The ad account, analytics, the domain — whose name should they be in?
The ad account, the analytics, the domain — whose name should they be in? Nobody asks while things are going well; everybody asks on the day you part ways. 🔐
Ownership is the quietest risk in digital: invisible while everything works, and holding your entire accumulation hostage when it does not.
Short answer: every digital asset is opened in your company’s name, and the supplier receives access only. One sentence closes a risk that runs for years. ✅
Which assets are ownership questions?
The list is longer than people expect, and most of it gets forgotten. 🗂️
How is it set up correctly?
Correct setup takes ten minutes on day one. ⏱️
How do I audit the current situation?
Building an inventory takes half a day and protects you for years. 🧾
Which clauses belong in the contract?
Four clauses, one paragraph. 📑
What does ownership actually change?
This invisible clause sets your negotiating position. 💪
What should I do today?
BU BÖLÜMÜN ÖZETİ
- Step 1: build the inventory
- Step 2: move to role addresses
- Step 3: add the clauses
- If you want help
Three steps, half a day. 🪜
Step 1: build the inventory
List the five mandatory assets and write in whose name each sits. If you do not know, finding out is the first task. 📝
Step 2: move to role addresses
Transfer accounts tied to personal emails onto corporate role addresses. That single action ends employee-turnover risk. 📧
Step 3: add the clauses
Even with an existing supplier: ownership and handover clauses can be added later. A serious partner will not object; the clause set sits in the package guide. 📑
If you want help
A digital audit builds the inventory for you and reports the gaps in writing. To talk it through, use the consult your expert form; the full service sits on the digital consulting page. 🎯
Related reading from the archive: the 18 questions answered · the permission economy.
📝 Notes From the Field
At one company we found the domain registered to the personal address of an employee who had left ten years earlier. The renewal date was three months away. The transfer was completed in a week and nobody noticed. That unnoticed week saved the company’s entire digital accumulation.
📖 Short Glossary
Role address: a corporate email tied to a function rather than a person. Handover note: the written list documenting transferred access and files. Data portability: the ability to deliver records in exportable format. Renewal date: the day a domain or licence must be renewed before it lapses.
⚡ Quick Summary
All digital assets are opened in the company’s name; the supplier gets access only. 🔐 Five mandatory assets: domain, hosting, advertising, analytics, social. Accounts sit on role addresses with backup access. The contract carries ownership, handover, data format and privacy clauses.
🎯 Next Step
Let us build your inventory: a digital audit reports in writing which asset sits where. To talk it through, use the consult your expert form; what remains after an engagement ends is covered in the next guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Domain, hosting, advertising accounts, analytics and Search Console, and social media accounts. All five in the company’s name; one left outside breaks the chain. 🔗
Whoever commissioned it: articles, images, covers and page templates belong to you. The contract should state that ownership of all produced material rests with the client. 🎨
Yours: visitor data, enquiry records, customer lists and reports. Data held in a supplier’s own panel that cannot be exported is data you do not have. 📊
Bought in the company’s name: theme, plugins, tool subscriptions. A site running on a supplier’s bulk licence goes dark when the relationship ends. 💡
A corporate address — not a personal one but a role address such as management@. An account tied to a departing employee’s address is the most common loss there is. 📧
Working access, not ownership: enough to do the job, without transferring control. Ownership stays in one place — with you. 🔑
Registered in the company’s name, in an account the company can reach. Losing a domain is the most expensive loss: years of accumulated authority disappear in one stroke. 🌐
Two people: a primary and a deputy. Access tied to one person locks the company the moment that person is unreachable; the inventory logic sits in the no-team guide. 👥
Four columns: asset, in whose name, who has access, renewal date. Without that table, ownership is an assumption. 📋
Three: the domain with a former employee, the ad account inside an agency’s master account, analytics under an address nobody remembers. All three are fixable. 😬
In order: domain first, then advertising and analytics, social last. Each step is recorded with a handover note; the method sits in the transition guide. 🪜
Check the contract and send a written request. Resistance is itself an answer: a party that treats ownership as a negotiating lever set the relationship up wrongly from the start. ⚖️
Plainly and broadly: “all accounts, the domain, data and produced materials belong to the client.” Vague wording gets read in the supplier’s favour in a dispute. ✍️
That it is time-bound: on termination, access and files transfer within a defined number of days. Without a deadline, handovers drag on for months. 📅
Through format: reports and records are delivered in exportable form. Data locked inside a closed panel is data that cannot travel. 💾
A separate clause: who holds customer data and how it is processed. This is both a legal requirement and a matter of trust; the framework sits in the permission economy guide. 🛡️
It levels out: a client who is not forced to stay is valuable because they stay. A good supplier is untroubled by that; one who is troubled has told you something. ⚖️
It does: in a sale or partnership discussion, who owns the digital assets is asked. Ownerless digital assets create no balance-sheet value. 💼
Speed: if the account is yours, intervention takes minutes; if not, you wait for permission. On a crisis day, waiting for permission is the most expensive delay possible. 🚨
By not starting from zero: historical data, campaign learning and the content archive stay in place. The new team continues rather than restarts. 🔄
Who opened an account does not determine ownership; whoever funds the spend and owns the underlying business data is the owner. Send the request in writing and rely on the ownership clause.
Cheap in the short term, risky in the long: when the relationship ends the licence ends too, and the site can stop functioning. Critical plugins and themes should be purchased in the company’s name.
If the account is in your name it is already yours; if not, analytics and advertising history often cannot be moved in full. That is why correcting ownership early costs the least.