When you hire a marketing agency, your accounts, contacts and data should stay in your name, so you can leave without starting over. A lot of marketing systems work the other way. Here’s what lock-in looks like, how we avoid it, and what to check before you sign with anyone, us included.
What lock-in looks like
Most marketing systems lock you in. Your contacts live in their CRM. Your website sits on their platform. Your Google Ads account is in their name. It all works fine while you stay. Leave, and you start over: no customer list, no website, no ad history, and months of rebuilding.
How we work instead
Jarvis, our AI assistant, connects to the tools you already use, in your own accounts. If you ever leave A1Ai Digital, your email, CRM, website, Google Ads and Analytics stay right where they are, with all your data in them.
- Your accounts stay in your name.
- Your contacts and data are yours to keep.
- Month to month, with no annual contract.
Jarvis works with Gmail, Outlook and any IMAP email, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Analytics, WordPress, HubSpot, ClickUp, Twenty CRM and SuiteCRM, with GoHighLevel coming.
What to check before you sign with any agency
- Who owns the ad account? It should be yours, with the agency given access, not the other way round.
- Where does your website live? On hosting you control, or at least on a standard platform you can move.
- Where do your contacts live? In a CRM you can export from, in your own account.
- What happens when you leave? Ask for it in writing: what you keep, what you lose, and how long the handover takes.
- How long is the contract? A twelve-month minimum is a different kind of lock-in.
Why it matters for small businesses
For a small business, your customer list and your marketing history are some of the most valuable things you own. They shouldn’t be held by a vendor. Staying because the work is good is better for everyone than staying because leaving would cost too much.
See our marketing services, or start with a free marketing review. It’s in writing and yours to keep, whether you hire us or not.