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Last Updated on octubre 10, 2026 by Kristal Espinoza
The results have slipped, the retainer cost is increasing, you’re moving in a new direction; whatever the cause, ending work with a marketing agency and deciding what’s next can feel risky.
The risk is in the dead zone, the handoff between the agency that’s being replaced and whatever comes next. That risks lives in the handoff period and most of it is decided before you ever give notice.
Where the momentum is most likely to leak
As an agency owner for more than a decade, I know exactly where the momentum in your marketing plans is most likely to slow when you’re ending the engagement with one agency and looking to replace them. It mainly comes down to four main leaks:
- Access: who has access to accounts, advertising information, assets, and tracking data.
- Knowledge: the biggest knowledge gap is usually around why past decisions were made and what decisions need to be made next to keep moving forward.
- Ownership: who will be responsible for what during the switch.
- Disruption: how can we assure continuity when a lot of things are changing fast.
Making sure you have a plan to mitigate each of these will help ensure a cleaner transition and maintain that marketing momentum you’ve built up.
Before you give notice to end your engagement with a marketing agency
If anyone’s even talking about possibly moving on from working with a particular marketing agency, that’s the time to ensure that you have the access you need, regardless of whether you ultimately choose to stay with them or move on.
First, ensure that any accounts and assets are in your company’s name. This is especially important for things like ad accounts.
Next, do a close contract read, or ask legal to do so, specifically looking for termination terms, notice periods, IP or asset ownership terms, and non-solicit clauses. You want to be sure you know and remember exactly what you agreed to when you signed the contract with the agency. Some contracts will explicitly outline what the agency owes you at termination, like reports, assets, or a standard transition period.
It’s also a good idea to check original proposals and specs for performance promises and compare those against actual performance baselines. If performance is the issue, it’s a good idea to have your data lined up; but even if performance isn’t the issue, you’ll want documentation around what’s been achieved.
Secure knowledge of what’s been done and why
To cover the knowledge gap, you’ll want to request a change log and internal documentation of what they did and why. A change log is a history of all changes they made inside your accounts. Some ad accounts, for example, keep track of this natively. The change log matters especially if any campaigns are going to continue to run after the engagement with the agency ends.
Documentation is more about the “why” and “how” than the “what” of what the agency did. This might include things like:
- What they tested, and what worked or flopped.
- Audience definitions and targeting logic.
- How tracking and attribution are set up.
- Naming conventions.
- Creative history.
- A list of everything in flight, with dates.
- Vendors or contacts they manage for you.
One note of warning, however: this sort of request is likely to tip the agency off that you’re thinking about or planning to end the engagement, so it’s a good idea to let all internal stakeholders know about the decision first, to avoid any awkward conversations.
You’ll want to provide this information to whatever new team that will be replacing the marketing agency.
Decide what fills the gap before you leave the agency relationship
Probably the most important thing you can do to maintain momentum when leaving a marketing agency is to decide how you’re going to replace them moving forward.
There’s no one right answer to this question, because it depends entirely on the specifics of what they were doing for you, what kind of internal team you already have, and whether the need is permanent or temporary.
For example, if the agency was producing a strategy, the need may have been temporary and the work done, and now your internal team can execute on it. If they were executing on a strategy or campaign for you over a long period of time, your internal team may not have the specialty knowledge or the capacity to take on that work. Those are two very different scenarios for how you would approach replacing the agency.
So first ask:
- What was the agency actually doing?
- Strategy
- Execution
- Channel specialty
- All three?
- Is the need permanent or temporary?
Once you have the answers, you can choose one or a combination of the options below to replace your marketing agency without losing momentum.
- Find a new agency.
If the agency was doing specialty execution work, for example, you may decide to find another agency to replace them. Agency matching services like Breef are one option to find a new partner. You may also want to ask your network for recommendations. The risk is that you may run into similar problems or constraints working with any agency, not just the one you’re leaving. - Hire in-house.
If this is a long-term need, you may want to bring it in house with a new hire. Bringing what was an agency role in house means that the person will eventually be dedicated only to your brand, have institutional knowledge, and you can hire for exactly the skills you need. The downside is that word, “eventually.” Hiring is a very slow way to fill the gap, so you may want to start this process well before you break ties with the agency to ensure overlap. - Bring in independent freelancers.
Freelancers can be a good way to bridge the gap if you need someone between letting the agency go and hiring a full-time person, for example. Marketplaces like Upwork offer a large talent pool, but the vetting process falls entirely to you. Although it’s usually faster to get a freelancer onboarded than a new hire, you still have to go through the interview process and get them up to speed on your project and brand. - Use a vetted talent platform.
Talent matching platforms like Right Side Up offer companies a way to access a pool of pre-vetted talent. They can usually match you with more senior professionals than Upwork. It can also be a good strategy to hire someone as a freelancer or consultant first and then decide if it makes sense to bring that person in for a more permanent role. This kind of talent will be more expensive than a freelancer, but may bring higher level strategy or more experience to the role. - Choose a hybrid.
In truth, it’s likely you’ll need a hybrid of a couple of these different solutions. You might hire a freelancer to cover an immediate need while you shop new agencies or interview for an in-house hire. You might bring in a high-level strategist from a talent platform like Right Side Up and then hire some freelancers to support them in the execution. The right answer is the one that provides the continuity and support you need to keep your marketing moving forward.
Plan for an overlap instead of a hard close date
If possible, the best scenario is to have your old agency and your new solution, whatever that ends up looking like, overlap for around a month. That provides the smoothest possible handoff and easiest onramp for your new marketing team.
When negotiating this with the outgoing agency, be sure to understand and communicate exactly what the outgoing agency will keep during the overlap, what the reduced scope or maintenance will look like, and what the incoming team will be building in parallel.
It’s also important to determine internally who owns what during the overlap, and who will be overseeing the transition from your team, to close the ownership gap. Most agencies are made up of good people who want to work with you, but it’s not smart to rely on them solely to direct the handoff.
Prevent in-process work from stalling
It’s also vital to make a plan for how you will keep any in-progress work or campaigns from stalling during the transition to prevent major disruption.
Make a clear list of any live campaigns or initiatives and sort them into groups indicating whether they will keep running, pause, or be turned off or cancelled for now. Making that decision up front prevents anything from falling through the cracks.
One mistake I’ve seen is new teams wanting to prove their worth or show activity quickly, so they start changing things or start new initiatives right away. I’d advise against any major restructuring right off the bat with a new team, no matter which option you go with to replace the outgoing marketing agency. Moving too fast during the transition is how mistakes get made.
How you’ll know if the transition worked
Four to six weeks after the actual transition, you should be able to tell whether or not the transition worked and went smoothly by looking at what’s actually happening with campaigns or initiatives. Is progress still being made toward your bigger goals? Did the actual handoff happen with a minimum of fuss and drama?
If you can answer yes to those questions, I’d say that was a successful transition. Judge against real numbers and timelines, not feelings or impressions.
Whichever option you choose to replace your marketing agency, the success of the transition will depend on whether or not your projects lost momentum, and following this framework can help ensure you move forward as smoothly as possible.
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