What to hand over, and keep, when you outsource your marketing

Why ownership comes first

Ownership comes first because marketing assets take years to build and minutes to lose. A Google profile with years of reviews, a domain your customers know, an ad account with history: each one is worth far more than any month of work done on it.

Plenty of trades owners discover, only when they try to change helpers, that a nephew, a web designer or an agency holds the keys. The domain is registered under someone else's email. The Google profile's primary owner is an address nobody can reach. The ad account belongs to an agency that will not hand it over.

None of this is usually malicious. It happens because setting things up in the helper's name was quicker at the time. But it leaves you dependent. Fixing it before you outsource, rather than after, costs an evening instead of a month.

The ownership checklist

Go through this list with a coffee and your phone. For each item, you want a yes to both questions: is it in my business's name, and can I log in myself today?

Core assets

1. Domain name. Registered to your business, at a registrar where you have your own login and your own card on file. Check the renewal date and turn on auto-renew.
2. Website hosting. Either in your name, or covered by a written agreement that says the site files are yours and how you get them.
3. Business email. Ideally on your own domain, on an account you control.
4. Google Business Profile. You as primary owner. Others can be managers.

Advertising and tracking

5. Google Ads account. Billed to your card, with you as an administrator.
6. Other ad accounts you use, on the same rule.
7. Analytics. You as an administrator of your website analytics.
8. Tracking phone numbers. Know who the provider is, and that numbers can be moved or forwarded if you change agencies.

Content and proof

9. Photos and videos. Originals stored somewhere you control, not only inside an agency's folder.
10. Review platforms. Any directory or review site where you have a listing, with your own login.
11. Social accounts. Business pages with you as an administrator.
12. Brand files. Your logo in a usable format, plus fonts and colours written down.

Paperwork

13. A list of every login, stored in a password manager you control.
14. Any agency contract, read once more for clauses about ownership, notice periods and handover.

If you score twelve or more yeses, you are in good shape. Fewer than eight, fix those first.

How to check each item in one evening

You can check most of this in about two hours without technical help.

• Domain: look up your domain's registrar through a public lookup tool, then try logging in there. If you cannot, ask whoever set it up which account holds it.
• Google Business Profile: search your business name on Google while logged in. If you see the edit options, you have access. Inside the profile settings, look for the list of people and their roles.
• Ads: log in to Google Ads with your own address. If you have no account, ask your current helper whose card and account the ads run on.
• Website: ask your host or designer, in writing, who owns the site files and how you would get a copy.

Write down what you find in a simple table: asset, who owns it, who has access, what to fix. That table becomes your handover document.

The 30-day handover plan

The goal of the handover is to change who does the work without any visible change to customers. No dead phone numbers, no missing listing, no gap in ads.

Days 1–7: access and inventory

• Complete the ownership checklist above.
• Move any asset not in your name into your name.
• Give your new provider manager access, not ownership.
• Export or copy anything that only lives in the old provider's systems: photos, page text, ad history reports.

Days 8–14: clean-up

• Correct business details everywhere: name, phone, hours, service areas.
• Remove duplicate listings.
• Review ads: pause anything with no tracking, set a monthly ceiling.
• Set up tracking numbers, forwarding to your main line.

Days 15–30: overlap and switch

• Run the new routine while the old provider, if any, winds down.
• Check every phone number still rings through. Call each one yourself.
• Confirm the first monthly report shows calls by source.
• Remove the old provider's access once everything works.

On day 30, you should be able to say: I own everything, I can see where my calls come from, and someone is doing the weekly work. This is the same sequence our marketing desk follows in its first month.

What you should keep doing yourself

Outsourcing the work does not mean outsourcing every decision. Keep these with you:

• Prices and offers. Anything that commits your business to a price, discount or promise to customers.
• Which work you want. Only you know which jobs make money and which drain the crew.
• Answering customers. The calls and texts belong to you; good marketing just sends more of them.
• A monthly fifteen minutes. Read the summary and say what changed in the business.

Everything else, from posts and pages to review requests and ad trimming, can be done by someone else. Our guide on how many hours marketing really takes helps you decide which tasks are worth handing off.

Red flags when choosing who to hand over to

A few warning signs suggest a provider will make the ownership problem worse, not better.

• They want to be primary owner of your Google profile.
• They will only run ads in their own account.
• They register a new domain in their name "to save you the hassle".
• Their report shows impressions and clicks but no calls.
• They promise rankings or a number of leads.
• The contract has no clear exit, or charges you to get your own files back.

Ask about each point before you sign. A good provider will answer without hesitation.

Leaving a provider cleanly

If you are leaving someone, do it in the same order: secure ownership first, then end the work. Send a polite written request listing each account you need transferred and a date. Keep your tone factual. Most providers co-operate when the request is clear.

For a Google Business Profile you cannot reach, Google has an ownership request process. For a domain, your registrar can explain transfer options. Keep copies of every message.

Once ownership is secured, give notice according to your contract. Then follow the 30-day plan with your new provider, so customers notice nothing.

Worked example: a three-person painting crew

Imagine a three-person painting crew doing suite repaints around Burquitlam station. The owner had a website built five years ago by a friend, a Google profile set up by a former office helper, and ads run by a small agency.

The checklist showed the domain was in the friend's name, the profile's primary owner was the former helper's personal email, and the ads ran in the agency's own account. In one evening, the owner messaged the friend, who transferred the domain within a week. The profile needed Google's ownership request, which took about two weeks. The agency could not move its account, so the owner opened a new one in the business's name and the new campaigns started there.

Total cost: a few evenings and some patience. Total calls lost: none, because the phone number never changed. That is the point of doing ownership first.

Where to go from here

If you would rather someone else handled the checklist, it is the first week of our marketing desk. If you want to talk it through first, the contact page explains what to send. Plans and terms are on the pricing page. We are a marketing service, not a contractor; this guide is practical marketing advice, not legal advice about any contract.