The 10 Best Marketing Agency Management Software
Precious Sunday
The 10 Best Marketing Agency Management Software
As the world of marketing evolves, agencies need to adapt to the changing demands of clients. In this article, we'll explore the merits of using marketing management software for agencies, and review 10 of the best such software for 2023.
TheDrum found in a 2021 survey that marketers at agencies reported a major impact on their mental health due to heavy workloads. 62.6% of marketers at the surveyed agencies reported that their workload had a major impact on their mental health, while 32.6% described it as a ’minor variable’.
Marketing or advertising agency management software helps agencies manage client accounts and workflow. The tools we'll review can help you manage client accounts, whether they're brand-new or long-standing relationships; they can also make it easier to collaborate with colleagues and other departments within your agency or company.
Top 10 Marketing Agency Management Software
As a marketing agency, juggling many clients and projects can be overwhelming, which is why prioritizing the use of agency management software is essential. So without further ado, here are the 10 best marketing agency management software options to consider in 2023.
1. Kantata
Kantata is a collection of cloud-based software solutions that unifies data across systems and sources to provide high-level views of the data and generate recommendations. This is done through built-in business intelligence capabilities, which optimize the utilization of resources.
With Kantata, you can improve your agency's ability to deliver quality work faster and more profitably with confident forecasts.
Kantata has several famous users, including accounting firm RSM, Huge digital agency, Genpact, Salesforce, Sage, Wieden+Kennedy, Qualtrics XM, Hero Digital, and Esri.
Agency Management Features
Project Management
With easy access to critical project data, teams can better plan and manage timelines, scope, and budgets. A Gantt chart view is also available on the platform, so you can see the big picture and drill down to the details.
Resource Management
Kantata gives your agency access to various tools to help manage resources. These include a resource center, team builder, capacity forecast, and resource dashboard. The resource center and dashboard let users plan successfully, use analytics, match skills effectively, and forecast confidently.
Business Intelligence
With Kantata, you can create customized dashboards, perform reporting, and use orchestration tools.
Built-in integrations:
The software integrates with other programs, including customer relationship management, financials, human resources, and other existing systems. It also features APIs for simple integration, drag-and-drop tools to customize reusable components, and rules-based automation.
Plans and Pricing
Kantata offers a range of pricing plans to meet the needs of its customers. Price is determined on a custom quote basis and is available upon request by contacting the company's sales department.
Pros
The platform is easy to use
Kantata comes with great reporting and time-tracking features. You can also track the health of ongoing projects through the health panel on the right-hand side of the project dashboard.
You can easily engage in secured conversations using the private messaging option when confidentiality is needed.
Kantata helps you track and analyze your sales, purchases, and margins in your base currency. It converts all foreign currencies on your orders to your base currency, so you can accurately track your business in one currency.
Cons
Integrations can be confusing and quite challenging for a first-time user.
Pricing is not transparent.
Poor mobile experience as you generally cannot log time or manage projects from iOS or Android devices.
Users have complained of slow load times and website crashes.
Reporting features are not advanced
2. Improvado
Improvado is a marketing agency project management software that lets you pull all your agency's data into one place through automated client dashboards and reports. It is straightforward and intuitive, so you won't need a developer to help set it up. Also, since the platform is specifically focused on marketing, it integrates with many marketing platforms.
Agency management features
Reports
The reporting tool automatically calculates performance metrics based on your preferred methods for calculating Google Analytics, inbound marketing, social media and native ad platform conversions. The statements are easy to read and understand, so you can make informed decisions about your creative campaigns and which ones need improvement.
Over 400 Built-in Integrations
Improvado has over 400 native integrations allowing you to consolidate data across platforms. Integrations include LinkedIn, Twitter Ads, Moz, Klaviyo, Amazon Advertising, Facebook Ads, Tiktok Ads, Google Analytics 4, BigQuery, Data studio, Looker, Tableau, Google Ad Manager, Power Bi, Excel, and many more.
Whitelabel
You can customize the dashboard and reports, removing references to the Improvado platform. Improvado offers a portal to add corporate logos and colors. It is perfect for presenting data to your clients.
Plans and Pricing
Improvado uses a custom pricing structure. A sales representative will provide you with details on pricing based on your needs.
Pros
Full support and customer service onboarding help leave little or no room for extra developers.
Marketing integrations are deep and granular, and you can see data at the keyword or ad level.
The software is customizable and gives you the ability to create custom metrics and map data across different platforms.
You can combine your marketing data in real-time and across multiple systems to simultaneously manage numerous clients' campaigns.
Helps reduce manual reporting time by at least 80%.
Cons
Some advanced features may be tricky to navigate.
Has a high price tag and is not well suited to small marketing agencies.
Little support for data visualization.
3. Screendragon
Screendragon is a flexible and powerful platform for managing your team, projects, and workflow. It combines project management, workflow automation, resource management, budget management, and more in one easy-to-use solution.
Using Screendragon, you can see everything that’s going on in your agency. And because its dashboards are real-time and interactive, you can easily see who needs help with what project and where they are in the process.
Agency Management features
Task organization
Screendragon lets you organize your projects, resources, and content in one place. So you can get more work done without switching between different tools.
Utilization reporting.
Screendragon helps you track every project and resource activity in your organization so you can measure productivity, cost savings, and more.
Dynamic form builder
Screendragon's form builder lets you create forms with advanced features. Once you've created a form, you can edit it to suit your changing needs by customizing fields, language, and layout. You can also hide or show fields based on inputs and permission levels.
Visual Workflow editor
The visual workflow editor allows non-coders to create complex workflows by dragging and dropping actions onto a canvas. Every user has access to a dashboard showing them the workflows they are involved in, and workflow versioning allows users to view and re-publish old versions of workflows, which can be useful for debugging issues.
Plans and Pricing
Screendragon subscription includes a per-user per-month plan and a one-time set-up fee. The pricing, however, depends on the number of users that wish to use the software. You can access the software starting from $40/user/month for 50-149 users or $20.00/month just for one user.
Pros
The platform's unique customizable UX allows you to work the way you want to while remaining within the confines of your brand guidelines.
Great customer support. Their team will help you customize the tool to fit your needs.
The platform can handle complicated workflows
Branded assets are easily accessible to team members
You receive real-time status reports, monthly reports on asset deliveries by project, and comprehensive budget reports across all projects using screendragon.
Cons
Most custom changes can't be made without the assistance of customer support. Customizations can therefore take a while to be implemented.
Screendragon has a lot of features, which can make the tool seem a bit complicated to use.
Limited data visualization options.
4. Teamwork
Teamwork is one of the best marketing project management software platforms built specifically for teamwork and collaboration. It helps users deliver work on time and within budget, eliminate client chaos, and understand profitability in one platform.
Teamwork is regarded as the 'one-stop shop' solution for start-up agencies as it integrates with several popular services, giving users access to all the important features they need to function efficiently.
Agency Management features
Project Management
Teamwork’s project management tool and task tracker allows you to engage your team, break down tasks into subtasks, and create clear task lists. The tool also allows you to plan and collaborate to complete projects from start to finish.
Automations
You can take advantage of existing automation templates to streamline your most common manual work. You can also create custom workflows tailored to address the most frequent bottlenecks you encounter.
Teamwork CRM
With Teamwork CRM, you can see the big picture of your sales pipeline and prioritize deals to close them faster. To smoothly transition from the sales process to client onboarding, you can create a project from a template in Teamwork directly from a won opportunity in Teamwork CRM.
Plans and Pricing
Teamwork offers a 30-day free trial as well as a free forever plan that gives you access to its basic features. For access to advanced features, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan. There are three pricing tiers:
Deliver plan: Gives you access to more project power (automation, templates, custom fields), report dashboard, user rates, and budgets. This plan is billed at $10/user/month annually (or $12.50/user/month when billed monthly)
Grow plan: Offers you access to workflow management, advanced budgeting, and powerful reports, plus everything in the Deliver and the free plan. Billed at $18/user/month annually (or $22.50/user/month when billed monthly) and
Scale plan: On the scale plan, you can access advanced project management tools, resource management, and financial reporting tools. You can customize the scale plan pricing according to your agency's needs.
Pros
Easy to deploy and use
Well-developed Gantt chart feature. Teamwork allows you to view projects, deadlines, and project milestones using Gantt Charts. This can be very useful for presentations.
Notifications and customizations are very helpful. Anyone can see what's been done, who's working on what, and what comes next which makes project management easier.
Technical support and responsiveness from the teamwork customer service are fast and reliable.
You can effortlessly manage your team, projects, clients, and freelancers
Con
You will need to pay for pricier custom quote scale plans to access essential tools like project portfolio workflows, workload resource management, resource scheduling, and project time budgeting.
The platform has no two-factor authentication warning which is an issue, as projects and tasks may contain some sensitive info.
5. Scoro
Scoro is a cloud-based workflow management software that lets you run your business from your laptop or smartphone. It's an excellent tool for small to medium-sized businesses. The central control hub drives everything you do. From here, you can schedule and track workflows with your team, carry out customer relations, run reports, and track KPIs.
Agency Management features
Time Management
Stay organized and on top of your schedule with shared calendars, timesheets, and a built-in time tracker. Use drag-and-drop capabilities to assign tasks, minimize overlap, and prioritize your work effectively.
Project Management
Project management tools help you to effectively keep track of meetings and tasks, evaluate time spent, and record invoices, expenses, files, comments, and more all in one place.
Real-time Dashboards
Enterprise-level business reports can be automatically generated and customized to display the information you need.
Scoro CRM
Stay organized every step of the way, from first contact with customers to the final invoice, by tracking deals and opportunities in real time.
Plans and Pricing
Currently, Scoro offers four different packages which include:
Essential plan: At $26 per month, it includes all the tools you need to run a successful business (e.g., CRM, Project Management, Help Desk).
Standard plan: Billed at $37 per month. It includes all the tools in Essential plus more advanced features like Marketing Automation and Lead Management.
Pro plan: Billed at $63 per month. It includes all the tools in Standard plus even more advanced features like Video Conferencing and Document Collaboration.
Ultimate plan: It includes all the tools in Pro plus even more advanced features like Live Chat Support and Live Video Support. It is billed at $66 per month.
Pros
Scoro has a beautifully designed interface that is intuitive and easy to use.
Scoro's planner gives you an overview of team workloads and available time slots so that you can schedule work and assign tasks more effectively.
Customize activity types, statuses, tags, templates, reports, and invoices to suit your team.
Scoro has a mobile app that allows you to access project data on the move. With the Scoro mobile app, you get instant access to your projects, tasks, and documents on your phone.
Cons
Scoro offers several unique features. However, access to all of its advanced features is pricey.
Its CRM tools may get a bit frustrating to use without the help of an expert or customer service.
6. AgencyHub by PB Works
AgencyHub is an advertising management software that makes it easy for you to manage your company's clients using a central hub where you can access all of their important information. The platform also allows you to assign tasks and receive feedback from customers, set up notifications for important events, send out surveys and polls on specific topics relevant to your business, as well as send out marketing campaigns through email blasts or social media posts.
Agency Management features
Project Management
The project management tool offers a clear overview of all your projects. This makes it easy to keep track of deadlines, allocate resources, and generate helpful management reports.
Workflow tools
Work together with partners and vendors in one workflow. It also helps you stay updated on notifications, task lists, and collaboration opportunities.
Secure File storage
You can store, and access files from anywhere, or share files and documents securely in AgencyHub.
Plans and Pricing
They offer a free plan for up to 15 internal users and 50 MB of storage. Their paid plan costs $2,995 annually (or $30 per user per month) and unlocks 20 users, unlimited projects, and 100 GB of storage.
Pros
The free plan is perfect for your start-up agency. It’s a low-risk way to experiment with project management software before your agency gets bigger.
In AgencyHub, you can see an easy-to-read visual summary of each project on one page. You can also store, distribute, and collaborate on documents, media, and other files.
Easy to set up centralized administration and access control
Cons
Customer service support is not available for free accounts. To access help from representatives you have to be on a paid plan.
The paid plan is expensive at $2,995 per year/$30 per user per month
Limited project management and collaboration features. No time tracking feature.
7. Workamajig
Workamajig is a cloud-based software for marketing agencies, advertising teams, and other creative agencies that allows you to create tasks, assign them to the right people, notify others when their input is needed, and finish projects on time.
With Workamajig collaboration becomes a lot easier. It offers tools for file sharing, allowing you to share content with team members and get their feedback on it. You can also access your work from anywhere, even when you're offline.
Agency Management features
Project management
Workamajig offers project management tools, including project templates, project hierarchies, and support for multiple projects, which makes project monitoring uncomplicated and efficient.
Team collaboration
Collaboration is easy as the platform offers tools to create teams and groups, document management, and instant messaging.
Resource management
The resource management tools allow you to see the allocation of resources so that all projects can be handled appropriately. For example, the time-phased view on Workamajig gives you a complete picture of all your resources by showing them in chronological order. The timeline also shows when each project was started and finished as well as when it was delivered to the client. You can also use Workamajig to track staff working hours.
Plans and Pricing
Workamajig offers a variety of pricing plans that decrease as you add more users. The entry-level is $50 per month for five users, agencies are $41 for ten users, and enterprises can get the platform for as low as $32 per month for 100 users or more.
Pros
Workamajig makes it easy to manage your team's workflow. Just create a task, assign it to the right person, and click "Notify". You'll get an email when the person assigned has started working on the task or has completed it.
Workamajig is excellent for multifunctional project management with a wide range of tools available for advertising agencies and in-house creative teams.
Cons
Platform navigation is often difficult as the software tries to integrate several features which makes it complex.
Updating projects can be time-consuming.
The interface can be tricky to navigate, so scheduling errors are common.
8. Slack
Slack is a group messaging or team collaboration app that makes it easy to communicate with your team. With Slack, you can create open discussions, direct messages, and private groups for your coworkers. You can search for information in conversations and archives, share files, and more.
Agency Management features
Centralize Tasks
Aside from being a project management tool. Slack allows you to bring projects from other PM software together under one roof. You can send task updates and notifications and keep the right people on top of projects.
Identity and device management
Slack lets you control who can access your company's information using features like single sign-on, domain claiming, and support for enterprise mobility management.
Huddles and clips
Huddles are like impromptu office meetings, but they're super easy to start and manage. You can start a huddle in any channel or direct message (DM) to work in real time alongside your teammates with video, multi-person screen sharing, a dedicated thread for notes, and emoji reactions. Clips are short audio or video recordings that team members can use to showcase their work or provide step-by-step instructions for others to follow.
Workflow builder
The workflow builder is a visual tool that allows any Slack user to automate routine functions by creating custom workflows. Users can also download and import pre-built workflow templates, instead of starting from scratch.
Plans and Pricing
Slack offers four pricing plans: Free, Pro, Business and Enterprise Grid.
Free: The free forever plan allows you to use Slack in a basic way with limits on message search, storage, and app integration.
Pro: The Pro plan costs $7.25/active user/month and includes features like integrations with other applications, message archiving, custom workflows, and app permissions.
Business: Slack's Business Plan costs $12.50/active user/month, and includes all the features of the Pro Plan plus unlimited message search and more administrative controls over your team's usage of Slack.
Enterprise-grade security and support for up to 500,000 users are available on the Enterprise Grid plan. Anyone interested in this plan has to contact the sales department.
Pros
Flexible tool. Can function as a digital office.
Has a free plan, plus affordable paid plans.
Integrates with over 2000 tools, including popular project management tools, allowing you to centralize tasks
Cons
Slack provides you with as much free storage as you choose to pay for, but having limited storage can be frustrating.
Has a bit of a learning curve and limited customization options.
The free plan has a 10k message limit. Messages and files are automatically deleted after 90 days. Free plan users have access to only 10 app integrations.
9. Celoxis
Celoxis is an affordable, easy-to-use project management platform that makes it possible to manage resources, timesheets, expenses, workflows, and project portfolios. It also enables you to create detailed project plans that include unlimited task hierarchy, and resource work calendars in multiple time zones.
Agency Management feature
Dynamic dashboards and reports.
Celoxis dynamic reports and dashboards consolidate real-time insights from projects and teams. They support custom fields, chart drill-down, and multiple dashboards. Celoxis also has customizable widgets and layouts, as well as email-delivery scheduling.
Resource management
The platform allows you to plan and manage resources by location, shift, skills, and availability. It also offers functionality for planning holidays, capacity, and exceptions that can be used instantly when an overload occurs.
Project Requests Mapping and Planning tools
To manage the influx of incoming project requests, the system automatically creates a Project Queue report that enables you to rank and re-rank projects based on your criteria.
Plans and Pricing
Celoxis offers two paid plans: a cloud plan starting at $22.50 per user per month (with a 5-user minimum) and an on-premise plan with custom pricing (with a 5-user minimum).
The cloud plan includes all the features Celoxis offers and everything you need to manage your team's workflows, while the on-premise plan provides all the features from the cloud plan but doesn't require an internet connection or subscription fees.
Pros
Celoxis delivers vast customization possibilities for you and your team.
The software is easy to navigate and allows you to manage and track your team and client relationships effortlessly.
Comprehensive visualization with tools like Gantt charts, allows everyone to see the status of their projects in one click.
Cons
The software has no "undo" button when creating a project plan, which is very dangerous as mistakes would often require you to start from the beginning.
A tad bit expensive for small teams
There are no checklist features for tasks. And the critical paths feature for tracking essential tasks within a project, doesn’t work properly.
10. Basecamp
Basecamp is a project management software that helps you organize your work by breaking it into separate projects. Each project contains everything related to people, discussions, dates, tasks, and files. You can set up a new project on the website, add other users so they can communicate with you, and manage the message board
Basecamp is unique because it's user-friendly and easy to use. The interface is simple and clean and there aren't any complicated features or functions to learn how to use. It also saves time because you don't have to keep track of separate items like emails or documents—everything is linked together in one place.
Agency Management features
Manage Project Calendar
Basecamp's calendar is comprehensive, allowing you to view projects and their events and deadlines in one place. You can also create a standalone calendar that contains birthdays, anniversaries, and other important dates.
Team collaboration
Using Basecamp, you can create an invite-only group for any team member so they can collaborate on something without having to worry about other people seeing what they are working on until it's ready for them to see. Also, the all-access tool allows you to invite anyone in your basecamp account to join any project, assign tasks and allocate resources.
Basecamp Docs
Basecamp allows you to create documents that other users can edit. You can view a history of changes and restore earlier versions as well. These documents are accessible in the mobile version, too.
Plans and Pricing
Basecamp offers two pricing plans. The basic plan for freelancers and startups costs $15 per month per user. You get access to every run-of-the-mill Basecamp feature plus 500 GB of storage.
The Pro Unlimited plan is a great option for larger companies. For just $299 per month, you can onboard as many users as are in your company and get 5TB of storage space, 24/7/365 priority support, and much more.
Pros
The software is easy to use and intuitive. It allows for collaborative project management.
In Basecamp, you can integrate with third-party tools to back up and sync data
Great document storage feature. Deleted files can be retrieved within 30 days. Completed projects can be archived. It also offers a free app for iOS users.
Its pricing makes it one of the most affordable project management software for advertising agencies and marketing teams.
Cons
Basecamp does not have features for creating Gantt charts or task dependencies.
No time tracking feature.
The overall design of the software dashboard is too basic.
Conclusion
Using one of these agency management software tools can make life easier for you and your team and ultimately help you streamline workflows and automate projects in a way that's more efficient for everyone. However, before committing to anything, try out the tool first and see if it fits your agency's workflow.
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Posted Feb 15, 2024
Discover top 10 Best Marketing Agency Management tools to help you manage client accounts, whether they're brand-new or long-standing relationships.
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