What taking over a poorly executed engagement really costs
Switching vendors is not a free decision. You inherit an execution debt: rough configurations, broken history, content to redo, scattered access. It is priced in dollars before you terminate, never after, and the order of operations decides half the cost of taking over.
- Execution debt is the remediation work you have to do before you can make progress. It is counted in weeks and in dollars, and no one puts it in a proposal.
- Google states that transferring billing of an advertising account to a new agency must be initiated by the previous agency. Your transition depends in part on their cooperation.
- The inventory of access is done before termination, never after. It is the only window in which the other party still has a reason to cooperate.
- Count three to six months before the new vendor produces a measurable result, including one to two months of pure remediation.
- A vendor who promises gains from the first month on a taken-over engagement has not looked at the state of things.
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What execution debt is
Execution debt is all the corrective work a company must fund before it can make progress, following a poorly executed engagement. It covers the configurations to redo, the data history to rebuild, the content to rework, and the access to recover. It differs from a growth investment: it produces no gain, it brings the company back to where it should already have been.
Execution debt
This article is for management teams that inherit a poorly executed engagement, whether because they have just stepped into the role or because they have decided to switch vendors. It is about the cost of the transition, not about how to choose the next vendor.
The idea to grasp fits in one sentence: part of your first-year budget will not go toward progress, it will go toward getting back to the starting point.
Concretely, this debt takes four forms. Rough configurations, notably in measurement, which make all prior numbers doubtful. A broken or unusable history, which deprives the learning tools of their raw material. Content produced in volume and without depth, which must be removed or reworked. And scattered access that no one has documented.
None of these four forms appears in a takeover proposal, because they are discovered while working. Yet each one costs billable hours before the slightest gain in revenue. That is precisely why a paid audit precedes the engagement rather than running alongside it.
A vendor who accepts a taken-over engagement without a prior audit is committing on ground they have not seen. They will discover the debt along the way and will have to choose between absorbing the cost or renegotiating. In either case, the relationship starts badly.
The inventory before terminating
This is the most important rule in this article: do the inventory while the contract is still active.
As long as the relationship exists, your vendor has a contractual obligation and a commercial reason to cooperate. Once the termination is sent, they have neither, and you are asking for favours.
The inventory covers access, configuration documentation, source files, and credentials. The full detail is in our article on the ownership of digital assets, and the inventory can be checked in an hour.
One technical point conditions the timeline, and management must know it. Google states that the process of transferring billing of an advertising account to a new agency must be initiated by the previous agency. This means a transition without cooperation is possible, but it goes through a rebuild rather than a transfer, which costs time and history.
The order of operations
Inventory and audit, contract still active. You then know what you are recovering and what will have to be rebuilt. It is also what makes the next engagement priceable.
Securing the critical assets. Domain name, account ownership, administrator access. Before any announcement of departure.
Termination with a written transition notice. Name the expected deliverables and the deadline, rather than relying on goodwill.
Restoring measurement before anything else. Without reliable measurement, you will not know whether the new engagement works, and you will have the same debate again in a year.
Fixing configurations, then production only after. Producing content or launching campaigns on a broken base amounts to paying twice.
The most frequent mistake is to reverse points 1 and 3. An unhappy management team terminates first, out of relief, then discovers it does not have the access. That single reversal often adds a month to the timeline.
What breaks, and for how long
| What is affected | Duration of the effect | What reduces the damage |
|---|---|---|
| Bid learning | 4 to 10 weeks | Transfer the account rather than recreate it |
| Measurement continuity | 1 to 2 months | Document the old configuration before the cutoff |
| Comparability of history | Permanent if measurement changes | Note the switchover date and own it in reports |
| Search rankings | Variable, depending on content changes | Remove nothing before measuring what it brings in |
The last row is the most costly to ignore. A disappointed management team often wants to redo everything, including what was working. Mediocre content that generates requests remains an asset until it is replaced by something better. Removing before measuring is the fastest way to turn a disappointment into a real loss.
Pricing the remediation
The calculation is made across four items, and it should appear in the incoming vendor's proposal.
The audit and the inventory, which are a fixed amount known in advance. Rebuilding measurement, which depends on the state found. Fixing configurations and content, which is the most variable item. And the opportunity cost during the period of reduced performance, which is real even though it appears on no invoice.
In a case involving an audit, a measurement rebuild, corrections, and two months of reduced advertising performance, the total approaches $22,000. Redo this calculation with your own numbers: what matters is not the amount, it is that it is put on the table before signing.
A management team that knows this amount makes a better decision, including the decision not to switch right away. A management team that does not know it will judge the new vendor on a first quarter entirely devoted to remediation.
How not to repeat this in three years
The question that matters is not who did the poor work, it is what allowed it to last so long.
Three causes recur, and none concerns the vendor's talent. No indicator of closed sales or margin was tracked, so the problem was seen late and cost several quarters. No access was held in-house, so verification was impossible. And no one was responsible for the file on the company's side, so the reports were challenged by no one.
All three are corrected with the next engagement, not after. A short dashboard read every month, access in your name, and a person named in-house, even part-time. It is little, and it is what separates a company that switches vendors every three years, paying the same debt each time, from a company that builds an asset.
To avoid repeating this, the grid for reading the offers you receive is in our article on how to read an agency proposal.
What to settle before terminating anything
These questions are settled while the contract is active. After termination, they become requests for favours.
- Which access do you actually hold in your name today, and which is missing?
- What is the estimated amount of the remediation, and does it appear in the incoming vendor's proposal?
- What transition notice do you write into the termination letter, and which deliverables are named in it?
- Who, in-house, will carry the file after the transition, and with how much time per month?
- If the new engagement has not produced a measurable result after twice your sales cycle, what do we change, and who makes that decision?
The useful answer prices a remediation and names a person responsible in-house. A vague answer talks about starting fresh on solid ground. A vendor who promises gains from the first month on a taken-over engagement has not looked at the state of things, or has looked and is not telling you.
Making this assessment and pricing the debt before any decision is exactly the purpose of a paid audit.
What you keep in house: the decision to terminate and its timing, securing the critical assets before the announcement, and the naming of a person responsible in-house. What gets delegated: the audit, the inventory of access, rebuilding measurement, the documentation, and the takeover plan. A company that does the inventory before terminating switches vendors in three weeks. A company that terminates first spends two months claiming what belongs to it, while its campaigns run unsupervised and the media budget is spent without producing revenue.
The checks you can run yourself before awarding a mandate are in choosing an agency in Quebec.
This point sits inside the plan described in the marketing plan and its budget.
Is the debt mostly about content and search rankings? See our work in search engine optimization.
Frequently asked questions about taking over an engagement
Do you have to redo everything when you arrive?
No, and it is the most costly mistake. Mediocre content that generates customer requests remains an asset until it is replaced by something better. First measure the revenue each item brings in, then replace in order of return. Removing before measuring turns a disappointment into a real and immediate loss.
Can you switch vendors without their cooperation?
Yes, but by rebuilding rather than by transfer. Google states that transferring billing to a new agency must be initiated by the previous agency. Without them, you have to create a new structure, which costs history and a period of relearning. It is doable, it is simply more expensive in time and budget.
How long before judging the new vendor?
Twice your sales cycle, plus the remediation period. On a three-month cycle, that gives about eight months. Judging in the first quarter amounts to evaluating someone over a period entirely devoted to fixing their predecessor's work, which says nothing about their value or the revenue they will produce afterward.
Should the remediation be billed?
Above all it should be named and priced separately from the growth work, with its own cost. A vendor who folds the remediation into a monthly package will make you believe you are paying to progress when you are paying to fix. Transparency on this item is a good indicator of the relationship to come.
What to do if the former vendor refuses to transfer?
Document the requests in writing, invoke the contract's handover clauses if there are any, and launch the rebuild in parallel rather than waiting. The time lost negotiating often costs more than the rebuild itself. That is also why these clauses are written when you sign, not when you leave.
How to avoid living through the same situation again?
Three measures are enough: track each month an indicator of closed sales and margin rather than traffic, hold all access in your name, and name a person responsible for the file in-house, even part-time. The absence of these three elements is what allowed the situation to last, far more than the vendor's quality.
- Google Ads Help Center, Transfer billing to a new payments admin, official documentation, accessed July 2026. Source for the initiation of the transfer process by the previous agency.
- Google Ads Help Center, About client account ownership, official documentation, accessed July 2026.
- Falia working framework, arithmetic of the remediation cost and observation on takeover timelines. The amounts are explicit illustrative cases, to be redone with your situation.
Gabriel almost always takes your first call and carries out your audit. He builds the strategy starting from your growth goal: where to put your budget, which market to test and how to connect each lead to a real sale in your CRM. He mainly leads engagements for three goals: Optimize the profitability of your digital campaigns, Develop a new market, and Generate demand and growth. With Geneviève, he also works on organic search (SEO), AI visibility (GEO) and conversion rate optimization (CRO). The sales a Google Ads or Meta Ads campaign brings in depend on the page that receives the click. He writes mainly about marketing strategy, paid advertising and measurement.
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