Switching agencies feels risky because most owners don't know what they actually own. The ad account, the Pixel, the audiences, the lead forms and years of results might be yours. They might also sit in the agency's Meta business portfolio, where you can't take them with you. The order you do things in decides how much comes along. Here's that order.
- Before you give notice, check who owns the ad account, the Pixel and the dataset its events are stored in, the Facebook Page and the audiences.
- Make sure someone in your business has full control of your Meta business portfolio, and get admin access to everything you own.
- Export your reports and download your instant-form leads. Meta only keeps leads downloadable for 90 days.
- Add the new agency as a partner first, then remove the old one.
- Keep the campaign that's producing results running through the handover, and agree up front what the new agency will be judged on.
What you own, and what you might not
Everything an agency builds for you sits in a Meta business portfolio, the account Meta used to call Business Manager. If it's in yours, you keep it. If it's in theirs, Meta's rules decide what you can get back:
| Asset | Why it matters | If the agency owns it |
|---|---|---|
| Ad account | Every campaign, ad and result since day one | Can't be moved. An ad account sits in one portfolio, and one created there stays there. |
| Pixel (dataset) | Your website event history, which Meta learns from and builds website audiences on | Can't be transferred. They can share it with you, or you start a new one. |
| Facebook Page | Followers, reviews, and the instant forms that collect your leads | They remove it from their portfolio, then you add it to yours. |
| Custom audiences | Customer lists, website visitors and lookalikes | Can be shared, not moved. If the owner deletes one, it disappears from your account too. |
| Leads from instant forms | Your contacts | Downloadable for 90 days only, whoever owns the Page. |
Sources, Meta Business Help Center: ad accounts, datasets, Pages, shared audiences, leads.
The ad account and the dataset are the two that matter most, and the two Meta won't move. If either sits in the agency's portfolio, read the section below before you do anything else.
The switch, step by step
Check who owns each asset
Open the settings for your business portfolio in Meta Business Suite and look at ad accounts, Pages, Instagram accounts and datasets. Where a Page belongs to another business, Meta shows the owner's name under it. List every asset and who owns it. If you don't have a business portfolio at all, create one now: it's the container everything else should sit in.
Get full control before you give notice
Someone in your business needs full control of your portfolio, because only people with full control can add or remove partners. Meta recommends two active people with full control, so one lost login can't lock you out. Ask the agency now, while things are friendly, to make you an admin on everything you own and to hand back anything that should be yours.
Export your reports and creative
In Ads Manager, export your results as a spreadsheet by campaign, ad set and ad, month by month. Ads Manager's reporting window reaches back 37 months from the day you export, and a custom export can include deleted campaigns, so do it now. Ask the agency for the creative files too, the images, videos and copy, plus any notes on what was tested.
Download your leads
Instant-form leads stay downloadable for 90 days from submission, then they're gone. Download every form now and again on the day of the switch. By default, Page admins and people with messaging permission can download leads, unless someone has customized leads access, so test that you can. If leads reach your CRM through the agency's own connection, set up yours before theirs is removed.
Add the new agency as a partner
In your portfolio's settings, open Partners, click Add, choose "Give a partner access to your assets", enter the new agency's business portfolio ID, pick the assets and access level, and assign them. Meta's steps are here. Datasets are shared separately, under Data sources, Datasets, Assign partners. Campaigns and audiences inside your own ad account come with it.
Keep the best campaign running
Don't switch everything off on day one. Changing an ad set's targeting, creative or optimization event, or pausing it for 7 days or longer, sends it back into Meta's learning phase. Pause what isn't producing leads or sales, leave the campaign that is, and let the new agency change one thing at a time once it has looked at the account.
Remove the old agency
Once the new agency has working access, open Partners, select the old agency, click Options in the top right, choose "Remove from business portfolio" and confirm. Meta's steps are here. Then check for anyone from the agency added as an individual on the portfolio, the ad account or the Page, and remove them too. Make sure the ad account's payment method is your own card.
If the agency owns the account
Meta won't transfer an ad account or a dataset between portfolios, so there are two routes. The first is to ask the agency to keep sharing them. That works while they cooperate, but even a partner with full control can't share an asset on to another business. Only the owner can, so the old agency would have to share it directly with the new one.
The second, and usually the cleaner, is to start again in your own portfolio: a new ad account and a new dataset, with the Pixel and the Conversions API installed on your site. Do it before the old agency's access ends, so the new dataset is already collecting events on the day you switch. You lose the history inside the old account, not what it taught you, provided you exported it first. Check who controls your website and tag manager too, since that's where the tracking code lives.
What a handover looks like
When we took over a two-site climbing gym's Meta ads from another agency, nothing was broken. The tracking worked, and everything a checklist would look for was in place. What we found was neglect: one always-on sales campaign, with 16 ads in total, had long since stopped learning and was returning £0.82 for every £1 spent. The incumbent ran 4 campaigns; we've run 44 in the eight months since.
Eight months after the handover, the account returns £2.99 on a third less spend, and cost per booking is £9.44, down from £38.78. None of that needed a rebuild, which is why the steps above keep the account running rather than starting from scratch. Before the new agency changes anything, a one-off Facebook ads audit gives you both a baseline to judge the work against.
Before you give notice
Make sure the agency is really the problem. Ask for the last 90 days of return on ad spend and cost per lead or sale, and how many new ads they tested in that time. A good agency will have the numbers to hand. If the answer comes back as reach, engagement or cost per click, that tells you what you need to know. Seven signs your ads agency is wasting your budget shows what else to look for, and 12 questions to ask before you hire a Facebook ads agency helps you avoid the same problems next time.
Questions people ask
Will I lose my Facebook ads data if I change agency?
Not if the ad account, the Pixel and the Page sit in your own Meta business portfolio. The campaign history lives in the ad account, so it stays when the agency's access is removed. If the agency owns them, the history stays with the agency, and instant-form leads older than 90 days are gone either way unless someone saved them.
Can an agency transfer my ad account to me?
Not if it was created in their business portfolio. Meta says an ad account created in a portfolio is permanently part of it and can't be transferred. The agency can share it with you, but only the owner can share an asset with another business, so your next agency would depend on the old one's goodwill.
Who should own the Facebook Pixel?
You, in your own business portfolio, shared with your agency as a partner. Meta doesn't let a dataset be transferred between portfolios, so a Pixel created in the agency's portfolio stays theirs when you leave.
How long do I have to download Facebook lead form leads?
90 days from when each form is submitted. After that, Meta won't let anyone download them. Export everything before the handover, and connect your forms to your own CRM or email so it never matters again.
Should I tell my agency before I've lined up a new one?
Get full control of your business portfolio, admin access and your exports first, while the relationship is good. Then give notice as your contract requires, and add the new agency as a partner before the old one is removed, so the account is never left without someone running it.
Should I pause my ads during the handover?
Pause what isn't producing leads or sales, and keep what is. Meta treats pausing an ad set for 7 days or longer as a significant edit, so it goes back into the learning phase when it restarts. A blanket pause usually costs more than a few weeks of steady spend.
How long before a new agency shows results?
Agree the number and the date before they start. The account in our case study is judged over eight months from handover, because a small local account doesn't produce enough sales for a two-week read to mean much.
Is NCMborz the right fit for every handover?
No. We're not the right fit if you're looking for the lowest price, if your offer hasn't sold yet without ads, or if you want to approve every small change before it goes live. We'd rather say so on the first call.
Planning a switch? Book a strategy call. We'll go through who owns what in your account and what to export first, whether or not you move to us.
