Best Marketing Agency Management Software Reviews

Without a systematic process, managing a marketing project can be difficult. Marketing project management tools (PM software) help you collaborate, plan, and track the delivery of marketing projects.

In this guide, we look at the best project management software tools for marketing agencies. Specifically, we look at:

1. 15 Top Marketing Project Software For Marketing Agencies & In-House Marketing Teams
2. What Project Managing Features Does A Marketing Team Require?
3. What Does Marketing Project Management Tools Do For A Marketing Agency
4. Reasons Why Your Marketing Team Requires A Project Managing Software
5. What Types Of Teams Require Marketing Project Management Tools?
6. Choosing A Marketing Project Management Software
7. Marketing Project Management Software Tools Frequently Asked Questions

15 Top Marketing Project Software For Marketing Agencies & In-House Marketing Teams

Best Marketing Project Management Tools

In-house digital teams, creative agencies, and studios are all pumping out the best creative work. However, what marketing project management tools can you use to generate better work and stop people from getting bound to painful project administration?Here are the best marketing project management software tools today:

Asana Project Management Tool

Asana assists teams manage and organize all of their work, from small projects to strategic initiatives. Asana has more than 70,000 paying firms and millions of free companies across 195 countries.

Pros of using Asana marketing project management software

• Manage team workloads
• Portfolio management for large agencies
• Get customer approvals with the approvals and proofing feature
• Visualize campaign progress with custom dashboards
• Create custom task workflows using boards
• Plan schedules utilizing project timelines and calendars

Cons of using Asana marketing project management software

• It can be overwhelming for small teams or simple marketing projects

Price of Asana

Asana’s free plan enables up to 15 team members for an unlimited number of projects. Paid plans begin at $13.49 for every user per month.

Trello

Trello is another simple project management software that is popular among marketers. Task boards in Trello make it simple to manage linear marketing campaigns.

Pros of Trello

• Automate task workflows
• Collaborate with file attachments and task comments
• Custom tasks fields and checklists to incorporate custom information
• Create and manage custom task workflow
• Simple drag and drop boards to manage campaign ideas and tasks

Cons of Trello

• Poor overview of the campaign progress
• No timelines to plan your marketing campaign schedule or your team’s capacity

Price of Trello

You can manage up to ten team projects in the free plan. Paid plans begin at $12.50 per user monthly.

Toggl Plan

Toggl Plan is a simple yet extensive marketing project planner and execution tool. It comes with all the functionalities you require to manage a marketing campaign.

Pros of Toggl

• Integrates with popular time tracking, repository tools, and calendar
• Team timelines to manage and visualize your team’s capacity
• Multiple assignees for every task to team members can collaborate utilizing comments, notes, and file attachments
• Task checklists to improve task completion quality
• Recurring tasks and custom task workflows to manage all types of marketing campaigns
• Comes with free read-only timeline views to communicate project progress to customers
• Drag and drop boards to organize, capture, and prioritize creative ideas and tasks
• Simple drag and drop timelines to manage and plan projects schedule

Cons of Toggl

• No reports. However, Toggl Plan sends email notifications with task summaries.

Price of Toggl

The free plan is appropriate for marketing teams of up to five members and unlimited campaign projects. Paid plans begin at $ 9 per user every month. 

Workamajig

Workamajig is a marketing workflow application. It is built specifically for marketing agencies and in-house creative teams. It comes with an extensive feature set when it comes to project management for agencies.

Pros of Workamajig

• Manage the sales pipeline with revenue forecasting
• Manage multiple teams and forecast demand
• Time tracking for managing billable hours
• Manage to utilize any project methodology incorporating Kanban, Agile, and Waterfall
• Generate timelines from task lists

Cons of Workamajig

• It might feel costly and sophisticated for smaller marketing teams

Price of Workamajing

Workamajig software does not have a free plan. Paid plans begin at $50 per user every month; for a minimum of five users.

WP Project Manager 

Typically, WP Project Manager is a freemium WordPress plugin to manage marketing projects from within WordPress. WordPress design marketing and studio agencies that mainly work with WordPress will find this beneficial.

Pros of WP Project Manager 

• Open-source software
• Slack, GitHub, and WooCommerce integration
• Invoicing and tracking time
• Gantt chart timelines with task dependencies and sub-tasks 
• Drag and drop boards to manage tasks and ideas

Cons of WP Project Manager 

• Limited to the WordPress platform
• You are responsible for maintaining your marketing PM application installation

Price of WP Project Manager 

The base plugin is accessible for free from the WordPress repository. The premium plan of plugin begins at $79 per year for a single domain website.

Podio

Podio is a simple task management software with customizable and automated workflows.

Pros of Podio

• Android and iOS apps to manage work on the go.
• Attach files to tasks
• Integrations with cloud storage, marketing, ad calendar tools
• Task boards to prioritize and organize tasks
• Task management with custom task workflows

Cons of Podio

• Read-only customer access is not accessible in the free and basic plans
• No planning and workload management features

Price of Podio

Podio’s software free plan comes with task management for up to five users. Paid plans begin at $9 per user per month.

Basecamp

Basecamp is common collaboration software for marketing teams. It comes with powerful functionalities for file sharing and project communication.

Pros of Basecamp

• Message boards
• Collaboration utilizing comments and chat messaging
• To-do lists to manage campaign activities
• Event schedule with recurring events
• Powerful internal messaging and file sharing

Cons of Basecamp

• No task management or custom workflows
• No campaign plan timelines

Pricing of Basecamp

Basecamp PM software has a free personal plan with limited functionalities. Paid plans begin at $99 for every month or any number of users.

Monday.com

Monday.com is another common tool for marketing collaboration. It comes with numerous ways to view a project campaign.

Pros of Monday.com

• Enterprise-level security
• Custom dashboards
• Integrations with clouds storage services, calendars, and code repositories 
• Visual workload management to manage team capacity.
• Multiple ways to visualize project campaigns, incorporating timelines, lists, calendars, and boards

Cons of Monday.com

• No free plan. Besides, paid plans have a minimum number of users
• Whereas it has multiple views, you can only manage tasks from a task list

Price of Monday.com

Monday.com comes with a fourteen-day free trial. Paid plans begin at $ 10 per seat for every month with a minimum slab of three seats.

Kanban Tool

Kanban Tool is a broad-based software like Trello. It is more of a marketing project tracking tool. However, it is lightweight and suitable for simple task management.

Pros of Kanban Tool

• Visualize project progress with dashboard reports
• Manage project tasks and iterations with custom workflows
• Capture and organize creative ideas

Cons of Kanban 

• No workload management features
• No planning features

Price of Kanban

Kanban Tool’s free plan is limited to two boards and two users. Paid plans begin at $5 for every user per month.

FunctionFox

The function is a project management tool for marketing departments and marketing agencies. It comes with time and expense tracking, internal communication features, and project management.

Pros of FunctionFox 

• Custom report builder
• Track times and expenses along with project management features
• Blogs for internal team communication
• Gantt charts for project planning

Cons of FunctionFox

• The tool feels rough around the edges
• No workload management or team capacity planning features

Price of FunctionalFox

FunctionFox does not have a free plan. Paid plans with project management functionalities begin at $40 for the first user per month. For extra users, it costs $8 per user per month.

Hive

Hive is the best marketing project management solution for team collaboration. It is a project collaboration and management platform that powers organizations like IBM, WeWork, Uber, and Starbucks.

Pros Of Hive

• With AI-based analytics, numerous integrations, flexible project views, and more, Hive streamlines your work in one centralized software.
• Hive is used by teams of varying sizes, from ten people to 1,000; This tool is a great option for a diverse range of firms and work styles.
• Hive’s analytics, time-tracking, and flexible view capabilities allow for a transparent understanding of other team members work and upcoming projects
• Hive is suitable for marketing agencies in the market looking for a well-laid out, comprehensive tool that can be scaled down or up depending on team needs.
• Hive users can track marketing campaigns and projects on Kanban-style boards with due dates, checklists, and assignees.

ClickUp 

ClickUp is a marketing project management tool for managing marketing campaigns, tasks, clients, and docs in one place.

Pros of ClickUp

• Click makes it simple to collaborate with your team, work with contractors and clients, connect your data, and design dashboards to gain data-driven insights from any workflow.
• ClickUp’s highly customized views enable users to visualize marketing campaigns and accounts on lists, Gantt charts, calendars, Kanban boards, and more.
• Task management features include subtasks, task checklists, and task templates and the ability to sort, filter, search for, easily reorder, and view project tasks in the manner most convenient for the team.
• Design custom forms to get approval, collect client info, and distribute information from a single place. Custom statuses and automation allow users to establish an efficient intake system for affiliate sign-ups, co-marketing collaboration requests, client onboarding, and more.
• The software includes reporting features, the ability to design custom dashboards, and six built-in report types for team reporting.
• Time members can track time natively within the application or through integration.
• ClickUp provides native integrations with G Suite, Slack, Dropbox, and other tools, and over 1000 integrations through Zapier.
• Click Up also provides annotation and proofing capabilities for marking up, proofing, and approving files.
• Users can assign comments for requested modifications and approve them in real-time.

Price of ClickUp

ClickUp’s free plan is robust and incorporates all primary features. The unlimited plan begins at $5 a month per user and provides extra functionality. 

Wrike

Wrike is an award-winning marketing project management application suitable for teams of five or more.

Pros of Wrike

• It is highly configurable and lets users customize dashboards, workflows, reports, and request forms.
• Wrikecomes comes with an easy-to-use, intuitive interface and navigation with distinct folders, spaces, and tasks. Switch from the home screen to timesheets, calendars, dashboards, reports, and the activity stream.
• Erika has a committed help center with interactive training, getting started, guides and videos.
• Wrike’s simple interface allows users to switch between Kanban boards, drop Gannt charts and interactive drag-and-drop, and workload views for visualizing priorities.
• Wrike features expense and time tracking, project management, visual proofing, intuitive task and project management, templates for common marketing tasks, reporting, and resource allocation and management.
• Wrike provides 400+ pre-built native integrations, including the most common file management software from Google, Microsoft, and Dropbox, together with sales and marketing tools from Marketo and Salesforce.
• Wrike provides various solutions based on the kind of team or business, like solutions for marketing teams or professional service teams. Users also have access to multiple templates for common organizational processes.

Cost of Wrike

Wrike costs $9.80 per user per month. There are four different price points, incorporating a free version and plans which let users invite free external collaborates to a paid account.

Workfront

Workfront is an online project management tool designed for marketing agencies. Service teams, teams, marketing teams, and for collaborating between external and internal clients. The application allows for full project management, task tracking, client service, and prioritization. The tool also provides for the use of custom data to track projects and linked information. Workfront is layered and takes some time to explore all the various aspects. However, this complexity offers it incredible flexibility. You can choose Workfront for an all-in-one solution.

Ravetree

Ravetree is a full-featured work management tool used by marketing agencies around the globe. It includes best-in-class project management, time and expense tracking, resource planning, digital asset management, and CRM. Marketing agencies benefit from having a single source of truth from which they can optimize their operations and easily see the big picture.

A full array of advanced functionalities are provided, including granular permissions roles, automated alerts, customizable notifications, Gantt charts, project budgeting, custom tables, custom fields, powerful filtering, and other features. One thing that sets Ravetree software apart is the highly intuitive interface that lets users quickly find information, whether executives, project managers, or team members. Moreover, Ravetree has a five-star customer support rating and takes pride in being a customer-focused business instead of being sales-driven.

TrafficLIVE

TrafficLIVE software works to give account managers, leadership, financial managers, and sales professionals the tools they require to service customers more efficiently and be more profitable. 

TrafficLIVE features

• Utilization charts so marketing agency owners can determine staffing needs
• It comes with custom rate cards that can be applied to new client projects
• Native CRM for business development to track prospects and clients
• The visual dashboard shows the breakdown of money spent, time spent, over-runs, deliveries, deadlines, and more for every project
• Integrates with MS Project so account managers can easily export and import project plans

Price: Kindly contact the company for pricing information.

iMeet Central

Formerly known as Central Desktop, iMeet Central is an online-based collaboration tool that assists the entire marketing agency to stay on-task and informed of a project’s status.

Features of iMeet Central

• Centralized feedback system plans and organizes comments and shows who has approved, reviewed, or ignored the notice.
• Ability to make particular files and folders viewable to only marketing agency employees
• Meetingfeature to schedule events, share documents, and upload notes
• Customizable workflows that will automatically assign tasks
• It comes with an online mood board for sharing inspiration between creatives

The price of iMeet Central is $45 per user per month for marketers and agencies, $@5 per user per month for the enterprise.

Clarizen

Clarizen is the best digital marketing project management software. The majority of marketing teams with the best intentions have not experienced digital transformation success. That is because marketing projects are hard to manage and often plagued by issues that incorporate: a lack of visibility, misaligned, and working in multiple ad hoc systems. Overcome these hindrances, manage work, and collaborate across the enterprise- all from this single, intuitive cloud-based solution.

Clarizen’s leading work management solution provides a 360-degree view of projects, greater efficiency via automation, and the ability to adapt to your company processes.

1. Enterprise-wide transparency: Give your marketing team a single source of truth so they can make faster and smarter decisions.
2. Business intelligence: Centralize all campaign activities and gain real-time status on the status of marketing projects and campaigns
3. Real-time control: Control your PM business processes and systems

Up your marketing team’s game and stay competitive with modern work management that allows a successful marketing digital transformation.

Screendragon

Screendragon is a marketing project management tool used and loved by Fortune 500 organizations and global agency groups such as Kellogg’s, Keurig Dr Pepper, McCann WorldGroup, and TBWA. Screendragon mixes an easy-to-use, visual user interface with robust functionality. It is an end-to-end solution covering all aspects of marketing project management, incorporating SOW creation and project planning, project management, visual proofing, work requests, resource management, review and approval workflows, reporting and budget management, and more.

Screendragon provides a lot of flexibility with customized options incorporating a custom branded UX, personalized dashboards, smart custom forms, and advanced permission levels, which is ideal for big global teams. Users can also leverage various project templates for processes and projects and take advantage of artwork automation capabilities. Task management allows even more flexibility with visual Kanban boards, list views as options for interfaces, and interactive Gantt charts.

Screendragon has a team of process experts that can offer customers best practices for change management, developing training plans, getting leadership buy-in, and more. Screendragon offers deep integrations with leading ERP systems like SAP and PeopleSoft. It provides thousands of integrations with common apps via Zapier, such as Trello, Jira, Slack, Google Drive, Box, Office 365, and Microsoft Dynamics. It also has an open API, which enables custom integrations with any system.  Screendragon begins from $20 per user per month, and a free demo is accessible.

Kissflow Project

Kissflow Project is an intuitive project management software focusing on collaboration, coordination, transparency, and productivity, ideal for busy marketing teams. It is not intended for overly complex projects, so this is a perfect fit for small to medium marketing teams who want an easy-to-use service to collaborate on. Kissflow Projects provides numerous views for projects, including Kanban boards, swimlanes, and list views. The Project States function assists in reducing the amount of tracking required by allowing team members to mark tasks with one of three statuses- on hold, in progress. 

The software enables users to share project documents, plans, and other files as well as discuss projects directly within its interface, required functionalities for marketers. It does not have invoicing or time-tracking, but it does have some vital project management features such as reporting and notifications for team members as the due dates approach. Kissflow incorporates native G suite and Microsoft integrations, and the platform offers webhooks and REST API.

Pros and cons of Kissflow Projects

Pros of using Kissflow Projects	Cons of using Kissflow Projects
Powerful reporting functionalities On hold, in progress, and done states accessible for tracking progress Multiple views such as lists, Kanban, and swimlanes	Not intended for complex marketing projects Does not have the ability to set up recurring tasks No Gantt chart

Teamwork Project

Utilized by over 20,000 organizations, Teamwork Project software has all the project management functions you would anticipate, plus features keyed into particular needs, like reporting, quarterly goals, automated approvals, and task list templates for oft-used marketing items.  Teamwork Projects software excels in levels of collaboration that any marketing team will find beneficial, such as task-specific communication channels, real-time activity logs, social media content channels, and notebooks for extra data compilation.

Integrations include Slack, Hubspot, Gmail, Automate.io, Numerics, Float, PieSync, Chatify, Itegromat, Easy Insight, User back, TimeBro, and hundreds more via Zapper. Typically the user interface can be intimidating compared to alternatives, which might be hard if you need to onboard various external customers. Extra graphics or more digestible data on the dashboard, for instance, would be welcome.  Team Projects costs $9 per month and has a freemium version of the application for up to two projects and five users, and paid plans also provide a free 30-day trial.

What Project Managing Features Does A Marketing Team Require?

Criteria For The Best Marketing Project Management Tool

The best marketing and project management tool should be more than just a one-trick pony: it should assist in replacing the slew of other SaaS tools you depend on. You will have complete control over your work and management system while also streamlining workflow by lowering the number of the software you and your team members use.

Think about how many subscriptions you are paying every month. You probably are using:

• Project communication and collaboration tools like Slack
• Project management software like Wrike
• Time tracking software such as Timesheets
• Finance tools like Quickbooks
• File sharing software like Evernote

You will pay a lot of money per month for these tools- and they usually do not work together well, requiring copying and pasting the same data across various software. Having one marketing project management software might be a good idea; however, are any of them any good? If you are looking for one project management software to rule them all, you require a tool that you can deploy for everything. When reviewing marketing project management software, look at the following functionalities:

• Resource management: Ensure you are not overstaffing or understaffing one area of a project
• Reporting dashboards: Easy to see where an agency and the project is at with timelines, budget, and invoicing
• Real-time updates: Incorporates notifications for and instant updates on project deliverables, statuses, and changes to the task list
• Customizable: Enables you and your team members to customize the tool to your specific project needs
• Invoicing: Turning project reports into estimates and invoices
• Project management: Enabled with team collaboration and task management features like message boards, and tools for adhering to marketing project timelines, like Kanban boards and Gantt charts
• Expense tracking and time tracking: From quoting to keeping track of hours spent on a marketing project through timesheets

Other than the above functionalities, you will also have to consider two vital factors:

• Budget: Does the software come within your budget? Most marketing agency project management tools are priced on a per-user basis every month. Consider costs to cover your entire marketing team and customers.
• Ease of use: Does the software make it simple for your team to update or create project information? Otherwise, your team will end up wasting time, or they will stop using the tool altogether.

What Does Marketing Project Management Tools Do For A Marketing Agency

Managing a marketing campaign is sophisticated. Usually, there are many people, resources, and variables involved. Deliveries are time-sensitive, and customers want to be closely involved. A marketing project management software helps manage all these factors. Project management for marketing entails the following activities:

• Time tracking
• Customer communication
• Team collaboration
• Workload management
• Baseline management
• Project and task management
• Campaign planning

Reasons Why Your Marketing Team Requires A Project Managing Software

 

Whether you are the only marketer in your company or work in a team, utilizing project management solutions can help you streamline your work.

Benefits of utilizing a marketing project management tool

• You can create custom task workflows – With marketing project management, you can plan resource availability when needed and allocate these resources accordingly.
• Time tracking (Track time spent on marketing projects activities) – You can monitor tasks, track progress, and adjust the schedule as necessary
• Project managements tools help you to capture ideas – Organize, capture, and prioritize campaign ideas
• Marketing project management software promotes communication and teamwork – Make sure that the marketing campaign’s information is accessible when required. Help team members work together on overlapping tasks.
• Big picture view – Get a birds-eye overview of the marketing campaign project and team’s capacity to prevent burnout and overwhelm.
• Design documents and files – Keep all specification and design documents accessible to team members in one place.
• Client communication – Seek approvals and communicate campaign progress with customers
• Project planning – With a marketing project management tool, you can plan project timelines depending on your previous track record.

A project management tool is definitely an essential software you should invest in for your marketing team.

What Types Of Teams Require Marketing Project Management Tools?

The marketing management tool is vital for marketing teams of all sizes and types, including:

• Advertising agencies
• Brand management firms
• Designers
• Freelancers
• Marketing consultants
• Internal marketing teams
• Creative and marketing agencies
• Content marketing firms

Majority of the marketing teams above use a project management application to manage, plan, and track campaign activities. Whereas others utilize a project tool to collaborate and communicate the project progress.

Choosing A Marketing Project Management Software

Now you know what software is accessible for managing marketing projects. Now let us look at how you can select software for your team. By choosing the right software, you can streamline your marketing campaigns. On the other hand, choose the wrong tool, and your team might not enjoy using it or stop utilizing it altogether.

Steps you can take to choose the best software for your team

• Most software tools have a generous free plan, whereas others have a free trial. Utilize the free options to test a tool with your team and select one that your team best feels comfortable utilizing.
• Depending on the functionality set you require and your budget, shortlist two to three tools to try out.
• Estimate a budget that you are inclined to spend per month for the PM tool. If you intend to go with a sophisticated tool, you will also be required to factor in on boarding and training costs.
• Based on the needs of all stakeholders, decide what functionalities you require.

Marketing Project Management Software Tools Frequently Asked Questions

If you are beginning to explore what project management tool would be best for your situation, it is vital to understand exactly what you require from the product in the first place. Here are a few questions that can help buyers build a personalized set of requirements for their project management software:

• What kind of projects need to be managed?

This is a broad question but foundational for understanding what to look for in software. For example, some applications are designed mainly for particular industries, like construction. If there is no product customized for your industry, consider the department you want to use the software or what level of the company you are working at. Will your projects be IT-based or financial? Internal or client-facing? Understanding what kind of projects your team will use the project management tool for will set a solid baseline for your tool search.

• Who will the end-users of the software be?

You should consider how many people will be utilizing the tool and what their role is. Understanding this can assist you in ball parking the budget that should be allocated. It can be beneficial to consider the demographics of your user base. Will users be team members, contractors, or managers, or some combination of all? For instance, if your team or company is organized in a rigid, top-down hierarchy, having administrative projects and data controls could be vital. If not, administrative controls in your project management tool might not be necessary. Lastly, consider the application that you already use. For instance, if your user base utilizes Gmail, find a project management software that plays well with Gmail. Take stock of all the software tools your team uses, such as Jive, Slack, Confluence, and more. If some products are already ubiquitous, it is vital to find a PM tool that can integrate with those.

• What is the scope?

How big are the marketing projects you will manage? Is this tool for personal use, or should it support an entire marketing team, multiple companies, or multiple teams? Explore software tools options with an eye towards the scope of the product, depending on both vendor claims and user feedback. For example, the scope of a project management software to replace a sticky note process is far smaller than a tool that can manage the project workflow of a whole Engineering team. If you scope your marketing needs too high, you could end up paying more functionality and capacity than required. Also, remember to keep in mind how scalable your project management tool should be, with an eye toward your future growth or development.

• Do you need a desktop app, an online application, or both?

When considering what kind of tool to use, buyers should factor in the broader system that your business already uses. Is data stored on the cloud or local serves or a hybrid system? Is it essential that people be able to work and access the project management software remotely, or is everybody centralized to one workplace? Typically this consideration is a limiting factor often if a buyer is actively looking for desktop software. Most tools on the market are natively cloud-based; however, some of the larger players in the space provide on-premises options as well. If you are not certain how to address this, you might need to bring your IT team into the assessment process.