Watch out for these marketing mishaps that One Firefly is sharing with us over the next few months. In Part 1 of this series, we talk about how important it is to own your own accounts and data when it comes to Google Analytics.

Over the course of the next four months, we’re going to feature multiple horror stories and describe how to protect your business from falling victim. We will prepare you with questions you should be asking your internal team or marketing agency. As they say, knowledge is power and we want to empower you to know how to protect your rights and your intellectual property as it relates to your brand and marketing.

In Part 1 of our series, we are highlighting the importance of owning and retaining your Google Analytics accounts and data.

One Integrator Says: 

“When we started our business we partnered with a digital marketing agency who guaranteed that we would see immediate results. After a great first 6 months, the agency wanted to double our cost and force us into a long term contract. When we declined the offer they canceled our account and promptly took all of our Google accounts and data with them! We tried to fight them but all of the accounts were under their names and were deleted within a few weeks. In short, we lost weeks of our time and were forced to start a new Google Analytics and Adwords campaigns from scratch with a new vendor.”
– Matthew Cwiokowski (Avidia)

The Question You Should Ask: 

“If we no longer work together, will I retain my Google Analytics data?”

Why It Matters: 

Google Analytics provides powerful and informative data on the user behavior of your website and is necessary to track the progress of an actively managed marketing effort. Data insights include key metrics such as visitor time on site, highly trafficked pages and bounce rate that provide important visibility on site performance and how to further optimize for lead generation. 

What You Want To Hear: 

“Yes, of course! As your Digital Advertising Agency, we only require ‘Edit,’ ‘Collaborate’ and ‘Read & Analyze’ access in order to complete our work. If you don’t already have a Google Analytics account, we can provide you with some easy instructions on how to create one, and then subsequently provide appropriate access to our team. This way, if you ever decide to separate from our firm, you own and retain your Google Analytics with all historical data.”

What Should Concern You: 

“We cannot provide full admin access and ownership to your Google Analytics account because we manage several clients under this account. If we provide you ownership access, you will be able to see their proprietary data. Therefore, if we part ways, you will lose access to your historical data.”

What To Do If This Has Already Happened To You: 

If your previous marketing firm owns your Google Analytics account, regaining access is fairly painless. If your relationship is still intact, simply ask for “Manage users” permissions. Once this is granted, you can adjust the users on the account accordingly.

If you have cut ties with this firm and still wish to access that data, you can follow Google’s steps here to begin the process to reclaim your account. In this case, you will need to “prove” ownership of your website by uploading a simple HTML file and access will be granted within 48 hours (your web administrator should be able to help you with this).

If all else fails, go ahead and start a brand new account and continue to be proactive moving forward.

Learn more about Google Analytics from One Firefly here.

About the Author: One Firefly is the custom integration industry’s leading marketing agency, helping hundreds of technology professionals grow their businesses with innovative and strategic marketing solutions. Headquartered in Davie, Florida, with staff located throughout North America, One Firefly has helped thousands of technology integrators feel proud, prosperous and connected since 2007.  www.onefirefly.com