Marketing Agency Contracts: 10 Clauses to Check Before You Sign

By the Oski Marketing team · Updated 5 October 2026 · 6 min read

Before you sign a marketing agency contract, check ten things: the minimum term, the notice period, automatic renewal, early exit fees, exactly what work is included, who owns the website and content, whose name the domain and ad accounts are in, how ad spend is paid, what the reports show, and what the agency must hand back when you leave.

This is a general guide, not legal advice. If a contract involves a lot of money or something unusual, have a solicitor read it.

Why does the contract matter more than the sales pitch?

The contract matters more because it is the only part that binds both sides when things go wrong. A friendly call about results and partnership will not help you if the paperwork says you are tied in for a year with your Google Business Profile in someone else's name. Most disputes between small businesses and agencies come down to two things: how hard it is to leave, and who owns what at the end.

It is also worth knowing that business contracts carry fewer automatic protections than consumer ones. Consumer rules mostly do not apply when a business buys a service for itself. The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 does still require some clauses in written standard terms of business, such as those limiting the supplier's liability, to meet a reasonableness test. But in general, what you sign is what you get, so read it first.

Which 10 clauses should you check?

These are the ten clauses we would check in any marketing contract, in the order they tend to cause trouble:

1. Minimum term. How long are you committed for? Rolling monthly is the easiest to leave. A fixed term should match a real reason, such as a large set-up cost.
2. Notice period. How much notice must you give, in what form, and from what date does it run? Email notice should be enough.
3. Automatic renewal. Does a fixed term roll into another fixed term unless you cancel by a deadline? Put that deadline in your diary on the day you sign.
4. Early exit fees. What do you owe if you leave early? A fee that equals all remaining months is a heavy price for an agency that stops delivering.
5. Scope of work. What exactly is done each month? "SEO" or "social media" alone is not a scope. Look for numbers of pages, posts, ads or hours, and what is not included.
6. Ownership of the website and content. Who owns the design, copy, photos and videos once paid for?
7. Domain, profile and ad accounts. Whose name are they in, and who holds the top level of access?
8. Ad spend. Is ad spend paid directly to Google or Meta from your card, or passed through the agency? Is any mark-up applied?
9. Reporting. How often, and what does the report show? It should include enquiries, not only impressions.
10. Handover on exit. What will the agency give back, remove or transfer when you leave, and how quickly?

Who owns the work an agency creates for you?

Unless the contract says otherwise, the agency or freelancer who created the work usually owns the copyright. GOV.UK states that for commissioned work, the first legal owner of copyright is the person or organisation that created the work, not the commissioner, unless agreed in writing. The Intellectual Property Office's blog gives the same warning about websites and advises putting a contract in place before commissioning that transfers copyright to your business on completion.

Look for a clause that assigns copyright in the website, copy, images and videos to your business once you have paid. If the agency wants to keep rights in its own code, templates or stock licences, that can be reasonable, as long as you are free to keep using and editing your site after you leave.

Whose name should your accounts be in?

Your accounts should be in your business's name, with you holding the top level of access, and the contract should say so. On Google Business Profile, the owner role can add and remove users, while managers cannot add or remove users or remove the profile. On Google Ads, admin access is the level that can give account access and change access levels. An agency rarely needs more than manager access on your profile and standard access on your ads account to do the job.

The same applies to your domain registration, website hosting, Google Analytics, Search Console and Meta business account. Our guide on who should own your website and Google profile explains how to check each of them.

What does a fair exit clause look like?

A fair exit clause lets either side end the agreement with a set notice period, and commits the agency to a clean handover. A good version says the agency will, within a set number of days of the end date:

• remove its own users from your accounts, leaving yours in place,
• send you any logins, files, images and videos it holds for you,
• transfer any account that was set up in its name by mistake,
• send a final report covering the last month's work.

As an example, a heating engineer in Croydon who ends a contract should be able to log in the next day and find the website, profile, ads and reports exactly as they were, with only the agency's access gone.

Which contract terms are red flags?

The red flags are terms that make leaving expensive or leave you without your own assets. Watch for long fixed terms that renew automatically with a short window to cancel, exit fees equal to the remaining months, accounts or domains registered to the agency, website copyright kept by the agency with a licence fee to keep using it, and any guarantee of rankings or leads written into the sales material. Our list of marketing agency red flags covers warning signs beyond the contract itself.

At Oski Marketing our retainers run on rolling contracts with no lock-in, clients own their website, domain and Google Business Profile, and we take manager access only. Whoever you hire, ask for the same in writing.

What to do this week

• Find any marketing contract you have now and note the term, notice period and renewal date in your diary.
• Check whose name your domain, website hosting, Google Business Profile and Google Ads account are in.
• If you are about to sign, email the agency the ten clauses above and ask them to point to where each is covered.
• Ask for a sample monthly report before signing, so you know what you will be getting.