Tool · checklist
The marketing handover checklist
What has to be documented before the person who does marketing on the side leaves your company. Or before you switch agencies. Both arrive sooner than you think.
No form, no email address. Print it, tick it off, pass it around.
Why this catches almost every company once
In most SMBs marketing grew rather than being planned. Someone once created the Google profile, someone else the Facebook page, the domain still runs through a former employee’s registrar account, and at some point the agency opened an ad account. As long as everybody is still around, this works.
The moment it stops working is always the same: someone leaves. And then it turns out the access was attached to a person and not to the company. I have seen companies buy back their own domain, and companies whose Google profile nobody could change for half a year.
This checklist prevents that. Work through it once, record the result somewhere two people in the company can reach — done.
1 · Domain and hosting
- Which registrar holds the domain, and which account is it under?
- Who is listed as the owner in WHOIS — the company or a person?
- Is auto-renewal on, and on whose card?
- When does the domain expire? (In the calendar, not in someone’s head.)
- Where do the DNS records live, and who can change them?
- Who manages the SSL certificate and its renewal?
- Are there other domains — spelling variants, old brands, .com alongside .ch?
2 · Website
- CMS admin access — at least two people inside the company, not only the agency.
- Access to the hosting panel and to FTP/SFTP.
- Where are the backups, how often do they run, and has a restore ever been tested?
- Which themes, plugins or modules are paid, whose licences are they, and when do they renew?
- If there is a code repository: who has access?
- Who pays for what — a list of the recurring invoices around the website.
3 · Google
- Google Business Profile: who is owner and who is only manager? (See the traps below.)
- Google Analytics: administrator-level access, not just a viewer seat.
- Google Search Console: how was ownership verified, and does that survive a site rebuild?
- Google Tag Manager: container access.
- Google Ads: who owns the account? Is it linked to the agency’s manager account (MCC)?
- Which payment method is on file — company card or someone’s private card?
4 · Ad accounts and social media
- Meta: who owns the Business Manager, and whose Business Manager holds the Facebook page?
- Instagram: linkage to the page, and who knows the password of the original account?
- LinkedIn company page: at least two super admins from inside the company.
- Other platforms (TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube): account ownership and recovery email.
- Which email addresses are these accounts on — personal, or a role address?
5 · Email, newsletter and CRM
- Newsletter tool: administrator access and a current export of the list.
- Who legally owns the list, and is consent documented?
- Transactional email and SMTP credentials (confirmations, form mail).
- CRM: access, export capability, and an export you have actually made.
- Website forms: where do submissions go, and who gets the notification?
6 · Content and rights
- Photos: where are the original files, and what usage rights do you hold in writing?
- May you keep using images of employees who have left?
- Logo in all formats, including a vector file — not just a PNG pulled from a slide deck.
- Font licences for web and print.
- Video material and raw footage.
- Copy written by an agency: have the rights been transferred?
The three traps that almost always bite
Trap 1: manager is not owner.
A Google Business Profile distinguishes owners from managers. Whoever is the owner can remove everyone else — including you. Plenty of companies are only managers on their own profile, because an agency or a former employee created it. Check this first; it is the most common and most irritating case.
Trap 2: your page sits inside the agency’s Business Manager.
On Meta, the Facebook page hangs off a Business Manager. If the agency created it, your page lives inside their structure, and switching becomes a negotiation instead of a handover. The right setup: your company owns the Business Manager and grants the agency partner access.
Trap 3: accounts on personal email addresses.
Registrars, ad accounts and analytics run on someone’s personal address surprisingly often. When the person leaves, the recovery email leaves with them. Create a role address — marketing@yourdomain — and attach everything to it.
What you can do in thirty minutes today
- Open your Google Business Profile and check whether your company is the owner.
- Check WHOIS for who is listed as the domain owner.
- Create a role address if there is none.
- Export your newsletter list and file the export.
- Capture the rest of this list in one document two people can reach.
This is not marketing work. It is operational safety — and it takes half a day, as long as the person who knows the answers is still in the building.
Let us talk for 20 minutes.
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