Approvals and account ownership: keeping control of your marketing

Why control is the real issue

Disputes with marketing providers are usually about a post nobody approved, an ad budget nobody agreed to, or an account the business could not get back when the contract ended. These problems are as possible with a top AI marketing agency as with a careless freelancer, and software can create its own version if it publishes without asking. The remedy is the same in every case: decide who approves and who owns before anyone starts.

What should need approval

Not everything needs the owner's eye, but the categories should be chosen on purpose.

• Always. Anything that spends money, makes an offer, states a price or touches a sensitive subject.
• By default. Posts, emails and replies to customers, at least for the first months.
• By exception. Routine items you have agreed can go out under a standing rule, for instance a link sent to anyone who asks for it.

Who approves

Name one person per category and a stand-in for when they are away. Agree a response window too. An approval step that takes four days will be skipped by whoever is under pressure to publish, and then you have no approval step.

Account ownership

As general guidance, the business should own every asset and lend access to whoever does the work.

• Social profiles and pages are created and owned by the business, with the provider added as a user.
• The ad account and its payment method belong to the business.
• The email list and its sign-up forms are in the business's name.
• Creative files are delivered to you, not kept in the provider's storage alone.

A handover checklist

When a contract ends, or when you move recurring work from an agency to software, go through the same short list. Remove the old provider's access. Change any shared passwords. Collect the creative files and the most recent reports. Export the email list. Write down what was scheduled but not yet published. Do it during the notice period, while the provider still has a reason to help.

How Link AI handles approval

Approval is the reason we pick Link AI by Linkme here: it is written into Linkme's description of the product. In the terms used above: for the 'always' category, a Meta ad draft names who made it and shows what it will spend per day and across the month, and it launches after approval. For the 'by default' category, a teammate's draft post can be marked 'Needs review'. For the 'by exception' category, DM Automations follow a rule you set: a person who comments the keyword you chose gets a DM containing a link.

Link AI is software and Linkme is not an agency, so the approver is someone on your own payroll, not an account manager. Ownership is the open half. This reference cannot tell you how accounts are connected to Link AI or disconnected from it. A demo is the place to find out. Book a demo to try Link AI, watch a draft go through review, and ask how a connected account is removed.

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