Digital marketing has become the gold marketing standard for any product and service. Most businesses requiring digital marketing may not functionally manage online marketing because they lack a dedicated team. To fill the void, many digital marketing agencies have sprung up. Consequently, agency project management tools have become a must-have for such agencies. This article will introduce you to some leading and affordable agency management software that your marketing team can use.
Common Issues Faced by Marketing Agencies
#1. Client Management
Most marketing agencies report real-time client management is the main challenge. When your agency grows, you will be managing 5 to 10 clients at once. That is also necessary for revenue and profitability. But overseeing the projects of all the clients daily and reporting progress is daunting.
#2. Project Management
When your clientele grows, so does the number of active projects. You can no longer manage these projects on a spreadsheet. Not to mention, human errors, accidental task deletion, tasks pending for a long, no resources for tasks, and so on make your agency management a nightmare.
#3. Collaboration
When you start a digital marketing agency and accept client projects, you will soon see that the project team is working in silos. Agency owners often notice that the team gets busy with tasks they like, mostly with easy ones. And they find it challenging to communicate with the whole team about task completion, content development, etc.
#4. Marketing Resources Management
Managing multiple clients means that you will end up mixing the content for one client with the other. Not to mention, storing everything on the PCs of separate content creators make it hard to access media assets when the social media or PPC management team needs to post content.
#5. On-Time Delivery of Project Deliverables
Your project team members may procrastinate in delivering project deliverables on time since you lack clear oversight of the project. Alternatively, your media asset, content, social media posts, PPC ads, etc., are ready, but the concerned team is not moving ahead with their tasks. Not to mention, you find that a requested content has been created, but no one thought to email that to the client. Whatever the reason, you are bound to experience delays in client projects when you maintain a digital marketing agency.
What Is Agency Project Management Software?
Agency project management tools are special workplace applications that help digital marketing agencies. An agency project management software usually comes with the following features:
An agency command center or dashboard for a holistic view of all the projects on one screenAutomatic timesheet entry for hourly projectsA secured and centralized content repository for all creative assetsDigital whiteboards for brainstorming sessionsData analytics tool to create project reportsRole-based tool access for seamless external and internal collaborationAccess to work apps from anywhere on any device without compromising securityProject management tools like Gantt charts, dependency management, priority matrix, etc.
When you move your agency’s projects on such an app and implement its usage for all the client projects across teams, you weed out most of the bottlenecks in managing a project.
How Does Agency Project Management Software Help?
You gain complete control over all the client projects with the dashboard view of ongoing projects.Monitor workday utilization of project resources and assign tasks rationally.Create an inventory of skills, so you do not engage yourself with a client project for which the necessary skills are unavailable.Give the project team easy access to business apps, media assets, content, and so on from a centralized software.Log activities of all the project resources for auditing and performance evaluation.Never miss out on any billable hours or content from a client project.Give your team members an accessible workspace to collaborate easily on ideas, creative assets, content, codes, etc.
So far, you have gone through the basics of agency project management software. Now, find below some outstanding agency management applications that successful digital marketing agencies use across the globe:
Monday
If you are a creative agency, monday.com lets you manage everything — projects, marketing campaigns, sales pipelines, event calendars, and more. Here, agencies can track client projects, manage client history, plan internal tasks, collaborate on projects, and manage invoices and payments. On monday.com, companies can easily assign tasks to teammates and track them. Upon new task assignment, the person gets notified, which increases ownership and accountability. One can view all projects and tasks in the timeline and calendar views. monday.com helps you meet deadlines successfully, displaying the project status and due date at a glance. Thus, teams can know which projects are on track and which are overdue. A sharable board and various templates are also available here. This platform also has a time-tracking feature to keep track of the time you spend on each task and project. Moreover, if the clients pay you by the hour, you can use this same tool to record the total time invested in a project for billing purposes.
Wrike
Wrike is an effective software for agency project management that lets you get more projects done in less time. It offers a 360° view of every task and project you have on your hands for maximized profit. This platform is a unified workspace that stores all your resources to boost your efficiency and streamline team communication. As colleagues can collaborate seamlessly, there will be zero roadblocks and more productivity. Moreover, this tool assists you in delivering visibility and transparency so you can make every stakeholder happy and expect loyalty from them. Its other highlighted features include:
Real-time visual markup toolWorkload viewShared team calendarsOne-click Gantt chartTime-trackerWorkflow customization
If you use this software, there is no need to switch between different other apps you use. It supports integration with Salesforce, Tableau, Google Drive, SharePoint, OneDrive, Jira, MS Excel, Slack, Dropbox, and HubSpot.
AgencyAnalytics
AgencyAnalytics is a reliable tool for marketing agencies. It allows you to scale up your business with features like automated client reporting and customizable dashboards. Agencies will also get the following attributes from this tool:
Customizable marketing report templatesDrag-and-drop report builder for automation Personalized dashboard with custom metrics, goals, widgets, and embeddable contentFeature to track progress toward goalsSEO tool suite for site audits, keyword rankings, and backlink monitoring
Productive
Productive is a one-stop destination for all agencies looking for profitability and a strong grip on their operations. This scalable platform can be used for data consolidation, resource planning, complex budgeting, and more. Additionally, marketing companies can also use it for storing financial data, managing leads, creating budgets, and team communication. If you want to deliver your projects faster, use this platform to keep all your teammates focused on their priorities and thus streamline your project work. Productive can also track billable time to save time by generating invoices automatically. Also, the same platform can monitor your budget and profit margins in real time.
Whatagraph
Every marketing agency has to create a lot of reports for cross-teams and clients. Whatagraph makes this task easier by automating the processes of creating and delivering reports. This platform is not only user-friendly and scalable but also capable of pulling data from 40+ sources to present them transparently. Agencies can use any of its pre-built templates or create a report from scratch. Its drag-and-drop widgets enable flexibility for the users. Also, you can blend data on Whatagraph using custom formulas. Moreover, this platform supports live reporting sharing via links and scheduling reports to get automatically sent. It also gives you an overview of your performance by teams, accounts, or regions.
Hive
Hive offers you all the tools a marketing agency needs to excel in project management. Here you can plan and organize many complex projects and tasks. It is also suitable for setting project baselines and assigning tasks to different team members. You can label and categorize activities here to get full visibility of your activities in real time. One can use the same platform to record time and billable hours. Hive can also centralize the clients’ approvals, feedback, and requests.
Gainapp
Gainapp is particularly suitable for digital marketing agencies with a priority focus on social media engagements. In social media campaigns, your agency must collaborate with the client and content creator team in real-time. Designs and text copies need to move from content creator to client and back for design feedback, creative suggestions, and approvals. You can do all of these on the Gainapp effortlessly. Gainapp creates the following easy-to-use workflow for your social media marketing agency:
Create, import, and upload creative content and copiesPut all the content in secure cloud storage in compartmentsShare the required compartment with the client for feedback and suggestionsClient and agency managers can approve content automaticallyPost the content on social media handles
You can start your free trial to learn about their interface before going through their paid plans.
Teamwork
You can use Teamwork to break down complex projects into multiple tasks and subtasks. Then, organize them in a timeline according to their budgeted time to completion, deadlines, and dependencies. That is not just for one project. You can do this for as many projects as possible, whether recurring, hourly billed, or one-time. The followings are the key features of this agency project management software:
Manage unlimited simple or complex client projectsTrack and monitor all billable hoursClients can also access a wall-gardened version of the appScale up and scale down as client projects increase or decrease
At the time of writing, more than 6,000 global agencies use Teamwork for efficient and affordable project management for remote, brick-and-mortar, and hybrid agencies.
Accelo
Accelo has become a leading business automation software developer from a digital agency. Hence, it understands the pain points of managing digital marketing agencies. With its experience in the industry, it has created the Accelo agency management tool that benefits you in the following points:
Brings your staff, billing, and clients into one central appCapture all the billable hours accuratelySync the schedules of all the staff of your digital marketing agency to utilize the staff’s workday efficientlyCreate effortless client communication medium to keep them happyKeep client projects within the budgetOnline project management for one-time, hourly, and recurring client projectsMake your agency profitable from day one by reducing billable hour wastage and leakage
Improvado
Improvado applies the Extract, Transform, and Load technique or the ETL tools for data integration. With the help of ETL, the tool aggregates agency marketing data from various projects, teams, individual employees, and business apps to give you a clutter-free view of the agency’s status. The tool lets you connect third-party data sources from various campaign platforms like Google Ads, Instagram, Twitter, Shopify, Bing ads, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook Ads, and so on. Once you have collected project data from the above sources, you can create data visualizations on platforms like Google Data Studio, Tableau, Power BI, and Looker directly from the Improvado web app. You can also store your digital marketing agency data on robust database platforms like PostgreSQL, Google Big Query, ClickHouse, MariaDB, Snowflake, and more.
Final Words
According to a recent survey on the global digital marketing business, Expert Market Research (EMR) has reported that digital marketing created a huge business of approximately $305 billion in 2020. The report also says that the industry should see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.6% from 2021 to 2026 and will accumulate approximately $807 billion in revenue by the end of 2026. In a nutshell, digital marketing agencies are here to stay. However, they need to adopt agency project management software to make client management easier. Next, you can check out digital marketing tools to grow revenue and engagement.
