How to switch email marketing agencies

What should stay with the brand?

Record who owns the Klaviyo account, billing, connected store and sending infrastructure. Check that the brand has the access it needs to administer the service. If an ownership transfer is necessary, follow the platform’s transfer process with the authorized owner; changing a user’s role is not the same action.

List the templates, creative files, forms, segments, flows, reports and integration documentation the next team will need. Identify where each item lives and whether the contract gives the brand the right to retain or reuse it. Resolve missing rights or files before treating the handover as complete.

Changing agencies does not automatically require moving to another email platform. If you are keeping Klaviyo, explain what must change inside the existing account. A platform migration is a separate project with its own data and sending dependencies.

What should you inventory before the changeover?

Start with the work that can affect customers during the transition. A scheduled campaign and a live flow need different handover notes. Record the person responsible through the changeover and the person who accepts responsibility afterward.

Item	Record before handover	Check with the incoming team
Campaign calendar	Drafts, scheduled sends, offers, audiences and timezones	Which sends stay scheduled and who approves changes
Flows	Triggers, filters, message states, pending work and known defects	Which messages remain live and what must be tested
Creative and content	Current templates, source files, product facts and rights	Files open, links work and missing assets are identified
Data and integrations	Connected systems, event dependencies and responsible owner	Dependencies are understood without exposing keys in the handover file
Reporting	Metric definitions, attribution settings, currency and reporting period	Reports can be read on the same basis before and after the switch
Access	Users, roles and any shared-service dependencies	Incoming access works; outgoing access has an agreed removal owner

Download the agency handover worksheet (CSV). It includes acceptance and unresolved-issue fields. Do not put passwords, API keys or customer exports in the worksheet.

How do you keep live work under control?

Agree a changeover window and one owner for the sending calendar. Ask both teams to state which work they will touch during that window. A temporary hold on non-urgent changes can make it easier to identify the version under review, but do not pause working messages merely to make the transition look tidy.

Check message-level flow states. Klaviyo’s flow activation documentation explains that individual messages can be draft, manual or live, and pending manual recipients need a separate review decision. A screenshot of the overall flow list is not a complete inventory of those states.

Before the incoming team changes a scheduled email or activates a new message, use the QA and approval checklist. Keep the approved version and the sender’s responsibility visible. If a campaign must move, record who agreed the new time and which related work changes with it.

When should you remove the outgoing team’s access?

Have the authorized account administrator follow the agreed offboarding plan after checking handover dependencies. Verify that the brand and incoming team can reach the required work first. Review individual users and shared integrations separately; removing one person may not address every connection.

Klaviyo’s user-management guide distinguishes regular user removal from account ownership changes. It also calls out SSO/SCIM-managed access, where changes may need to happen in the identity provider. Use the process that applies to your account. This guide does not authorize changing anyone’s permissions.

How do you accept the handover?

Ask the incoming owner to demonstrate that the required files, account views and reports are usable. Keep a list of missing items, the risk they create, the person following up and the agreed next action. A handover can be accepted with a documented exception if the brand chooses; it should not be marked complete because a folder was shared.

Agree the first deliverable after the switch. For example, an illustrative pilot could be a single approved campaign from the existing calendar, followed by a review of what was missing from the brief. That example is not a promise of a particular turnaround or workload from HWM.

Use the first-month agency guide to plan the work after transfer. For reports, keep definitions consistent with the case-metrics guide. A change in attributed revenue during the transition does not establish what the new team caused.

Sources and scope

The two linked Klaviyo guides were checked October 30, 2026. The inventory, worksheet and acceptance process are HWM’s proposed buyer template, not an account-specific migration plan or a record of a client transition. Use your actual contract and authorized account owners to resolve rights, commitments and access decisions.