Nine clauses to strike from a UK marketing agency contract, including the one that cancels statutory interest

A UK marketing agency contract is mostly uncontroversial until the relationship ends, and then a handful of clauses decide what the exit costs. Below is what to refuse, what to put in its place, and which ones are worth losing a supplier over. One of them is specific to British law and is almost always missed by whoever reads the contract.

One, the interest clause that replaces your statutory entitlement

This is the British specific one. The gov.uk guide Late commercial payments, read on 22 October 2026, states plainly, 'You cannot claim statutory interest if there is a different rate of interest in a contract.' Statutory interest for business to business transactions is 8% plus the Bank of England base rate.

So a contract clause setting its own, lower late payment rate does not add a remedy, it replaces the stronger one. Read the payment section specifically for an interest rate, and if one is there, decide deliberately whether you want it rather than discovering later what it displaced. The same guide also sets fixed recovery sums of GBP 40, GBP 70 or GBP 100 depending on the size of the debt, chargeable once per payment.

Two, accounts and properties left in the agency's name

Refuse outright. Ad accounts, analytics properties, business manager assets, search console access and tag containers belong in your company's name with the agency granted access. The reverse is common, is presented as convenience, and means you lose your own history on the day you leave.

Three, ownership of work that transfers only on completion of the whole term

Narrow it. Ownership of delivered work should vest on payment for that work. The wide version means a dispute over one month holds a year of content hostage.

Four, automatic renewal with a long notice window

A twelve month term renewing automatically unless cancelled three months in advance is a contract designed to be forgotten. Agree a term, diary a review before the renewal date, and keep notice short in the first term.

Five, a notice period silent on work in progress

State who finishes half done work, who pays for it and what is handed over. Without that, the last month of every engagement is an argument.

Six, any promise of a position or a ranking

If a draft contains a commitment to a ranking or a guaranteed placement, strike it and ask why it was offered. Nobody controls the result, and a firm willing to put it in writing is telling you how it sells. The enforceable version is defined work, a named number and a review date.

Seven, data clauses that do not name what is processed

If the agency handles personal data for lead generation, email or CRM work, the contract needs a schedule naming the categories of data, the processing locations, the permitted uses, any sub processors and a deletion commitment with a deadline. British data protection obligations sit with you as the organisation holding the relationship with those people, and your supplier's tooling choices are inside your perimeter whether or not the contract mentions them.

One British specific detail worth knowing before you brief outbound work. Marketing to a sole trader is treated differently from marketing to a limited company under the UK rules on electronic marketing, because a sole trader is treated as an individual while a corporate body is not. If your supplier's prospecting list mixes the two, it needs to know the difference, and the contract is the place to make that its problem as well as yours.

Eight, one sided exclusivity

Specialist agencies often hold two or three clients in a category, which can be an advantage. One sided exclusivity, where you may not hire another supplier while they may take your competitor, is the version to refuse. Convert it into disclosure plus a conflict process.

Nine, confidentiality that stops you describing your own results

Mutual confidentiality is normal. A clause preventing you from discussing your own numbers, including with a future supplier or in a dispute, is not. Keep the right to describe your own performance.

The clause almost nobody includes and should

A baseline and handover clause. The agency records the starting position in month one, before it changes anything, and hands you that record at the end next to the final one. It costs the agency nothing and it is the only thing that turns a final review into a comparison.

There is a measurable reason this is worth asking for now. On 22 October 2026 we put a 198 question set of British buying questions to ChatGPT and Gemini, with the market fixed inside the prompt because the gl, hl and location parameters on the search API are accepted and then ignored. In the 64 blind readings, British agencies were named unprompted, led by Impression in 18 of them, and 30 readings named nobody at all. So there is a position to be measured at the start and the end of an engagement, and a contract that does not require the starting point to be recorded leaves the most useful evidence uncollected.

What British buyers ask about agency contracts

Is a twelve month term ever reasonable? For work that accumulates, yes, if you trade it for a short notice period. A long term and a long notice window together is two concessions.

Can we withhold payment for poor results? Payment follows delivery of defined work, which is why the outputs have to be named in the contract. Withholding against an undefined scope is how disputes begin.

What if the agency built our website? Then source files, hosting access and the domain registration belong in the handover clause. A domain registered in a supplier's name is the most expensive thing here to recover.

Should the contract name individuals? Name the day to day contact and the delivery lead, with notice required before either changes. The gap between the pitch team and the delivery team is the commonest complaint after month three.

Is any of this legal advice? No. The payment figures are quotations from gov.uk guidance with the date we read them, and how any clause applies to your contract is a question for your solicitor.

The clause that is worth more than the other eight put together

If you only negotiate one item on this list, negotiate the first. Statutory interest at 8% over base is a remedy Parliament gave you and a single line in a supplier template takes it away, and almost nobody reads the payment section with that in mind. Print the gov.uk sentence, put it next to the contract, and decide deliberately.

The second most valuable is the baseline clause, because it is the one that makes the final review a comparison. Have the supplier record what buyers are told about you in month one, before anything ships, including what the assistants name when somebody asks for a firm like yours. We keep that record at AI Knows Us for exactly this reason, and whether you use us or the agency itself, insist that somebody takes the reading before the work starts.

For the invoicing and VAT half of the same decision, see our page on a UK entity or an overseas marketing supplier.