given direct access.
10. Remove agency users in Analytics. Use an account-level administrator login.
11. Check as yourself the next day. Count the grants against your table. Are campaigns running, is billing correct and is new data arriving in reports?

The one-direct-manager point in step 7 comes from the unlink page.

"A Google Ads account or a manager account can only have one direct manager."

Steps 1 to 6 are checks and saves. Nothing is removed until step 8, so every removal comes after you have proved you can run the account without the agency.

What if the agency is slow to cooperate?

Some steps do not need the agency. With your own administrator login you can unlink a manager that owns the client account and review who has access. Only the lists and files in steps 1 and 6 depend on the agency. Ask early and in writing.

If the agency will not supply its own files, the contract is where that is settled, so reread the clauses on data and files. If the agency also hosts your website, domain or DNS, that is a separate handover with its own order, covered in getting control of hosting, domain and DNS.

What is the short version?

Confirm ownership, record every access level, prove you hold administrator access, add a second administrator, and save the agency's files and your own records. Then unlink the Google Ads manager account and remove the agency's Analytics users, and check the result as yourself the next day. Every check comes before every removal.