When to fire your Facebook ads agency
Firing an agency too early wastes the learning your spend has bought. Firing too late wastes the spend itself. Most trades do the second, because the monthly fee is small enough to tolerate and the conversation is awkward. This guide gives you a 90-day framework, the signals that justify ending it, the ones that do not, and the exit steps that protect what you have paid for.
The 90-day frame
Meta campaigns need time. The first month is setup and learning; the second produces usable data; the third shows whether the agency can improve on it. Judging before 90 days is judging the platform's learning phase, not the agency.
The exception is conduct rather than results. If in month one the agency has set up your ads in its own Business Manager without discussing it, cannot tell you where your spend went, or misses the first report, those are decisions, not learning curves. Act on them at once.
After 90 days you should have three monthly reports, a known cost per lead by campaign, and, if you have fed back your booking data, a cost per booked job. That is the information the decision below needs.
Seven signals it is time
Any 'decisive' signal on its own is enough. Two 'serious' signals together are enough. A single warning is a conversation, not a termination.
| Signal | What it looks like | Severity |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per booked job above your margin for 3 months | You are paying more to win a job than you make on it, with no credible plan to change that | Decisive |
| No new creative for 8 weeks or more | The same three ads in every report; cost per lead drifting upwards | Serious |
| Reports that do not explain changes | 'Continued to optimise' three months running | Serious |
| Spend you cannot reconcile | Ad spend billed through the agency, no Ads Manager access, invoice totals that do not match | Decisive |
| Assets not in your name | You asked for Business Manager ownership in writing and it has not happened within a billing cycle | Decisive |
| Lead quality complaints ignored | You flagged out-of-area or fake leads; nothing changed in the form or targeting | Serious |
| Account manager churn | Third point of contact in six months, each starting from scratch | Warning |
Three things that look like failure but are not
- A bad month after two good ones. Local demand is seasonal, and a wet fortnight does strange things to driveway enquiries. Look at the three-month trend.
- Fewer leads after a form change you agreed to. If you asked for better quality, volume falls. Judge it on cost per booked job, as explained in lead quality versus lead volume.
- Rising cost per lead while your budget rises. Scaling spend almost always raises the marginal cost of each lead. If total booked jobs rose and cost per job is still within margin, that is success.
The conversation before the decision
Before you give notice, have one structured conversation. Send the agency your booking data for the past three months and ask three questions: what is our cost per booked job by campaign, what have you changed in the last 30 days and why, and what would you do differently with another 60 days?
A good agency will have answers and may well have been waiting for your data to act on. A poor one will talk about reach, engagement and 'brand awareness'. Thirty minutes will tell you which you have. Give the good agency the 60 days with a written target. Give the poor one notice.
Check your notice terms first
Read the agreement before the call. Several agencies in our database publish rolling monthly or 30-day terms: One Base Media (no contracts), Lead Wave (month-to-month), SanXpert Digital (rolling monthly), Roofing SEO Services (30 days' notice, client keeps all assets), Trustmark Trades (no contract). If yours is on similar terms, the cost of leaving is one more month.
If you signed a 12-month term, check whether there is a performance clause or a break point, and whether notice must be given at a specific time. Giving notice a week late on an auto-renewing contract can cost a year. Our contract terms guide lists what to look for; it is more useful before signing, but it still helps now.
The handover checklist
The exit is where trades lose the most. Everything below should be requested in writing, in one email, on the day you give notice, with a date for completion before the final payment.
- Admin access to the Business Manager, or if the agency owns it, transfer of page ownership and partner removal in a way that leaves you with a working page
- Ad account: if it is in your Business Manager, remove the agency as partner on the last day; if it is theirs, request a full export of campaign history and creative
- Pixel: confirm the dataset is yours; if not, create your own and install it before the old one is removed
- All lead data as a CSV: date, campaign, name, phone, postcode, status
- Finished ads, raw footage and images, as covered in creative production: in-house or agency
- Landing pages and forms: files or a transfer to your hosting
- Any website, domain or CRM login the agency holds
- A final report covering the whole engagement
- Written confirmation that no further charges will be taken
What to do with the gap
Do not switch straight to another agency the same week. Take a month to run the account yourself at a reduced budget, using the trades playbook for self-run Meta ads. You will learn what the last agency actually built, and you will arrive at the next one with a clear brief and your own numbers.
When you do choose again, start from the questions this experience taught you. If the problem was ownership, make that the first question. If it was creative, ask how many new ads a month. If it was reporting, ask for a sample report before you sign. Our agency comparison scores each firm on exactly those points.
Frequently asked questions
How long should I give a Facebook ads agency before judging results?
Ninety days covers setup, learning and one cycle of improvement. Conduct issues such as account ownership or missing reports should be acted on immediately.
Is one bad month a reason to fire an agency?
No. Local demand is seasonal and Meta performance fluctuates. Judge on a three-month trend in cost per booked job.
What should I ask for when leaving an agency?
Business Manager and page control, ad account history, pixel ownership, a CSV of all leads, all creative and raw files, landing page files, any logins, a final report and written confirmation that billing has stopped.
Should I hire a new agency straight away?
Better to run the account yourself for a month first. You learn what was built and you brief the next agency from your own data rather than their promises.