You should own the Seller Central account, the listings, all creative assets, the campaign history, and the keyword research. The agency keeps only its own internal tools and methodology. If the agreement does not say deliverables become your intellectual property on full payment, that sentence is missing on purpose.
The short version
- The account is yours. The agency works inside it through permissions you grant and can revoke.
- Deliverables become your IP on full payment. Creative, copy, A+ content, video.
- Campaign history is an asset. Months of learning about what converts. Protect it explicitly.
- The agency keeps its own tools and templates. That carve-out is fair, accept it.
- Ask for the exit handover in writing before you need it.
What you should own
I run Flapen with 50 operators managing about 70 brands, and I have been on the client side of this at BRANDED and Moonshot Brands. This is the split that holds up.
| Asset | Who owns it | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Seller Central account | You, always | It is your legal entity and your sales history |
| Listings and copy | You | Created specifically for your products |
| Photography, video, A+ content | You, on full payment | Commissioned work |
| Campaign structure and history | You | Learning purchased with your ad budget |
| Keyword research for your products | You | Same reason |
| Supplier contacts introduced for you | You | Relationships you are paying to build |
| Agency's internal SOPs and software | The agency | They brought it, they keep it |
| Agency's proprietary tooling | The agency | Not built for you |
The line is straightforward once you see it. Anything created specifically for your brand is yours. Anything the agency walked in the door with is theirs. Our own agreement says exactly that: deliverables created specifically for the client become the client's intellectual property on full payment, while we retain rights to our internal processes, tools, templates, and methodologies.
Why campaign history matters more than sellers expect
Most sellers negotiate hard on creative ownership and forget campaign history entirely. That is backwards.
Creative can be rebuilt in weeks. Campaign history cannot. It is months of accumulated learning about which keywords convert for your specific product at which bid, funded entirely by your ad budget. Rebuilding it means paying for the same education twice.
The risk is structural rather than malicious. If the agency built your campaigns inside their own tooling, or under an account structure they control, the history does not transfer cleanly even when everyone is acting in good faith. Ask where campaigns physically live before you sign, not after you give notice.
What happens to my account if I leave
Ask this question during the sales process, and ask for the answer in writing.
A clean exit looks like this. You revoke user permissions yourself. Every asset stays in your account because it was always in your account. You receive written documentation of what is running and why, covering campaign structure, keyword strategy, open cases, and creative source files. Nothing has to be migrated because nothing ever left.
That is how we do it, and it is only possible because the underlying structure was right from day one. An agency that has to run a migration project when you leave is telling you they held something they should not have been holding.
How to avoid lock-in with amazon agencies
Three checks, in order:
- Whose name is on the Seller Central account? If the answer is not yours, fix that before anything else.
- Can you revoke access without asking? User permissions you control are the test. Shared credentials are not.
- Where do campaigns and creative source files live? Inside your account and in storage you can access, or inside the agency's systems.
If all three answers are right, contract length barely matters. If any is wrong, no notice period protects you.
What most agencies will not tell you
The most common ownership problem is not a hostile clause. It is silence.
Most agency agreements do not address campaign history, creative source files, or exit documentation. Nobody is being deceptive. The clause was never written because nobody asked. Then a relationship ends, everyone is busy, access is revoked, and the seller discovers that "yours" meant the finished JPEG rather than the layered file, and the campaign structure rather than the reasoning behind it.
Ask for the missing sentences and watch the reaction. Adding them costs a good agency nothing.
The second quiet one: some agencies create the Seller Central account for new sellers as a convenience during onboarding. It is convenient, and it is the single worst structural decision you can make. Open your own account, in your own entity, and grant access.
Related answers
- Amazon account management contract pitfalls
- How to avoid lock-in with Amazon agencies
- How to migrate campaigns between Amazon agencies
- Termination clauses in Amazon management contracts
- Hiring an Amazon agency: the complete guide
Our position on ownership is written into the service agreement, published at Flapen.
