In the past, marketing agencies may have relied on spreadsheets or whiteboards to keep track of various projects. But today, there are far more sophisticated tools available to help marketers master the art of project management.
Some project management software is designed to help with specific tasks such as time-tracking or interagency communication, whereas others serve as all-in-one task management tools. Which one is right for your team? Here’s an overview of the 50 best marketing agency project management tools:
Time-Tracking
Time-tracking tools are used to keep track of how much time employees spend performing their job duties. Some of the top time-tracking tools include:
ActiTIME
This software gives your team the option to manually enter their hours or use the timer for more accurate data.
Key features:
- Easy-to-read charts that show how each employee’s time is distributed across different projects or clients.
- Quickly compare scheduled hours vs. actual hours.
- Send automatic email reminders to ensure your team follows through with time-tracking.
Actually
This simple and straightforward time-tracking tool is ideal for small or medium-sized teams working on complex marketing projects.
Key features:
- Color coding makes it easy to compare estimated vs. actual hours per project or client.
- Log hours on a desktop or mobile device and leave notes, if necessary.
- Create a custom timesheet approval process that meets your business’s needs.
Toggl
Everyone from independent marketing freelancers to large marketing agencies can benefit from time-tracking with Toggl.
Key features:
- Free version gives you access to basic time-tracking features.
- Keep each time entry organized by adding project details, tags, clients, and billable rates.
- Uses time-tracking data to provide insights such as profitability projections and earnings-per-client.
MyHours
MyHours is a free time-tracking tool currently used by over 100,000 businesses around the world.
Key features:
- Set budgets and rates for each project so you can make sure you don’t go over.
- Manually enter hours or use the real-time tracker to log your time as you work.
- Add notes, keywords, files, and expenses to each entry in your timesheet.
Time Doctor
This time-tracking software was specifically designed for marketing agencies with remote workers.
Key features:
- Interactive charts show time spent working vs. time wasted for each team member.
- Give your clients access so they can view time-tracking data related to their projects.
- Get alerts when team members are late, logging a lot of idle time, or spending a lot of time on non-work-related tasks during business hours.
Digital Asset Management
Digital asset management (DAM) software is used to organize a marketing agency’s media files. Some of the best DAM tools include:
Widen Collective
More than 700 companies use Widen Collective to keep photos, videos, audio files, and other digital assets organized.
Key features:
- Quickly convert saved files into different formats.
- Adjust the roles and permissions to control who can access your files.
- Built with image recognition technology that automatically adds relevant tags to uploaded digital assets.
MediaValet
MediaValet’s user-friendly design makes it easy for everyone in a large marketing agency to use, regardless of their skillset.
Key features:
- Provides enough storage space for millions of assets and allows an unlimited number of users.
- Download saved digital assets in the format and size of your choice.
- Search for assets by color, number of people, gender of people, file type, size, rating, metadata, keyword, and more.
Wedia
This tool provides large marketing agencies with secure storage for a wide range of digital assets, including print, video, and 3D.
Key features:
- Prevent the unauthorized use of assets by attaching copyright information and watermarking.
- Advanced search options, including the ability to search by text, facial expressions, and emotion recognition.
- Reformat assets for different social media platforms in a matter of seconds.
Swivle DAM
This tool, which allows agencies to store assets in a public or password-protected portal, is more affordable than many other DAM options.
Key features:
- Collaborate with team members by making design recommendations directly within the tool.
- Enrich files with metadata to make it easier to locate them in the future.
- Automatically saves every version of your files so you can keep track of all changes.
MediaBeacon
Use MediaBeacon to ensure you never lose another valuable digital asset again.
Key features:
- Integrates with the tools you are already using, including Adobe, Sitecore, and BrightCove.
- Control access by adjusting individual, group, and/or role-based permissions.
- Create unique brand portals for each of your clients.
Brandfolder
Brandfolder is designed to save your team time by making it easy for them to quickly find the assets they need.
Key features:
- Access Brand Intelligence data to see who is using your assets, where they are being used, and how they are performing.
- Integrates with many tools, including Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
- Create guest portals so external partners can upload files.
Task Management
Every project can be broken down into smaller tasks. The process of managing these tasks from start to finish is known as task management. Simplify this process with these tools:
Gryffin
Gryffin is an all-in-one project management tool that you can use to manage every aspect of your marketing efforts from concept to completion.
Key features:
- Build custom editorial calendars, schedule assignments, and track the status of tasks with one tool.
- Access site analytics to monitor your clients’ SEO performance and quickly respond to changes.
- Handle administrative tasks such as invoicing, client approvals, and time-tracking directly within this project management tool.
Asana
Asana is a basic project management tool with a simple layout that makes it easy for every member of your marketing team to use.
Key features:
- Organize tasks into lists so team members can see which tasks are a priority.
- Build timelines that map out your team’s tasks over a certain period of time.
- Create templates so your team can quickly submit work requests with all of the necessary information.
Basecamp
Remote marketing teams can come together to collaborate and complete tasks using Basecamp.
Key features:
- Every project includes message boards, to-do lists, schedules, group chats, and more.
- Ask your team automatic check-in questions like “What are you working on this week?” to eliminate the need for status meetings.
- See everything that’s on your plate today, tomorrow, and in the weeks ahead in one easy-to-read list.
Trello
Trello allows you to organize your marketing projects and tasks on a simple dashboard so you can see everything in one place.
Key features:
- Keep track of your tasks and projects using boards, cards, lists, timelines, and more.
- Attach relevant images, links, and files directly to tasks.
- Add color labels to each card to convey the priority and status of the task.
Teamwork
Whether you need to manage one or one hundred projects, Teamwork can help you stay organized.
Key features:
- View easy-to-read charts to quickly see which projects are on schedule and which ones are falling behind.
- Evaluate your resources to determine who has the bandwidth to take on additional work.
- See your projects and tasks in a list, chart, or board, depending on your preference.
Nifty
Nifty is a powerful tool that marketers can use to track all marketing projects regardless of their complexities.
Key features:
- Customize the home screen for each project so you can quickly find the data you need.
- See all of the tasks assigned to you sorted by their deadlines.
- Filter tasks by due date, team member, or client to see the status of every project.
Monday.com
Monday.com is designed with a simple layout, which makes it easier to visualize everything on your team’s plate.
Key features:
- Use one of the 200+ pre-made workflows or create your own.
- Choose from 8 different data visualizations, including calendar, timeline, and workload.
- Track progress, timelines, and project budgets at a glance in your personalized dashboard.
Wrike
Wrike is a versatile project management platform designed with all of the features you need to run your marketing campaigns.
Key features:
- Customize your dashboards, calendars, folders, and projects to fit your team’s needs.
- Quickly reschedule tasks and their dependencies with one click of the mouse.
- See what’s on each team member’s plate at a glance so you can make sure no one is under- or over-worked.
WP Project Manager
WP Project Manager is a WordPress plug-in that you can use to manage your marketing projects within WordPress.
Key features:
- Get real-time notifications when you are added to new tasks or projects.
- Use the drag-and-drop feature to create custom projects, tasks, and boards.
- Create and assign to-do lists with due dates to team members.
Podio
Podio is a cloud-based project management tool designed to help teams communicate and collaborate on marketing tasks.
Key features:
- See the progress on all of your projects at a glance or dive into each task for more detailed information.
- Integrates with various tools, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and Evernote.
Kanban Tool
KanBan Tool is a board-based project management tool designed to help marketers track the status of their projects.
Key features:
- Simple board-based design provides a visual of the status of each project.
- Create Kanban boards to keep work organized.
- Analyze charts and graphics to monitor and improve project performance.
Hive
Hive’s project management tool was built to help marketing agencies of all sizes work faster to increase their productivity.
Key features:
- Switch between Gantt, Kanban, calendar, and table views so you can see data in different ways.
- Duplicate repeatable tasks and projects in seconds using Hive Forms.
- Create projects, tasks, and subactions to keep your team’s workload organized.
Kissflow
Kissflow is marketed as a tool that can simplify the management of the most complex projects.
Key features:
- Use “Hold,” “In-Progress,” and “Done” statuses to manage your workload.
- Create and prioritize tasks so your team members know what to work on first.
- Send automatic reminders to team members when a deadline is approaching.
Robohead
Robohead was created for in-house marketing and creative teams, but it can be used by marketing agencies as well.
Key features:
- Customize your project request forms so you can capture all of the information you need upfront.
- Eliminate manual work by copying existing projects or tasks.
- Drag and drop tasks to assign them to team members and schedule due dates.
Nutcache
Keep your projects under control and on schedule with Nutcache, an all-in-one project management tool.
Key features:
- Break tasks down into subtasks, checklists, and to-do lists to ensure your team knows what is needed for every assignment.
- Quickly find tasks by searching by task number, due date, or text.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet has the flexibility your agency needs to keep up with and compete in the ever-changing, fast-paced world of marketing.
Key features:
- Choose how you want to see your project-related data– in grid view, calendar view, project view, or card view.
- Integrates with other tools you may need to complete your projects, including Salesforce and Google Drive.
Creative Project Management
Certain project management tools are built to meet the unique needs of creative agencies. Here are some of the top tools in this category:
Screen Dragon
Speed up the delivery of creative projects by using Screen Dragon to manage your team’s tasks.
Key features:
- Smart digital brief forms tell you what needs to be filled out and when to minimize errors and avoid confusion.
- Build your own workflow to ensure your creative assets are routed to the right people at the right time.
- See timelines, priorities, and assignees at a glance in your dashboard view.
Workamajig
Workamajig was created to help both in-house creative teams and third party creative agencies effectively manage projects.
Key features:
- Automatically create schedules and timelines for new projects.
- Easily manage multiple teams and keep up with countless tasks and deadlines.
- Evaluate the skillsets of all team members before assigning tasks to ensure you are effectively using your resources.
Function Fox
Thousands of creative professionals use Function Fox to organize their projects and improve their productivity.
Key features:
- See an overview of task and action assignments for your team so you can determine who is available to take on more work.
- Keep track of everything on your plate with production schedules, charts, calendars, and progress reports.
- Receive notifications whenever you are assigned a new task or added to a new project.
Workzone
This tool was created by ad executives who were determined to make project management more manageable for creative agencies.
Key features:
- Create to-do lists, tasks, and task dependencies to organize your team’s workload.
- See the status of every project, including which tasks are behind schedule, at a glance.
- Send automatic email reminders to your team to ensure they don’t forget about important deadlines.
Client Approval Tools
There are a number of tools that marketing agencies can use to streamline the client approval process, including:
Gain
Manage the approval of all of your marketing assets within one single tool: Gain.
Key features:
- Seek approval on social media posts, digital ads, print ads, videos, websites, emails, ebooks, branding assets, and more.
- Send automated follow-up messages to clients to ensure they don’t forget to approve their deliverables.
- Allow clients to log in, review, and approve their deliverables from any device.
Pastel
Pastel is designed specifically to help marketing agencies with the client approval of websites and other design projects.
Key features:
- Enter any URL to start leaving comments on actual design elements of the website.
- Share a unique link with clients to immediately start getting feedback.
- See how changes will look once implemented in the “before and after” view.
Filestage
Filestage will help your team save time on chasing down your clients for approval on their projects.
Key features:
- Customize the proofing process to maintain consistency across projects and clients.
- See time-stamped approvals of every completed project.
- Invite clients to click and leave comments directly on the file they are approving.
Planable
Let your clients review and approve their social media posts using Planable so your team can focus solely on creating high-quality content.
Key features:
- Let clients preview each post exactly as it will appear once live on the social media platform.
- Invite clients to leave feedback right next to the post so there’s no confusion about what changes need to be made.
- See what’s ahead by viewing all scheduled and pending posts for the next week or month.
Kontentino
Just like Planable, Kontentino is designed to streamline the client approval process for social media posts.
Key features:
- Clients can comment on or approve posts on any device with just one click.
- Tag clients on a post when it’s ready for their review and approval.
- Schedule approved posts to go live on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.
Team Scheduling
Resource scheduling, also known as team scheduling, is an important component of project management. It involves allocating resources to projects, tasks, or clients. These tools can help:
Float
Make sure your projects stay on track by using Float to manage your agency’s resources.
Key features:
- Forecast the resources you will need for each project based on estimated hours or budgets.
- Automatically notifies your team whenever a change has been made to their schedule.
- See your team’s workload at a glance in a color-coded chart.
Zira
Zira is designed to automate many of the tasks involved in resource allocation so you can save time on scheduling.
Key features:
- Integrates with many payroll systems, including Square and QuickBooks.
- Allows team members to view their updated schedules from any device.
- Prioritizes employee scheduling preferences when allocating resources.
When I Work
Build a custom work schedule in a matter of minutes using When I Work, a tool designed for the modern workforce.
Key features:
- Access employee availability and scheduling preference data when allocating resources.
- Send your team messages to check their availability when you need to add more people to a specific project or task.
- Create task lists for each assigned shift so your team knows what is expected of them on a daily basis.
Team Communication
Your team members need to be able to quickly get in touch with each other to communicate about specific projects or tasks. These team communication tools can help:
Slack
Slack is a popular messaging tool that brings all of your team’s communication together in one place.
Key features:
- Create separate communication channels for each project, client, or team.
- Connect Asana, Google Drive, and other work tools directly to your Slack account.
- Use the search function to quickly find the information you previously discussed with your team.
Ryver
Ryver eliminates the need for email by allowing you to instantly communicate with groups or individuals on your team.
Key features:
- Make company-wide announcements in open forum chats.
- Organize group or one-on-one conversations by topic.
- Unlimited file sharing, conversation searching, and chatting.
Rocket Chat
Marketing agencies around the world rely on Rocket Chat to securely message team members, clients, and external partners.
Key features:
- Engage in group or one-on-one communication from any of your devices.
- Choose to either self-manage your data or use Rocket Chat SaaS.
- Adjust permissions for team members, clients, and external partners so you can control what conversations they can participate in.
Zoom
Zoom is a leader in the video conferencing industry that is often used to help marketing agencies stay connected to remote workers.
Key features:
- Customize your notifications to ensure you only receive alerts for important conversations.
- Host video conferences with team members, clients, or external partners.
- Share your screen during video conferences so attendees can see what you see.
All Hands
All Hands is specifically designed to help leaders communicate messages to large groups, such as entire departments, teams, or companies.
Key features:
- Pre-record and share short video updates with your team.
- Ask others to pre-record their own videos and quickly combine them to create one video message.
- See analytics that measure your team’s engagement with your video messages.
Google Hangouts
Google Hangouts is available to anyone with a Gmail account, which is why it is one of the most popular messaging tools.
Key features:
- Engage in group or one-on-one conversations with your contacts.
- Make video or audio calls to anyone on your contact list.
- Add videos, photos, files, and emojis to your messages.
File Sharing
File sharing is one of the keys to collaboration. Here are the tools that your marketing agency can use to make file sharing more efficient:
Dropbox
Dropbox is a cloud storage service that allows you to store your files online so you can access them from anywhere.
Key features:
- Share links to files with anyone regardless of whether or not they have a Dropbox account.
- Get real time alerts whenever a change is made to one of your files.
- Add password protection to shared links to keep files secure.
Google Drive
Google Drive is one of the most well-known file sharing services–and one of the easiest to use, too.
Key features:
- Integrates with other Google tools, including Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
- Uses artificial intelligence to predict what you are looking for when searching for a file.
- Access files on your desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile device.
Box
Some of the largest companies in the world, including two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, use Box for secure file sharing.
Key features:
- Uses advanced security controls and intelligent threat detection to keep files secure.
- E-sign agreements, offer letters, and other important documents.
- Designed to integrate with over 1,500 tools, including Slack and Salesforce.
OneDrive for Business
OneDrive is designed to simplify file sharing so your team can collaborate with one another even when they’re working remotely.
Key features:
- Grant expiring access to documents to keep your files secure.
- Upload documents from other Microsoft Office 365 tools in seconds.
- Edits made while you are offline will automatically upload once you reconnect.
Egnyte
Egnyte is known for providing a fast, reliable, and secure way for team members, external partners, and clients to share files.
Key features:
- Allows you to access stored files when working in certain third party apps, including Slack, Salesforce, and Gmail.
- Manage access to files by role, location, or security tag.
- Restore files that were accidentally deleted or edited.