How to fire your marketing agency without losing your accounts, your data or your momentum

Is your marketing agency not delivering? Five checks first

Most agency disputes begin with a result that was never defined. Write down the number you hoped for (calls, form enquiries, bookings), the channel it was meant to come from and the date you expected it. If you cannot write it, the agency probably could not either. You are in good company: a 2024 survey of Canadian small-business advertisers found that 28% could not measure their results.

Then spend an afternoon on these five checks. They show whether the problem is the agency, the plan or something upstream.

1. 1
   Can you log in to everything?

   Ad accounts, analytics, website, domain and social profiles. If any sits under the agency's login and not yours, note it. It proves nothing about the work, but you need to fix it either way.

2. 2
   Can you see spend and results without asking?

   You should see what was spent and what it produced in a report you understand. A PDF of impressions and followers shows activity, not outcomes.

3. 3
   Is the tracking real?

   Fill in your own contact form, call the tracked number and make a test booking, then check that each shows up as a conversion. Broken tracking makes good campaigns look dead.

4. 4
   Does the path to a sale work?

   Open your site on a phone. Is it fast, does it say what you do in one sentence, and does the form reach someone? Leads that wait two days are usually gone.

5. 5
   Are the budget and timeline realistic for the channel?

   Paid ads need a few weeks and enough budget to learn. Search rankings and content are measured in months. Email and website fixes can show up in days.

Fix it or fire it: when it is the agency, and when it is not

Be fair before you act. Most agencies are not trying to mislead anyone; many are stretched thin or inherited a brief that was never clear. Sometimes the offer, the price or the sales follow-up is the real problem, and a new agency would meet the same wall. If it looks fixable, ask for a reset meeting and request three things in writing: the goals for the next 90 days, the tasks done each month and the report format.

Switch instead of repairing when you see two or more of these: no access to your own accounts, reporting you cannot decode, repeated missed commitments, or an unwillingness to commit to any goal in writing.

Before you give notice: the contract and who owns your accounts

The order matters. Read your contract first: the minimum term, the notice period, automatic renewal, who owns the work made for you and what happens at the end. Then confirm your access to every account, and only then give notice. This is not legal advice; a short consult with a lawyer is money well spent if the contract has unusual clauses. Do not stop paying abruptly, since that can turn a problem into a dispute.

For each asset below the goal is the same: it belongs to you or your company, you have an administrator login, and the agency is a guest you can remove.

A transition checklist for switching marketing agency

1. 1
   Take inventory

   List every account, tool and subscription marketing touches, who pays for it and whose name it is in. Add your logos, source design files and photos.

2. 2
   Get administrator access while the agency is still engaged

   Ask for it as routine housekeeping, in writing. Most agencies expect the request and grant it without fuss. Do not mention the end of the relationship yet.

3. 3
   Export and back up

   Download reports, campaign structures, keyword and audience lists, tracking IDs and your subscriber list. Confirm the list was built with proper consent under Canada's anti-spam law (CASL), because a new team will rely on it.

4. 4
   Line up the next team before you give notice

   Agree the first 30 days with them, and plan two to four weeks of overlap where you can. Ask for a handover plan, not just a start date.

5. 5
   Give notice in writing, then hold a handover call

   Follow the contract exactly and keep the message short, factual and neutral. Ask the agency to walk the new team through the campaigns, the tracking and anything scheduled.

6. 6
   Lock the doors

   Remove the agency's access, change shared passwords, turn on two-step verification and check the payment method on every ad account.

Keep your best-performing campaigns running until the new team has the account, pause anything plainly wasting money, and keep a few posts scheduled so your channels do not go quiet.

If the agency owns your accounts

It happens, usually through habit and not malice: an ad account under the agency's manager account, or a domain registered with the agency as owner. Ask in writing, point to the contract and give a reasonable date. A courteous request works more often than a threat.

If something stays out of reach, there is almost always a way forward. Domains transfer with an authorization code from the registrar, social platforms have ownership-recovery processes, and a blocked ad account can be replaced: you lose the history, not the business.

How to choose a marketing agency for your small business

Choose on four things: what the agency delivers in the first 30 days, who owns your accounts, how it charges and who you talk to each month. Awards and a long client list come second. Talk to three agencies, not ten, with the same written brief, and know your budget first, because agencies price to the number you say. Most small-business retainers in Canada run $2,500 to $5,000 a month, and agency hourly rates run $142 to $212 CAD (the full ranges are here). Ask every agency:

• What exactly will I have in 30 days? A good answer lists deliverables. A weak one lists meetings and audits.
• Whose name are the accounts in? Yours: the domain, hosting, Google Ads, Meta, analytics and social profiles.
• Who will actually do the work? Ask for names and seniority. Senior people pitching and juniors delivering is the most common gap between a sale and a result.
• How do you charge, and what is extra? Get the retainer, setup, design, video, tools and ad spend in writing, and ask whether any fee is a percentage of ad spend.
• What happens if I leave? Look for a notice period of a month or less, no cancellation fee and a clean handover.

Walk away from promises of a ranking, a number of leads or a return on ad spend before they know your business, from 6 to 12 month contracts that renew automatically, and from accounts registered to the agency.

Run the first 30 days as a test

Treat the first month as a trial, with or without a guarantee, and write the test down so day 30 is a decision, not a feeling. Agree two or three deliverables that exist by day 30. Agree what a result is, such as a call, a form or a booking, without agreeing a number nobody controls. Log in to every account yourself in week 1. At day 30, ask whether they delivered what was written, whether you understood the reporting and whether they asked good questions.

Location matters less than accountability. Check the time overlap with your hours, whether you contract with a Canadian company billed in CAD, and whether anyone has to be on site. Wherever the team sits, they should say so on day one.

Where Vesk fits

We hear this story on almost every first call, and it is why Vesk works the way it does. Vesk Marketing is in early access, so check us against every question above. Domains, ad accounts and social profiles are in your name from day one, every task and token is visible in the platform, and you meet a senior lead every month. Plans cancel anytime, and the first month is guaranteed: a full refund if it does not convince you, plus 8 bonus tokens. You contract with APRed, our Canadian company, in CAD, and the senior team works from Mexico City.

If the real problem is your offer or your sales follow-up, we will tell you on the call. If an old website is part of the mess, see small business website design.