Usually not, if the twelve months come with no way out before the end. A fair marketing contract gives the ads around 90 days to learn and settle, then lets you leave on a set notice period if the numbers aren't there. Before you sign anything, read three parts of it closely: the notice and renewal terms, who owns the accounts and everything built for you, and what happens on the day you leave.
I run a one-person marketing operation out of Aurora, Ontario, and I describe my own terms near the end, so read the rest knowing which side of the table I sit on.
Why do marketing agencies push 12-month contracts?
Because the first month costs an agency the most and pays it the least. Before a single lead comes in, somebody has to set up the accounts and tracking, then build the landing page and the first batch of ads, and that eats most of month one. A year of committed fees spreads that setup across twelve invoices and gives the agency predictable revenue to hire against. That part is fair. The other reason is less flattering, because a client who can't leave doesn't have to be won back every month, and a weak campaign in month four costs the agency nothing. Look at what the contract gives you for the year. If it comes with a lower monthly fee, a list of deliverables with dates, or a clause that lets you out when those dates slip, you're getting something back. A year that comes with none of that is there to protect the agency.
How long do ads need before you can judge them?
About 90 days for a fair read on what a booked job costs you, even though the first leads can show up soon after the ads go live. The ad platforms need a run of leads before they work out who to show your ads to, so the first month is a test on purpose. You launch a batch of different ads expecting one or two winners, and the losers teach the system what to stop showing. Judge the account in week three and you're grading the test. By month two or three the cost per booked job tends to settle, which is why I treat 90 days as the floor for judging paid ads (the budget side is in how much you should spend on ads). That applies to month-to-month deals too. A contract you can cancel on day 20 lets you walk out halfway through the test, and a marketer with nothing on paper past this month has every reason to do a thin build.
What does a fair marketing contract term look like?
An initial term of about three months, so the ads have time to prove something, followed by month to month with a notice period both sides can live with. Thirty days of notice is reasonable. It gives you time to line up whatever comes next and gives the marketer time to hand over logins, files and leads properly. A longer commitment can still be fair when you get something you can point to for it, like a lower monthly rate, or a website build included that you'd otherwise pay for up front. Even then, look for a way out if the agency stops delivering what the contract lists, because a lower rate doesn't help much if the ads stopped working. What you want to avoid is a contract where the agency gets a guaranteed year and you carry all the risk, still paying in month eleven for something you'd have ended in month four.
What should you check in the notice and renewal clause?
Check when you're allowed to leave, how much warning you owe and whether the contract renews on its own. An auto-renewal clause can roll a 12-month agreement into a second full year unless you send written notice by a set date, and that date can fall a month or more before the term ends. Find it the day you sign and put it in your calendar. Next, read the early termination section. Some contracts let you leave mid-term for a fee, and some make you pay out every remaining month, which turns a bad month five into seven more invoices. Look at how notice has to be given (by email, or by registered letter to a named address), because notice sent the wrong way can be treated as no notice at all. And check what you're billed for after you give notice. A fair contract charges for work done up to the end date and nothing past it.
Who should own the ad accounts, website and creative?
You should, in your own name, from the first day. Your ad accounts belong in your own business account, billed to your own card, with the marketer added as a partner who works inside them. This part is hard to undo. Meta's business help pages say an ad account created inside a business portfolio stays part of that portfolio permanently and can't be transferred out, so if an agency creates your account inside its own portfolio, the account and all the history it learned from stay with the agency for good. On Google, a marketer can run an account you own from their own manager account, so they never need to hold it. The domain should be registered to you, and you should be the primary owner of your Google Business Profile. The contract should also say the footage and ads you paid for are yours to keep using after you go. I wrote more about ownership in why your marketing feels like a black box.
What happens to your marketing when you leave an agency?
In a fair setup, the agency removes its own access and everything it built keeps running under your name. You keep the ad accounts with their history, the website, the creative and the record of every lead that came in. In the bad version, you find out on the last day. The ads stop because the account sits in the agency's portfolio, and the landing page goes dark with them because it was hosted on the agency's account. Any tracking number on your Google profile and in your ads gets disconnected, and two years of leads sit in a system you no longer have a login for. Nobody calls any of that a penalty. It still costs you weeks or months of rebuilding. Before you sign, ask what you'd have on the 31st if you stopped on the 30th, and get the answer written into the contract, including how many days the handover takes.
How do my own contracts work?
I plan every engagement as a year-long partnership, and the paper gives you a 90-day out. The initial term is 90 days, and after that it runs month to month with 30 days of notice. I plan for a year because the ads tend to get better the longer I run them, as I learn what your customers respond to and replace the winners when they wear out. The 90-day term exists because that's roughly how long the numbers take to tell either of us anything useful. Your ad accounts sit in your own business portfolio on your own card, and I work in them as a partner, so the ad spend bills to you directly and separately from my fee. The landing page and the creative are yours. Every lead is yours too. If you leave, I lose access and you keep everything. I won't promise you a lead count, because I can't control what your market does in a given month. The full list of what's included is on what you get.
Getting my terms in writing
If you want to read my agreement before you decide anything, book a call. I'll take you through the term and the ownership section line by line, and you can hold them up against whatever else you've been offered.
