Before you sign a marketing retainer in Dubai: the list, the terms and who owns the accounts

A retainer that produced nothing

A magazine with a print and online edition offered a retainer of AED 5,000 a month for two or three insertions. The figure looked reasonable. Six months later AED 30,000 had been spent and the articles had produced no measurable engagement and no leads.

The magazine had given me a readership breakdown by age, nationality and location, and it looked sound. It was not detailed enough to show whether those readers had any need for the service, and with hindsight the figures were broad and probably overstated. Top-line audience numbers from a publisher are a starting point for questions, and the questions I should have asked were about the readers' businesses, their roles and their buying intentions.

The contract specified a number of insertions a month and a broad set of objectives. It should have carried a detailed list, and my list stopped at the printed article. The online edition, where the readers were, could have carried more than a copy of the same piece: a question and answer session on the reasons to move a business to Dubai, for example, which would have brought in questions from potential clients and given a second point of contact inside the same retainer. Studying what the online readers were already engaging with would have shown what to ask for.

The loss was limited because the term was six months. The articles were republished on the business's own channels, where they got more engagement than the magazine had given them. Build that into any media decision: what can you reuse, and what is it worth.

The list to write before you negotiate

Before you negotiate any retainer, write down everything that would make it worth the money to you: the leads, the enquiries, the engagement, the online placements, the reporting, the right to cancel if the numbers are missed. Then negotiate from that list. Every item the supplier removes lowers what the retainer is worth to you, and the fee should come down with it, or you walk away. There is a point below which what remains on the list is worth less than the fee. Know where that point is before you sit down.

The question to ask before signing is this. What number of leads or enquiries will you accept in the contract, with the right to cancel if it is missed? If a supplier will not accept any number, ask why. If the number they accept is too low to justify the fee, do not sign.

How long to give an agency before you judge it

The platforms themselves settle within weeks. Meta says an ad set usually leaves its learning phase after about 50 results in the week following the last significant change. Google says its automated bidding needs one to two weeks, and up to six for low conversion volumes, and that a new Performance Max campaign should run at least six weeks before it is judged, with at least 15 conversions in 30 days for value-based bidding to work. Both read on the platforms' own help pages on 16 September 2026.

The agency's testing takes longer than the platform's, because it runs several of those cycles: creative, copy, audiences and landing pages, each against your brief, each needing enough conversions to be judged. AI has cut the time it takes to produce the variations. It has not changed the number of conversions needed to tell a good one from a bad one, and at AED 15,000 a month of media and a few hundred dirhams a lead, that is a few weeks of data per test. So the working rule I use is this: expect the first reliable read at about three months, judge the agency on leads and cost per lead at that point, and keep six months as the term, because a change of agency inside three months throws away the learning you have paid for. The first contract is the testing contract, and its terms should reflect that.

The terms to insist on

Six months as the initial term, with one month's notice. Agencies will ask for twelve months, and I would refuse. No set-up fee in year one; if the agency insists, agree to pay it at renewal, so it is only paid if you choose to continue. A lead or enquiry target written into the contract, with the exit clause attached to it. Monthly reporting that shows spend, leads and cost per lead by channel, and a monthly meeting to go through it. Judge the agency on marketing return across every area it touches, leads and conversions but also website visits, engagement, follower growth and search visibility, each with its own target and each reported against what it cost.

Who owns the accounts

The Meta Business Manager, the Google Ads account, the pixel and the analytics property sit in your company's name. The agency is added as a manager and can be removed in a minute. Never the other way round.

This is how both platforms are designed to work: Meta's partner model gives an agency access to assets the business owns, and Google's manager account documentation states that the client account owns its data and can unlink a manager at any time. The standard is the same in London and in Dubai. The difference in Dubai is practice, where agency-held accounts are still common, so ask the question before you sign. If the relationship ends badly, and some do, you need to be able to change access to every account the same day. If the accounts sit in the agency's name, your audience data and your conversion history leave when the agency does, and that can do serious damage to a small business.

The one term that is on you

Before spend starts, write down your full range of services, your unique selling proposition (USP), your competitors, and your ideal customer profile (ICP), primary and secondary. The USP is the reason a customer chooses you over the alternatives. The ICP is a description of the customer most likely to buy and to stay, with a second profile for the next most likely. The agency's job is to test against that brief. A weak brief wastes the first three months of media, and the agency will not be the one paying for it. The fee arithmetic behind all of this is in what marketing costs a small business in Dubai, and what to expect a lead to cost is in cost per lead in Dubai.

Sources. The magazine case from the author's own experience in the UAE, anonymised. Meta Business Help Centre, About the learning phase, and Add partners to your business portfolio, read 16 September 2026. Google Ads Help, Performance Max best practices for lead generation, and Manager accounts: about ownership of client accounts, both read 16 September 2026.