Vander Els Partners
You. All of it, in your name, from the first day. Not transferred to you when the engagement ends, because that transfer is exactly the moment it tends not to happen.
This is the question that decides whether you can leave an agency, and most owners find out the answer at the worst possible time.
The domain
The domain is the business's address on the internet. If it is registered in an agency's account, you cannot move the website, change the email, or point it anywhere without their cooperation. Log in to the registrar and check whose name is on it. If you cannot log in to the registrar, that is the answer.
The hosting and the site
Where the site lives, and who has the login. An agency can host the site for you, and many do it well, but the account should be yours or you should have full access to it, and the code and the content should be exportable at any time. A site you cannot take with you is a site you are renting.
The ad account
The Google Ads account should be created under your own Google login, with the agency added as a manager. That way the history, the data and the billing stay with you when the agency changes. An account created under the agency's manager account can be, and often is, kept.
The Google Business Profile
The listing on the map is the single most valuable asset most local businesses have, and it is the one most often held by someone else: a former agency, a former employee, a web designer from six years ago. You should be the primary owner. Anyone else is a manager. Check it today; it takes a minute, and recovering a listing from someone who has disappeared can take months.
Analytics and call tracking
Same rule. Your account, the agency as a user. The history is yours. If tracking is run through the agency's own accounts, the day you leave is the day your last three years of data leave with them.
Why agencies do it the other way
Sometimes convenience. Sometimes habit. Sometimes because holding the assets is how they keep clients who would otherwise go. Whatever the reason, it is not your problem to solve. Ask for ownership before anything is built, and put it in writing.
The short version
Domain, hosting, ad account, listing, analytics, call tracking: registered to you, day one, with the agency as a user. Check each one this week. If any of them is not yours, fixing it now is cheap. Fixing it the month you want to leave is not.