Who should own your ad accounts?
Your brand should always own its ad accounts. Google Ads, the Meta ad account, the pixel, the catalog, Merchant Center and the GA4 property belong under your own company accounts, and the agency connects to them through access permissions only. That way, if you change agencies, the campaign history, conversion data and audiences stay with you.
This usually comes up when a brand parts ways with its agency, and by then it's hard to fix. The right moment is the first meeting and the contract.
What do you lose if the agency owns the ad account?
An ad account is more than a list of campaigns. Over the years it builds up:
- Performance history by campaign, ad group and creative
- Conversion actions and the data bid strategies have learned from
- Remarketing and customer list audiences
- Billing history and invoices
- Event data collected through the pixel and the Conversions API
If the account was opened under the agency's company, handing those assets over at the end depends on the agency's goodwill. A pattern we see often: a brand starting from scratch in a new account sees acquisition costs rise in the first weeks, because everything the algorithms learned stayed behind in the old one.
How do you keep ownership of your Google Ads account?
Two concepts matter in Google Ads: user access levels and manager account (MCC) links. Google's help page lists the access levels as email-only, read-only, billing, standard and admin. Admin access includes adding and removing users and accepting or removing manager account links.
Agencies usually link client accounts to their own manager account. That's normal, and it doesn't hand ownership to the agency on its own. According to Google, a link doesn't give the manager account administrative ownership by default; that's a separate setting you have to turn on. If it is turned on, the agency's admins can also change user access in your account.
Practical rule: keep at least one, ideally two, people from your company at admin level in your account. Google itself warns that an account with a single admin can lose access if that person becomes unavailable.
How do you set up a Meta business portfolio and partner access?
In Meta's business asset structure, a business can own assets or access another business's assets as an agency. The right setup: your ad account, Facebook Page, Instagram account, pixel and catalog sit in your business portfolio. The agency's business portfolio is added as a partner and gets access only to the assets it needs.
So when the engagement ends, all you have to do is remove the partner's access. Your account, data and audiences stay where they are.
Who should own GA4, Merchant Center and other tools?
These assets matter as much as the ad accounts and are often forgotten:
| Asset | Who should own it | Access for the agency | What happens if you forget |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | Brand | Standard or admin, MCC link | Campaign and conversion history is lost |
| Meta ad account and pixel | Brand business portfolio | Partner access | Pixel data and audiences are lost |
| GA4 property | Brand Google account | Editor or Marketer | Historical analytics data is lost |
| Google Merchant Center | Brand | User access | Product feed and approval history are lost |
| Google Tag Manager | Brand | Publish rights if needed | Tag setup has to be rebuilt |
| Search Console | Brand | User access | Access to SEO data is cut |
| Domain and DNS | Brand | None unless needed | Site and email are at risk |
In GA4, Google defines the Administrator role as full control, including adding and deleting users. The Editor role can change property settings but can't manage users. For most agencies, Editor or Marketer is enough.
How do you set up ownership when you start with an agency?
Finish these steps in the first week:
- Take inventory. List every ad, analytics and feed tool you use.
- Check the owner. Note which email or business account each asset was created under.
- Use a company email. Tie assets to an address on your company domain, not an employee's personal Gmail.
- Name two admins. Every critical asset should have at least two admins from inside the company.
- Give the agency only the access it needs. Ask which level its work requires and grant that.
- Put the payment method in your name. Ad spend should come from your card or your invoice.
- Write it into the contract. State that the assets belong to the brand and how access is removed if you part ways.
If an account was already opened under the agency's name, don't panic. Start with an open conversation; in most cases admin rights can be transferred or the assets moved into your portfolio. Where that isn't possible, at least ask for a full data export.
What should you say if the agency wants to open the account in its own name?
Some agencies suggest opening the account on their side, citing setup speed or credit limits. Some of those reasons can be real. Google, for example, requires manager account ownership to be enabled for monthly invoicing and credit line applications. Even then, the fix isn't handing the account to the agency; it's keeping ownership with the brand and granting the permissions needed.
Ask the agency: "If we stop working together, will this account and its data stay with us?" If the answer isn't a clear yes, change the setup now. We cover the other agency selection criteria in our guide on how to choose an ecommerce agency.
At Performetic, all of our clients' ad and analytics assets are created in the brand's own accounts, and we work through access permissions only. If you want to check where your assets stand before working with an ecommerce agency, we treat it as the first step of our growth strategy work. You can also request a free growth audit that includes an ownership check.
Key takeaways
- Ad accounts, pixels, GA4, Merchant Center and your domain should always sit under the brand's own accounts.
- The agency connects through access permissions; in Google Ads, an MCC link doesn't grant ownership by default.
- On Meta, assets stay in the brand's business portfolio and the agency is added as a partner.
- Every critical asset should have at least two in-house admins and use a company email.
- Ownership and how access is removed at the end should be written into the contract.