What you actually own.
Free tool · 8 checks · about 15 minutes · no email required
Most business owners believe they own their marketing. A good number of them own almost none of it, and find out at the exact moment they try to leave.
These are the eight assets worth checking. For each one there is a way to verify it yourself in a couple of minutes, a plain explanation of what it costs you if the answer is no, and wording you can send to get it back. Nothing is stored, nothing is sent anywhere, and there is no email to give.
A note before you start. If something here is not in your name, that does not mean anyone has behaved badly. Most of these arrangements happen by default, because it was faster at the time for whoever set it up to use an account they already had. The problem is not how it started. The problem is that it is very hard to undo once a relationship ends, and the moment you want to move is the worst moment to discover it.
Work through them in order. The first three are the ones that cause real damage.
Check 01
Your domain name
The registration of the domain itself, held at a registrar such as GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare or Squarespace. Not the website. The name.
How to check
- Look your domain up on ICANN Lookup at lookup.icann.org and read the registrant details. Many are redacted for privacy, which is normal, but the registrar name will be shown.
- Log in to that registrar yourself, with your own credentials, and confirm the domain is listed in your account.
- If you cannot log in, or the account belongs to an agency or a developer, it is not yours.
This is the most damaging one on the list. The domain carries your website, your email addresses and every year of search history attached to the name. Losing control of it is not a setback you work around. It is starting again.
Check 02
Your website and its hosting
The account the site is built and served from, whether that is WordPress hosting, Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, Webflow or something custom.
How to check
- Log in as an owner or administrator, not as an editor or contributor. The difference matters: an editor can change a page, an owner can move the site.
- Find the export or backup option and confirm you could take a full copy of the site today.
- Check whose card is on the billing.
A site you cannot export is a site you cannot leave. If moving supplier means rebuilding from scratch, the cost of changing is being quietly paid by you every month you stay.
Check 03
Your analytics property
The Google Analytics property, or whichever analytics tool records your traffic, and critically the account it sits inside.
How to check
- Open Analytics and go to the admin area, then the access management settings for the property.
- Find your own email address in the list and check the role beside it. You are looking for Administrator.
- Then look at the account above the property. A property can be shared with you while the account that owns it belongs to someone else.
Analytics history cannot be recreated. If the property goes, so does every comparison you would ever want to make against last year, and you will be starting your measurement from zero at the same time as everything else.
Check 04
Your Google Ads account
The advertising account itself, and whether it stands on its own or sits inside a manager account that somebody else controls.
How to check
- Find the account number, usually shown near your account name.
- Open the account settings and look for managers or linked accounts. If a manager account is listed, find out whose it is.
- Check the billing. If the invoices come from an agency rather than from Google, you are buying media through someone rather than owning the account.
Conversion history is what the platform optimises against. A new account does not perform like the one it replaced, even with identical targeting and identical budget, and the dip gets explained away as seasonal.
Check 05
Your Meta ad account and dataset
The Facebook and Instagram ad account, plus the dataset, which you may still know as the pixel. Both should live in a business portfolio that belongs to your business.
How to check
- Open Meta Business settings and confirm there is a business portfolio in your company's name that you administer.
- Check the ad account and the dataset are both listed as assets of that portfolio, not merely shared with it.
- Anyone working on your behalf should appear as a Partner with access, rather than as the owner.
Moving an ad account between business portfolios after the fact is difficult, and in practice people leave without the history attached to it. Audiences and conversion data built over months frequently do not come across at all. This one is worth settling before any work starts, because afterwards it is often not fixable.
Check 06
Your Google Business Profile
The listing that appears in Google Maps and in local results, carrying your reviews, hours, photos and phone number.
How to check
- Open your Business Profile and find the settings that list people and their access.
- Look for your own email marked as the primary owner. Owner and manager are different, and manager is not ownership.
- If you have never logged in and someone else has always made the updates, assume it is not yours until shown otherwise.
Your reviews live here. They are the single hardest asset on this list to rebuild, because they depend on other people's willingness, not on your effort.
Check 07
Your email list
The contacts themselves and the platform they sit in, whether that is Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Brevo or anything else.
How to check
- Log in as the account owner, not as a user someone invited.
- Export the full list as a spreadsheet right now, today, and save it somewhere you control.
- If you cannot export it without asking someone, you do not have it.
This is the only audience you genuinely own, in the sense that no platform can change the rules on you overnight. Everything else on this list is rented from someone. An email list you cannot export is not an asset, it is a hostage.
Your result
Wording you can send
Built from your answers above. Replace the bracketed parts, delete anything that does not apply, and send it as an ordinary piece of housekeeping, because that is what it is.
One last thing worth saying plainly. Asking for these is normal and it is not a hostile act. Any supplier working in good faith will hand them over without drama, and a number of them will be glad you asked, because it removes an argument later. The reaction you get is itself a useful piece of information.
Common questions
Should my marketing agency own my Google Ads account?
No. The account should belong to your business, with the agency granted access to it. Conversion history is what the advertising platform optimises against, so an account you have to abandon takes months of accumulated performance with it. The same applies to the Meta ad account and the dataset, where moving ownership afterwards is harder still.
What happens to my data if I leave my agency?
It depends entirely on whose accounts the data sits in. Anything held inside your own accounts stays with you. Anything held inside theirs is at their discretion, and analytics history and advertising conversion data in particular cannot be recreated once lost. That is why the question is worth settling at the start of a relationship rather than at the end of one.
Is it rude to ask for ownership of my accounts?
No, and it is a routine request. Most of these arrangements arise by default rather than by design, because using an existing account was quicker for whoever set things up. A supplier working in good faith will transfer them without fuss. If the request is treated as a trust problem, that reaction tells you something the proposal did not.
Does any of this cost money to fix?
Usually not. Transferring ownership of an analytics property, a Business Profile, a Facebook Page or an ad account is an administrative change rather than a purchase. A domain transfer sometimes carries a small registrar fee, typically the price of one year of registration. The cost of these is almost entirely in asking.
Do you store my answers?
No. Everything happens in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server, nothing is written to storage, and closing the tab clears it. There is no email field because there is nothing to send you.
If the answers were uncomfortable
Want a second opinion on the rest of it?
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Check 08
Your social accounts
The Instagram account and the Facebook Page, and in particular the recovery details attached to them.
How to check
Followers can be rebuilt slowly. A handle cannot be rebuilt at all, and account recovery is close to impossible when the details on file belong to someone who has stopped replying.