The Keys to the Links: What to Document Before an Agency Handover
Photo: Kate McLoughlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Agency swaps are rarely dramatic. There is a final invoice, a shared drive, a few calls, and then someone in the in-house team is asked to ‘take the links over’. That is usually when the trouble starts. Short links are small, quiet pieces of infrastructure, and they are very good at hiding until a campaign goes live.
This is not a blame exercise. It is a documentation exercise.
Start with an inventory, not a spreadsheet
Ask for a list of every short domain, every short link, every QR code and every redirect rule. Include the ones in old email signatures, printed leaflets, radio ads and the link in the Instagram bio that nobody remembers creating. If the agency says it is all in the dashboard, ask for an export anyway. Dashboards disappear when subscriptions end.
Group the links by campaign and by where they are used: paid social, email, print, events, partner sites. A link that only appears in a printed programme needs different treatment from one that sits behind a button on a landing page.
Domain ownership: check the registrar, not the invoice
The domain is the asset. Check the registrar account, the registrant contact, the renewal date and the DNS provider. If the agency bought it on your behalf, make sure it is transferred to an account you control before the contract ends. Get the authorisation code if a transfer is needed. Check for auto-renew and two-factor authentication.
A short domain that expires in three weeks is not a handover; it is a countdown. Also check whether the domain is used for email or other services. You do not want a link migration to break someone’s inbox.
Redirect rules: write down the destination and the status code
For every short link, record the destination URL, whether it is a 301 or 302, any expiry date, geo rules, device rules, fallback links and the campaign it belongs to. If a link points to a landing page that will be retired, decide now where it should go instead.
A 301 tells search engines the move is permanent; a 302 says temporary. Getting that wrong can affect how links are treated and how analytics reports the visit. Also check wildcard redirects. They are useful and slightly terrifying. If a wildcard sends every unmatched path to the homepage, a typo in a printed link becomes a mystery tour.
Tracking parameters: keep the recipe, not just the links
Document the UTM taxonomy: which values are allowed, who approves new campaign names, and whether the shortener appends parameters or the destination URL already has them. Export a sample of live links and check for duplicate parameters, mixed case and typos.
If the agency used its own naming convention, decide whether to keep it for historical reporting or start a clean 2026 taxonomy. Do not do both halfway through a quarter. A simple rule sheet is better than a clever system nobody follows.
Access controls: remove the ghost seats
List every admin user, API key, webhook, integration and billing contact. Remove agency access on the day the contract ends, but keep a record of who had it and when. Change shared passwords, rotate API keys and check that SSO groups are updated. If the agency owns the billing account, move it before the final invoice. You do not want to discover a payment failure when a campaign is live.
Check the less obvious seats too: the freelancer who built the landing page, the print supplier who generated QR codes, the intern who added a link in a hurry. Access should be intentional, not archaeological.
The post-handover test plan
Test in the first 24 hours, again after seven days, and once more after a month. Use a simple checklist: click every priority link on mobile and desktop, scan printed QR codes, follow redirect chains, check the landing page, confirm UTMs appear in analytics, and test the fallback for expired links.
Ask someone outside the marketing team to try it. They will find the link that only works on the office Wi-Fi. Keep the test results with the handover pack so the next person knows what was checked and when.
What good looks like
A good handover pack has an owner, a date and a home. It includes an inventory, domain details, redirect map, UTM guide, access list and test results. It is stored somewhere the team can find it without asking the person who left. It is not a PDF called final_final_v3.
The point is not to mistrust the agency. The point is that links are infrastructure. When the contract ends, the links should keep working, the data should stay readable, and the next person should be able to pick up the keys without a scavenger hunt.
