How to get ownership of digital assets right
This is one of those topics that looks small until it costs you something. The short answer to ownership of digital assets is that it is mostly a sequence of small decisions, not one big one.
Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.
Why this earns attention
Domains and accounts should be registered to you. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.
The steps
- Establish what you have today before changing anything
- Losing control of a domain is a genuine emergency
- Get it in writing before work starts
- Write down the decision so the next person does not re-litigate it
Get it in writing before work starts. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.
Making it stick
What this looks like day to day
Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. Three things worth confirming about ownership of digital assets before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Losing control of a domain is a genuine emergency — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.