Switching performance marketing agency
Expect three months' notice to the end of a quarter, and four to six weeks before a new agency is working at the previous level. The switch itself is rarely the problem. It becomes expensive where advertising accounts, audiences and historical data sit with the old agency rather than with you.
How to tell a switch is due
Not every frustration justifies the effort. These signs generally do:
- Reporting shows reach rather than results. If after twelve months nobody can say what an enquiry cost, that is not a measurement problem but a decision.
- Nothing gets switched off any more. Campaigns continue because they are running. A working account changes every month.
- The assets have been the same for months. On Meta and LinkedIn, creative fatigue is measurable and the most common cause of rising cost per result.
- You only speak to junior staff. Team changes are normal. When nobody left can explain your business, it has stopped being a change and become a pattern.
- You cannot access your own account. If you cannot look inside it, it is not effectively yours.
Not a good reason: one weak month. Fluctuation is part of it. Only a trend across a quarter means anything.
What is actually at stake
| Asset | Risk on switching |
|---|---|
| Advertising account | If held by the agency, you lose the entire history with the contract |
| Pixel and conversions API | Rebuilding restarts optimisation from zero, typically four to six weeks |
| Audiences and lists | Built over months, not reconstructable quickly |
| Learned events | Delivery needs data volume before it optimises reliably again |
| Creative assets | Usage rights follow the contract and often do not pass to you automatically |
| Landing pages | If hosted by the agency, they leave with it |
This table is the real content of an agency switch. Everything else is administration.
How a clean handover runs
1. Read the contract before giving notice. Notice period, termination date, provisions on usage rights and data release. Giving notice first and reading afterwards means negotiating from the weaker position.
2. Secure access while the engagement still runs. Administrator rights on your own business portfolio, analytics, search console and advertising accounts. This is the step most often forgotten.
3. Review by the incoming agency. What runs, what is measured, and how much of it holds. With us this takes around a week and happens before any change.
4. Overlap rather than a hard stop. Two to four weeks during which both parties have access. It is uncomfortable and it prevents campaigns breaking mid-handover.
5. Take over in stages. Measurement first, then management, then creative. Changing everything at once makes it impossible to say afterwards what worked.
Why we are worth considering
We take over existing accounts rather than rebuilding. That is the exception in this market, for a simple reason: a mature account is an asset. Resetting it is convenient for the agency and expensive for you.
Where we advise against switching. If the underlying cause sits inside your organisation, in unclear objectives or in enquiries that nobody processes, changing agency solves nothing. We say so during the review, even where it argues against the engagement.
What it costs
The review of your existing account is free. If we take over afterwards, the regular entry point applies: an ongoing engagement starts at €3,500 per month for one channel. For the first three months we charge €3,000. Across several channels the entry point is €6,000. Media budget runs separately through your own accounts.
Budget additionally for a transition period of four to six weeks in which cost per result temporarily rises. Failing to plan for it means judging the new partner on precisely the dip the switch itself created.
Frequently asked questions.
Useful next steps.
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