Who should own your ad accounts, and how to set it up

Contract wording about ownership means little if the accounts are set up the other way round. This page explains what the three platforms say about access and then suggests a set-up. I am not giving legal advice, and the platforms’ terms can change, so check their current help pages before you rely on any detail.

Google Ads

Google Ads has five access levels: Email only, Billing, Read only, Standard and Admin. Read only can view campaigns and use planning tools. Standard adds the ability to edit campaigns. Admin has everything the others have and, in addition, can give account access, change access levels and cancel invitations, add or remove product links, and review each user’s authentication method and last login time^[1]. Billing is its own level, with the ability to add or edit forms of payment and make payments, but not to view or edit campaigns.

To remove a person, the Access and security page has a Remove access action in the Actions column. Google adds that an account with only one administrator may lose access to its tags if that user becomes unavailable^[2]. Have two administrators from your own business.

Google Analytics

In Analytics, the Administrator role has full control and can manage users, including adding or deleting them and assigning any role. An Editor has full control of property settings but cannot manage users. A Marketer can create and edit audiences and events, an Analyst can share explorations, and a Viewer can see settings and data^[3]. To add or modify users you need the Administrator role at account or property level, deleting users is possible only at account level, and the last Administrator cannot delete themselves^[4].

Meta

Meta Business Suite uses a business portfolio, which holds Pages, Instagram accounts, ad accounts and other assets. There are two levels of access: full access and partial access. Full access is the highest level, and people who have it can manage settings, people and assets, claim or remove assets and people, and delete the portfolio. Partial access limits people to the assets or tasks they are assigned^[5].

Only people with full control of the portfolio can share its assets with partners, and an agency is the example Meta gives. You can give a partner full control of an asset or partial access, and a partner with full control still cannot share it with another business, because only the organisation that owns it can. The partner needs its own business portfolio and must tell you its ID^[6].

A set-up that keeps control

My view, based on what those pages say, is this order of work:

1. Create each account yourself, in your business name, using an email address your business controls.
2. Make at least two people in your business administrators, so that no one person is a single point of failure.
3. Give the agency the lowest level that lets it do the contracted work. For Google Ads that is likely Standard, not Admin. For Meta it is partner access to the assets, with partial access unless the work needs more.
4. Decide who pays the platform and set that up through the billing permission.
5. Write the access levels you agreed into the contract schedule, and check the live user lists after the first week.

If the agency insists on running your campaigns inside its own account, the help pages I opened do not say how that account and its history would be transferred or shared when the work ends, so ask for the answer in writing and put it to your lawyer.

When the agency leaves

Because you hold the top level, leaving is an admin task: remove the agency’s users and unshare its assets. Do it on the day the notice period ends, not later. The terms to agree on handover are in how to review an agency contract before you sign, and the scoring form is the agency contract checklist. If you want the set-up done for you, I manage paid advertising for businesses in Dubai. I would set the accounts up in your name, and you should hold me to that in the contract like anyone else.