Search for what to check before hiring an advertising agency and every result repeats the same three words: experience, references, communication. None of them tell you what actually protects you when the relationship ends.

The contract you sign hands a company your brand's public voice, your customer data, and sometimes the rights to the content it produces for you, for a year or more. The five questions below are the ones generic checklists skip, the ones that matter at exit, not at pitch.

What does the termination clause actually say?

A standard Turkish agency contract typically auto-renews annually and requires 90 days of written notice from either party to exit, according to a published sample agency agreement (reklam.com.tr); if that number is not written down, you are effectively locked in indefinitely. Ask for the exact number of days, whether notice must be written, and whether early exit triggers a penalty.

This clause matters more than it looks. A 2025 joint report from the ANA and the 4As found that clients without a mandatory review clause kept their agency for an average of 8.1 years, while clients with a mandatory review clause averaged only 3.8 years; the overall average tenure rose from 3.2 years in 2016 to 7 years in 2025. A strict exit clause reads as distrust, but ambiguity is what actually shortens relationships, not clarity.

Who owns the creative after the contract ends?

Usually, the agency does. In a standard agency contract, copyright to campaign visuals and copy stays with the agency unless the contract states otherwise, and the client often has to buy those rights separately at an agreed fee (reklam.com.tr). That means a year of creative assets can become unusable the day you switch agencies. Ask directly: do usage rights to everything produced transfer to us at contract end, or is that a separate purchase?

Under what legal role is the agency handling your customer data?

Any agency running your pixels and ad accounts qualifies as a data processor under Turkey's Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data, which requires a written data processing agreement covering purpose, duration, security measures, sub processor use, and breach notification (per Lexpera's KVKK compliance guidance). Almost none of the agency comparison articles mention asking for this document, yet any agency piping customer data into Google or Meta pixels should be able to produce it on request.

How do you check references beyond the two the agency hands you?

The two or three references an agency offers were chosen because they tell the best story. A more reliable method: find someone on that client's marketing team on LinkedIn and ask three specific questions directly, how often reporting actually arrived, what happened the last time the budget changed, and why the relationship ended or is still running. The answer from the agency's own reference is almost always positive. The answer from someone you found independently is not guaranteed to be.

A good agency contract describes not how the relationship begins, but how it can end.

What should you request before signing anything?

Do not enter a year long commitment with any agency until you have seen these five documents in writing, not in a pitch deck.

• A contract draft with a written number of notice days, not a verbal 'reasonable notice'
• A copyright clause that states who owns campaign creative after the contract ends
• A KVKK data processing agreement covering how customer data is handled
• A real monthly report from an existing client, with dates left visible
• A three month paid pilot option instead of a twelve month commitment

An agency willing to put these five documents on the table has already proven its experience and its references. One that will not is telling you, before you sign anything, how the rest of the relationship will go.