Agency Transition Checklist Template

Your account lead starts the run once the client has chosen your agency. The transfer date on the first task sets every due date: this phase falls about thirteen weeks before it, so a long notice period can still be read and served in time, and the handover itself starts eight weeks out. These timings are this template’s choice.

• Set up the transition: the client, the outgoing agency, the transfer date and the people — the client, the outgoing agency, the services that move, the transfer date and the four people; every later task is assigned from these fields and dated from the transfer date
• Share the outgoing agency’s contract terms — the notice period and how notice must be given, any minimum term, the handover clauses, who owns the accounts, data, creative and code, and any fee or asset the outgoing agency says it keeps
• Record the notice and the end of the outgoing contract — the date notice was served and how, the date the outgoing contract ends, and the transfer date on the first task checked against it; if notice has not been served, the client serves it now in the form the contract asks for
• Tell the outgoing agency who is taking over — the client tells the outgoing agency in writing that your agency takes over on the transfer date, names its contact for the handover and authorises it to share the account details with your agency

Before anyone is given or loses access, list every account and file the client’s marketing depends on, and who owns each one. The transfer list built here is what both agencies sign off and the client confirms in Phase 7.

• Agree the handover timetable with the outgoing agency — a call with the outgoing agency’s contact to agree the dates in this checklist, what it will send and when, and that it keeps the account running unchanged until the transfer date
• Send the list of the client’s accounts and assets — every ad account, analytics property, tag manager container, Search Console property, social page, domain, hosting account, email or CRM account, file store and tool used for the client, with who owns it, who pays for it and who has admin access
• List what the client can already see — the client contact signs in to each account in their own name and lists the ones where they are an administrator, the ones where they have less, and the ones they cannot find
• Build the transfer list — one line per account or asset from both lists, with the platform, who owns it today, whether the client has admin access and the date it moves; anything only one list shows is checked with both sides; the client contact and the outgoing agency’s contact are assigned too, so they can open the list and add to it
• Find the personal data the outgoing agency holds — email lists, CRM records, form leads, customer lists uploaded for audiences and any exports, where each one is kept and whether it moves, stays with the client’s own systems or is deleted
• Ask for the handover formally under the contract — the client writes to the outgoing agency citing the contract’s handover and ownership clauses, lists what is missing from the transfer list and gives a date
• Recover access through each platform’s own route — the client uses the routes each platform gives an account’s owner, and lists what cannot be recovered so your agency can rebuild it

The client gives your agency access from the client’s own accounts, at the level each job needs, while the outgoing agency still has its access. Where the outgoing agency owns an account, it gives your agency access at the client’s written request, and Phase 4 then moves the account to the client. Nobody shares a password: every person signs in with their own account.

• Give your agency access to Google Ads — the client accepts a link request from your agency’s manager account or invites your users, at the access level each person needs, and keeps at least one administrator of its own
• Give your agency access to Google Analytics — the client adds your people to the property (or the account) with the role each needs; adding users needs the Administrator role
• Give your agency access to Google Tag Manager — the client adds your people to the container with Read, Edit, Approve or Publish rights as each job needs, and keeps the account’s administrators inside its own organisation
• Give your agency access to Search Console — an owner of the property adds your people as full users, or as owners where they need to manage users, and the client checks it has a verified owner of its own
• Share the Meta assets with your agency’s business portfolio — someone with full control of the client’s business portfolio shares its Pages and ad accounts with your portfolio as a partner, with full control or partial access for the tasks you do
• Give access to the other social and ad accounts — every other platform on the transfer list (for example LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest or Microsoft Advertising) shared through that platform’s own admin or partner route, each in the client’s ownership
• Give access to the domain, DNS and hosting — your technical lead added as a named user at the domain registrar, the DNS host and the website host, or the access agreed for this job, with no shared logins
• Test every access your agency was given — each account opened by the person who will work in it, the access level checked against the job, and anything missing sent back to the client the same day

Applies only when the outgoing agency owns some of the client’s accounts (answered on the transfer list). Each one moves to the client’s side, or is replaced, before the outgoing agency loses access, and the billing moves first.

• Agree how each agency-owned account moves — for each account the outgoing agency owns, the route agreed in writing (moved into the client’s ownership, or replaced by a new account in the client’s name; shared with the client for now only as a stopgap, which gives access, not ownership), who does it and the date
• Move the billing off the outgoing agency — every ad account the outgoing agency pays for, or invoices through its own manager account, moved to the client’s payment method or a billing setup under a manager account that stays linked
• Hand Google Ads ownership to the client’s side — for an account the outgoing agency’s manager account owns, the client contact made an administrator of the account first, then ownership transferred to your manager account or turned off
• Move the Analytics property into the client’s account — a property in the outgoing agency’s Analytics account moved to an account the client owns, with the permissions option chosen, and the links and data streams checked afterwards
• Move the Tag Manager container to the client — for a container in the outgoing agency’s Tag Manager account, either, where that account holds only this client’s containers, the client’s people made administrators of it before the agency removes itself, or the container exported and imported into a container in the client’s own account and published on the site in place of the old one
• Move the agency-owned Meta assets into the client’s ownership — any Page, ad account or other asset that the outgoing agency’s business portfolio owns, moved into the client’s portfolio where Meta allows it or replaced by a new asset in the client’s name; a share with the client’s portfolio gives access, not ownership, so any asset that can only be shared is recorded on the transfer list as not yet moved

Applies only when the website, hosting or domain is on the outgoing agency’s account (answered on the first task). The domain moves into the client’s own name and the site moves without breaking email or the client’s own Search Console verification.

• Plan the website and domain move — where the site, the domain and the DNS will live, every DNS record copied (including email and verification records), the order of the steps and a date with low traffic
• Hand over the website files, database and logins — a full copy of the site files and database, the theme or code repository, plugin and licence details and the admin logins for the client’s own users
• Move the domain into the client’s own registrar account — the domain transferred or pushed to a registrar account in the client’s name, the renewal date and the contact details checked, and every DNS record still in place
• Move the site and check it — the site running on the new host, forms, checkout and tracking tested, email still delivered, and the client’s own Search Console verification still in place

The reports, files and history the client paid for come across, and every campaign that is running keeps running through the switch. Personal data moves only on the client’s instructions.

• Send the reports, creative and source files — past monthly reports, performance exports, audit notes, the creative and copy, source design files and anything else the contract says the client owns, sent by a secure link
• Give the instructions for the personal data — the client decides which personal data moves to your agency, which stays in the client’s own systems and which the outgoing agency returns or deletes, and puts that in writing to both agencies
• Put a processing contract in place with your agency — where your agency will process the personal data on the client’s behalf, a written contract between the client and your agency covering it, signed before any of it reaches you
• Record how the tracking and accounts are set up — conversion actions and where each fires, tags and triggers, audiences and remarketing lists, naming rules, scripts and automated rules, and anything that relies on the outgoing agency’s own accounts
• List every campaign that is running — each live campaign, flight or automated rule with its platform, budget, end date and anything booked for the weeks around the transfer date
• Agree who runs each campaign until the transfer date — for each live campaign, whether the outgoing agency runs it unchanged to the transfer date or your agency takes it over earlier, and no new campaigns launched in the last week without both agencies agreeing
• Move the personal data securely — the personal data the client named sent to your agency by a secure route, never by email attachment, with a record of what was sent and received
• Check budgets and billing will not lapse at the switch — each ad account’s payment method, budgets and spending limits checked for the weeks either side of the transfer date, so no campaign stops because a card or invoice belonged to the outgoing agency

Both agencies walk through the transfer list and sign it off, the transfer date passes with every campaign still running, and the client confirms every asset is in its ownership. That confirmation is the gate: on the transfer date the client lowers the outgoing agency’s access to accounts the client already owns, and the rest of its access is removed only once the answer is Confirmed.

• Run the handover call with both agencies and the client — the transfer list, the running campaigns, tracking and conversions, what has been tried and learned, open issues and the dates ahead, walked through with a record sent to everyone afterwards
• Write the first-30-days plan — what your agency will check, keep, change and report in the first 30 days, built from the handover call and agreed with the client contact
• Sign off the transfer list for the outgoing agency — the outgoing agency confirms the transfer list is complete and that each item has moved or will move by the date shown
• Sign off the transfer list for your agency — your account lead confirms every item on the transfer list has been received, tested or scheduled, and lists anything still open
• Check every campaign is still running on the transfer date — each campaign serving, each conversion recording and the site’s tags firing on the transfer date, with the outgoing agency asked to make no further changes
• Lower the outgoing agency’s access to accounts the client owns — on every account the client already owns and administers, the outgoing agency’s users removed or set to the least access the platform offers on the transfer date, and any shared password it knows changed today; it keeps admin access only where it still owns the account or is its only administrator, until the confirmation
• Confirm the personal data is returned or deleted — the outgoing agency confirms in writing to the client that it has returned or deleted the personal data it processed for the client, as the client chose, with any copy the law requires it to keep named
• Client confirms every asset is in its ownership — the client contact confirms that every account and asset on the transfer list is in the client’s ownership, with the client as administrator, before the outgoing agency’s remaining access is removed; nothing after this task can be completed until it is answered, and the Phase 8 tasks appear only when the answer is Confirmed
• Move the outstanding items and confirm again — each item the client named moved or replaced, then the decision on the confirmation changed to Confirmed (or the task un-completed and completed again); the outgoing agency keeps its remaining access until then

Its tasks appear only when the client’s answer in Phase 7 is Confirmed; if it is Not yet, finish the follow-up task there first. The client, as the owner, removes the outgoing agency’s remaining users and links from each account; your technical lead checks nothing was missed.

• Remove the outgoing agency from Google Ads — the outgoing agency’s users removed and its manager account unlinked, after the billing and shared lists that depended on it were replaced; your manager account made the owner if the client wants that
• Remove the outgoing agency from Analytics and Tag Manager — the outgoing agency’s users removed from the Analytics account and its properties (including any roles given for a property move) and from the Tag Manager account and containers, with the client’s own administrators kept
• Remove the outgoing agency from Search Console and its tokens — the outgoing agency’s users and owners removed, and any verification token of a removed verified owner taken off the site or DNS
• Remove the outgoing agency from Meta and the other social accounts — the outgoing agency removed as a partner from the client’s business portfolio, after checking on the transfer list that no asset the client relies on is only shared by the outgoing agency, and its people removed from every other social and ad account
• Close the outgoing agency’s other logins — its users removed from the registrar, DNS, hosting, website, email and CRM tools, file stores and any other tool on the transfer list, and any password it ever knew changed
• Check the outgoing agency can no longer get in — each account’s user list read against the transfer list, nothing left for the outgoing agency, and the date recorded for the client

Your agency works to the plan written in Phase 7. The first month checks what was handed over before anything big changes, and ends with a review with the client.

• Set the baseline from the handed-over history — the last three months of results before the transfer date, from the client’s own accounts, recorded as the baseline your first reports compare against
• Audit the tracking and conversions — every conversion and tag checked against the set-up record, with anything that stopped at the switch fixed and logged
• Send the first report — the first report from your agency, against the baseline, with what changed at the switch and what you are doing next
• Hold the 30-day review with the client — the first-30-days plan reviewed with the client contact: what was done, what was found in the handover, and the plan for the next three months