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Dec 11, 2024
Looking for a way to boost productivity and cut through the chaos of managing multiple clients and creative projects? The right marketing agency project management software might just be your secret weapon.
In this guide, we’ve lined up the best project management tools tailored for marketing agencies of all sizes. From streamlined task management to powerful collaboration and approval features, find out which software can help your team stay on top of deadlines, hit creative milestones, and keep clients thrilled, all without breaking a sweat.
Marketing agency project management software is a specialized tool designed to streamline and optimize project planning, execution, and monitoring. It simplifies various aspects of project management, including task management, collaboration, resource management, scheduling, and progress tracking.
By leveraging this software, digital marketing companies gain access a centralized platform that facilitates task creation, assignment, and management for teams.
Project management software comes in all sizes and shapes, and the priority features depend greatly on your team size and the problems you’re solving. I gathered the most popular project management tools for you to choose from.
Planable is a collaboration tool for content creation that helps agencies streamline their workflows and make juggling multiple clients a breeze. With Planable, creative teams can work out any written content, leverage the media library, and schedule social media posts.
Content calendar in Planable
One of the most useful Planable features is workspaces. Creative agencies can put in place dedicated workspaces for each client, making each an ecosystem with its roles, approval workflows, social media logins, and content calendars.
Workspace sharing permissions in Planable
Planable’s key features for agencies are:
You can put any piece of content in the calendar. However, Planable can only publish directly to social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google Business Profile, TikTok, Threads and Pinterest.
Planable offers 50 free posts and fully unlocked functionality for unlimited time. After that, you can upgrade for $33/month per workspace and customize your setup.
Great tool for my staff and my clients. I love that its easy for people to navigate the workspaces. My clients can approve and leave comments without thinking about it. It was easy to get started with the workspaces and onboard my clients. I use this daily and my team loves it!
– Nicole Darechuk, Consultant
Planable is best for team collaboration and managing projects that require multiple approvals and ongoing communication between parties.
Bonsai is a project management tool designed for agencies to optimize workflows, enhance team and client collaboration, and improve profitability. Its all-in-one platform simplifies project planning, execution, and financial management, ensuring agencies stay organized and on track.
Key features of Bonsai for marketing agency:
Although Bonsai doesn’t include advanced social media scheduling or publishing tools, its robust financial management and client collaboration features make it a standout choice for marketing agencies that prioritize operational efficiency and client satisfaction.
Bonsai offers four paid plans starting at $9/user/month, with a 7-day free trial available for all plans.
Bonsai is ideal for agencies seeking a unified solution to manage tasks, resources, and budgets while improving client collaboration.
Notion is my second-best tool for project management. It’s very straightforward, modern, and clear when it comes to planning projects. Notion also integrates with tools like Google Drive, Trello, and Slack, easing data synchronization.
Its key features are:
Notion is great as long as everyone involved is a part of the workspace. To share a page externally with someone outside your workspace, you either a) make the page public or b) have to send invitations to each person manually.
Notion has a free version with basic functionality and two paid plans starting at $8/month per user.
Notion is best for smaller marketing teams with not-so-complex processes. Agencies can leverage it as an entry point to project management.
Asana is a project management tool for improved project visibility, collaboration, and task tracking. Its marketing project management software solution helps teams speed up creative reviews and automate routine tasks.
Key features of Asana for a marketing agency:
Being a project management software, Asana has many third-party integrations, but none are publishing or scheduling content for social media and external platforms.
Asana has a free version for small teams and two paid plans starting at $10.99/month.
Asana caters to cross-functional marketing and creative agencies, small to medium-sized. It’s a steady option for profound project management.
Teamwork is explicitly made for agency management. This marketing software helps organize project tasks, enables easy time tracking, and provides project managers with all the tools they need for efficient agency project management.
Key features:
Being a project management tool, Teamwork has no content-specific features like scheduling and publishing posts or gathering campaign analytics.
Teamwork has a free plan and three paid ones, starting at $5.99/month per user.
The Teamwork agency project management software is a full-cycle solution for creative agencies that includes task management and billing features.
Trello is a web-based project management tool from the Atlassian family — a simpler sibling to the massive Jira. It’s a Kanban board where columns are statuses (or dates), and cards are tasks. Create, assign, drag, drop, done. As simple as it gets.
Key features of Trello:
The drawback of Trello is that it is too simple for some creative marketing agency teams. Despite many integrations, it doesn’t have content creation, scheduling, and publishing features.
Trello’s paid plans start at $5/month per user.
Trello is an excellent free option for essential project management and team productivity tracking. Try Trello if you want an ABC-easy tool with a sufficient free version.
ProofHub is a web-based tool designed for project management and collaboration, assisting teams in optimizing their workflows. ProofHub concentrates on project management features but also has basic approval workflows.
Key features:
ProofHub paid plans start at $45/month, although the cheapest plan includes minimal features.
ProofHub is one of the complex project management tools with basic approval workflows. It suits marketing teams who want-it-all in one mix.
Monday is a cloud-based project management tool that suits agency management well. Teams can streamline their processes by combining Monday’s task tracking with various creative integrations like Canva, Figma, Semrush, and more.
Key features of Monday:
However, Monday might be overkill for simpler processes or smaller teams. I personally find it more complex than necessary for straightforward task management or basic project needs.
Monday has a free version (not a very robust one, though) and four paid plans starting at $24/month.
Monday is almost an enterprise-like solution that breaks down complex projects well. Consider Monday if you’re an established marketing agency with multiple clients and multithreading processes.
Wrike is an advanced project management tool for established teams. With Wrike, teams can automate repetitive tasks, set dependencies between tasks, and optimize resource allocation.
Key features of Wrike:
Although Wrike allows exchanging comments and feedback, it lacks collaborative creation features: as a collaboration tool, it only provides progress tracking but no simultaneous doc creation, for instance.
Wrike offers a free plan and two paid plans starting at $9.80/month per user.
Whether you’re managing simple tasks or complex projects, Wrike offers the tools you need to streamline your workflow and drive productivity.
ClickUp is a project management app that claims to replace all others. With customizable task management, real-time communication, and integration capabilities, ClickUp empowers teams to stay organized, prioritize tasks, and achieve project goals.
Key features of ClickUp:
ClickUp has automated notifications, but some say it sends way too many — although it’s a question of personal preferences. The platform has a free version and three paid plans starting at $5/month per user.
ClickUp is a marketing project management software that ticks all the boxes for a mid-sized agency.
Whether you’ve started a social media marketing agency, or are a part of one, you know the drill: it’s all hands on deck, come rain or shine.
Working on a creative team has its challenges, but these challenges are multiplied by the agency’s number of clients.
Project management tools help marketing agencies tame the chaos of managing creative efforts for multiple clients and deliver steadily. Here’s how a project management system can take the pressure off your team:
Planning is the key to smooth marketing workflows. Whether you’re dealing with 10 or 100 brands, project management software helps you visualize tasks and distribute the entire project lifecycle on a timeline.
Everything’s easy with a solid visualized plan: you know who has to deliver, what, and when. It also makes resource allocation much more precise and efficient, as your whole process is laid out in front of you.
Efficient communication is the backbone of managing marketing projects. Many in-house creative teams struggle with building an efficient pipeline for brainstorming, timely feedback, and prompt approval.
Agency project management has the same issues but multiplied. A marketing project management tool organizes collaboration and improves communication between team members, departments, and clients.
In-context communication in Planable
As an agency, you sometimes face clients who are on the clock: they have tight deadlines, a swift turnaround, and multiple creative assets. Being aware of the project’s progress is vital to meet the deadline.
Project management software offers solutions for project tracking and task management that helps marketing teams to track deliverables and ensure nothing’s missing.
There are many project management software options on the market, from enterprise-sized solutions to startup options. The way you organize tasks, delegate responsibilities and collaborate in your marketing or advertising agency will guide your choice of project management tool.
I’ve gathered six key features that you should look for in a project management tool for marketing agency teams:
Managing multiple projects requires a great deal of organization and planning. When choosing marketing project management software, ensure it’s adapted to managing creative projects. The basic actions you need your marketing planning software to perform are: track projects, manage tasks, and track time (for budget management purposes).
As an agency, you handle multiple clients. Managing separated projects is easier with dedicated workspaces. This way, your clients don’t get mixed up, and there’s no additional stress of posting something to the wrong account or misplacing an asset.
Each workspace should have its content calendar, connected social media accounts, and file management systems. The ability to separate your clients into different workspaces allows you to create automated approval workflows that include only people who are supposed to be there.
Workspaces in Planable
Creating content for marketing campaigns directly in the project management software is a huge advantage. Usually, marketing agencies handle the whole content cycle: from campaign planning to creation of copy and visuals.
Crafting various complex creatives for social media posts, articles, or ad videos goes much smoother when it’s combined with the project management software. So check your tool for built-in content creation features.
Team collaboration is essential. In a marketing agency, communication happens on two levels: inside the team and with external stakeholders.
Internal collaboration in Planable
Your project management software should include collaboration tools to ease content creation and approval. For instance, Planable allows you to write comments and leave feedback next to the assets. You can even exchange private notes your client won’t see.
Approval is one of the most time-consuming steps of client collaboration. Consider a project management tool with automated approval workflows and customization options to get the green light as quickly as possible.
Multi-level approvals in Planable
Approval software with multi-level workflow can be handy for teams with multiple stakeholders. With a sound customized workflow, you can sweep the content down the pipeline, getting the ok from team leads, project managers, legal, and finally, clients — with zero emails.
I’m a big fan of marketing automation. That’s why I like to have automatic reminders in marketing project management software.
Reminders significantly ease tracking project timelines. In the case of a marketing agency, when one person works several tracks, automated reminders on a due date approaching or an approval request hanging are among the most wanted project management features.
Effective project management is achievable when you have the right project management tool. Grab those from Planable and give them a test drive today!
Content marketer with a background in journalism; digital nomad, and tech geek. In love with blogs, storytelling, strategies, and old-school Instagram. If it can be written, I probably wrote it.
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