Marketing Project Management Software Buyers’ Guide

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“What’s the best project management solution for marketing teams?” It’s a simple question. However our research found the answer is a bit more nuanced than just choosing between two options. Instead, buyers should dial in what their teams’ specific needs are, then evaluate each option. Happily, we’ve done a lot of the work for you.

I’ve reviewed more than 30 different options to create buyers’ guide. Here are 10 top marketing project management solutions you should consider.

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Our Picks

Our PicksBest ForPlans Start At

monday.com logo.
Best OverallFree plan available • $8/user/month • Read More

Full ClickUp Logo.
Best for Smaller Marketing TeamsFree plan available • $7/user/month • Read More

Asana bog logo.
Best for Marketing and Communication IntegrationsFree plan available • $10.99/user/month • Read More

teamwork logo.
Best for Client-Facing Project TeamsFree plan available • $5.99/user/month • Read More

hive logo.
Best for Simple Automated WorkflowsFree plan available • $12/user/month • Read More

zoho logo.
Best for AffordabilityFree trial available • $20/user/month • Read More

The Wrike logo.
Best for Project Portfolio ManagementFree plan available • $9.80/user/month • Read More

Trello logo.
Best for Ease of UseFree plan available • $5/user/month • Read More

The Basecamp logo.
Best for Internal Collaboration & CommunicationTrial avaliable • $15/user/month • Read More

ProProfs Project logo.
Best for Customer SupportTrial available • $39.97/month • Read More

monday.com logo.

monday: Best Overall

monday’s project management platform includes all of the best elements of a project management solution, especially when it comes to customization capabilities and overall user experience. Users can incorporate custom fields and data into their workspaces, while also relying on monday’s prebuilt project templates and reporting and dashboard widgets.

monday.com’s templates are a true standout feature for marketing professionals. From the time you sign up for the platform, you’re immediately asked what industry sector you’re in and receive template and setup recommendations based on that industry. Some of monday.com’s best templates for marketing teams include the following:

  • Marketing SWOT Analysis template
  • Social Media Calendar template
  • Editorial Calendar template
  • Marketing Calendar template
  • A/B Tests template
  • Quarterly Objectives template
  • Competitors Analysis template
  • Campaign Tracking template

monday.com’s Marketing Plan board can be used to plan high-level annual goals and marketing initiatives.

Key Features

  • Customizable project templates
  • Low-code/no-code customizations
  • Advanced dashboard and reporting widgets
  • Time and task tracking
  • Resource management
  • My Work for individual task management
  • Workload management
  • Extensive, easy-to-use automation

Pros

  • Intuitive user interface with helpful visualization features
  • Customizable fields, templates, and automations
  • Advanced and easy-to-use automation capabilities

Cons

  • Pricing can grow steep as you move into higher pricing tiers
  • Limited fields and customizations in the free plan
  • Some limits to reporting capabilities

Relevant Integrations

  • Slack
  • Google Drive
  • Trello
  • Dropbox
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Outlook
  • Salesforce
  • Zoom
  • Gmail
  • Zapier

Read our monday Work Management software review


Full ClickUp Logo.

ClickUp: Best For Smaller Marketing Teams

ClickUp has long been used by advertising and marketing agencies to manage their project tasks and client relationships. For the number and variety of features the software offers at a reasonable price, ClickUp is a great deal for smaller organizations that need big marketing functionality.

The platform offers a variety of project views and extensive reporting and dashboarding capabilities. Most notably, ClickUp provides workload management features in all pricing tiers, whereas many other competitors, such as monday.com, only include this level of user management in higher pricing tiers.

ClickUp is a great option for marketing companies that have multiple project portfolios to manage.

ClickUp is a great option for marketing companies that have multiple project portfolios to manage.

Key Features

  • Marketing campaign development with Gantt and other project views
  • Custom forms and requests
  • Document management
  • Marketing-friendly project templates for A/B testing, campaign tracking, SEO management, and more
  • Integrations and ClickApps for workflow management
  • Whiteboards for team collaboration
  • Real-time chat
  • Real-time reporting and dashboarding

Pros

  • Workload view is available in all pricing tiers
  • Highly customizable, down to individual boards, columns, and data points
  • Relatively affordable for the number of advanced features

Cons

  • Software can be buggy, especially with features like auto-save
  • Some users have difficulty with initial setup and general ease of use
  • Somewhat limited reporting features

Relevant Integrations

  • Calendly
  • Discord
  • HubSpot
  • Slack
  • Zendesk
  • Box
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Zoom
  • Vimeo
  • Google Drive

Learn more: ClickUp Software Review


Asana bog logo.

Asana: Best For Marketing and Communication Integrations

Asana is an advanced project management platform that offers one of the largest native and integrated portfolios of marketing solutions. Its many project views, administrative controls, and reporting and analytics features make it a top contender for larger marketing teams. Most notably, Asana offers a large number of marketing-specific integrations with third-party software, such as Adobe Creative Cloud, Wistia, Canva, YouTube, Mailchimp, HubSpot, and HipSocial.

Although this platform is sometimes considered less user-friendly and more overwhelming than its competitors, it has many strengths when it comes to individual user and task management, regardless of your team size. For example, the personalized “My Tasks” dashboard is an easy-to-use tool that is available for each user to more closely monitor their performance across tasks assigned to them. 

This is an example of how Asana’s agency collaboration template can be used to manage existing and upcoming projects.

This is an example of how Asana’s agency collaboration template can be used to manage existing and upcoming projects.

Key Features

  • Time and milestones tracking
  • Marketing-specific project templates
  • Rules-based automation
  • Built-in approvals and request tracking processes
  • Project task-syncing across multiple projects
  • Workload management
  • Accessibility features
  • Administrative controls for user access and data security

Pros

  • A variety of features are available in the free plan.
  • Workload features and time-tracking integrations make it easy to track individual progress.
  • A large number of marketing and communication tool integrations are available.

Cons

  • Asana has a steeper learning curve than many of its competitors.
  • More expensive than most project management solutions.
  • Multiple users cannot be assigned to a project task.

Relevant Integrations

  • Salesforce
  • Jira Cloud
  • Power BI
  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Mailchimp
  • HubSpot
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Slack
  • Microsoft 365
  • Gmail

Learn more: Asana Software Review


teamwork logo.

Teamwork: Best For Client-Facing Project Teams

Teamwork is one of the best project management solutions available for balancing the needs of the project manager, employees, and clients. With Teamwork, you can grant access to as many client users as you want, giving them the levels of visibility and permissions that make the most sense. With client-level access to your platform, customers can see how your marketing team is tracking toward project goals and deliverables at any time.

Teamwork is most often lauded for its advanced workforce and performance management features. It has one of the clearest and most consistent workload management feature sets on the market, also offering accountability management, time tracking, task management, invoicing, and communication tools to make the user experience better for everyone.

Teamwork’s highly intuitive interface and workload management capabilities make it easier for marketing managers to track employee bandwidth across roles and projects.

Key Features

  • Task list and project templates for frequently used processes
  • Tasks, subtasks, and recurring tasks
  • Workflow and approvals automation
  • Client user access management and team collaboration tools
  • Easy-to-use mobile app
  • Time tracking and invoicing
  • Simple data visualization and reporting
  • Time budgeting for individual users and overall projects

Pros

  • Clients can receive controlled access to your team’s workspace.
  • Strong time tracking and workload management capabilities.
  • The accountability management feature is great for internal performance tracking.

Cons

  • Occasional lag when loading new changes in the system.
  • On the more expensive side, especially for smaller teams.
  • Somewhat limited data visualization features.

Relevant Integrations

  • HubSpot
  • Mailchimp
  • Stripe
  • Slack
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Basecamp
  • Asana
  • Trello
  • Wrike

Learn more: Teamwork Software Review


hive logo.

Hive: Best for Simple Automated Workflows

Hive has made a splash in the project management space by offering a platform and product roadmap that is primarily driven by user input. It’s an easy-to-use, comprehensive project management solution that allows users to automate project tasks and campaigns, track time and workloads, and manage assets with unlimited storage. Hive Automate and Hive’s library of workflow recipes are some of the most straightforward automation tools available for PM software today.

One of the newest and most exciting features offered by Hive is HiveMind, an AI assistant that supports market research, content creation, and project task planning. For marketing teams, HiveMind is especially helpful for outlining or drafting blog content and other types of strategic marketing content.

Hive’s latest AI feature, HiveMind, makes it possible to create project tasks based on AI-prompted suggestions for tasks.

Hive’s latest AI feature, HiveMind, makes it possible to create project tasks based on AI-prompted suggestions for tasks.

Key Features

  • Document, video, and other approvals workflows
  • Customizable project templates
  • Goal and subgoal tracking
  • Time tracking
  • Workload and team resourcing management
  • Customizable dashboards
  • Team-level and project-level analytics and reporting
  • My Actions personal to-do list view

Pros

  • Strong customer support.
  • Free guest views are available.
  • Helpful time tracking and budgeting features.

Cons

  • Some users have trouble with creating task dependencies.
  • Some difficulties with navigation and personalization.
  • Analytics features are not available in the free plan and are only available in the team plan for an added cost.

Relevant Integrations

  • Google Drive
  • Dropbox
  • Salesforce
  • Jira
  • Slack
  • Zoom
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Box
  • HubSpot

Learn more: Hive Software Review


Zoho Projects logo.

Zoho Projects: Best For Affordability

Zoho Projects is one of the best-value project management options on the market, offering a full-featured deck for resource and time management, project customization, team collaboration, and automation. It is one of the most affordable project management solutions, with even its highest-tier Enterprise package coming in at $9 to $10, the approximate price of most competitors’ lower-tier, limited packages. 

Although Zoho Projects users have reported limitations with reporting and mobile app functionality, the platform makes up for it with many of its other features. Significantly, Zoho Projects has many third-party integrations, as well as integrations with the following Zoho ecosystem tools that could be helpful for marketing agencies in particular:

  • Zoho CRM
  • Zoho People
  • Zoho Desk
  • Zoho Invoice
  • Zoho Analytics
  • WorkDrive
  • Zoho Assist
  • Zoho Books
  • Zoho Mail
  • Zoho Meeting
  • Zoho Cliq
  • Zoho Sprints
  • Zoho Expense
  • Zoho Forms

Zoho Projects offers a Resource Utilization chart visualization, making it easier to see which employees have been overburdened with project tasks.

Zoho Projects offers a Resource Utilization chart visualization, making it easier to see which employees have been overburdened with project tasks.

Key Features

  • Tasks, subtasks, recurring tasks, task lists, and milestones
  • Critical tasks and path identification
  • Project baselines for goal progress tracking
  • Portfolio dashboard view
  • Custom fields, views, and templates
  • Business and workflow rules
  • Time tracking and budgeting features
  • Ability to add client users

Pros

  • A highly affordable project management solution that still offers many advanced features.
  • Integrates with the rest of the Zoho ecosystem.
  • Resource utilization chart supports workload management.

Cons

  • Users have reported some bugs when using the software.
  • Fairly basic reporting functionalities.
  • Some users have difficulty with the mobile app’s limited capabilities.

Relevant Integrations

  • Gmail
  • Microsoft 365
  • Slack
  • Zendesk
  • Google Drive
  • Microsoft Projects
  • Dropbox
  • Box
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Other Zoho products

Learn more: Zoho Projects Software Review


The Wrike logo.

Wrike: Best for Project Portfolio Management

Wrike’s project management platform includes a number of task management features, automations, dashboards, and integrations that make it a top solution for marketers. It is a tool that focuses heavily on individual user experience, especially with some of the new UX and analytics advances that have accompanied Wrike’s Lightspeed release.

But where Wrike really stands out is in its approach to project portfolio management (PPM). Wrike offers users a number of resource management and allocation features, change-focused roadmaps, time tracking, and OKR templates that make it possible for marketing agencies and other marketing teams to juggle multiple projects, clients, and competing priorities.

Wrike’s Campaign Tracker dashboard allows users to look at active and proposed marketing campaigns, drilling down into overdue tasks and important campaign milestones.

Wrike’s Campaign Tracker dashboard allows users to look at active and proposed marketing campaigns, drilling down into overdue tasks and important campaign milestones.

Key Features

  • Work request forms for intake workflow
  • Integration with Adobe Creative Cloud
  • File and asset collaboration and in-platform proofing
  • Wrike Publish for creative team asset management
  • Customizable and templated project workflows
  • Resource and workload management
  • Campaign-focused analytics
  • Various marketing templates

Pros

  • Straightforward navigation between tasks and projects.
  • Strong security features.
  • Robust, customizable reports.Bananas

Cons

  • Somewhat limited import capabilities.
  • Steep price increase for teams with over 25 users that need more advanced features.
  • Limited functionality on the mobile app.

Relevant Integrations

  • Salesforce
  • Gmail
  • Outlook
  • Microsoft Project
  • Google Drive
  • MediaValet
  • Dropbox
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Zoom
  • Slack

Learn more: Wrike for Marketers: Software Review


Trello logo.

Trello: Best For Ease of Use

Trello is one of the easiest to use and best value project management solutions available, even providing unlimited user access and numerous useful features in its free tier. The software operates with an intuitive and highly visual interface that focuses on drag-and-drop functionality in a project card layout. 

Although the software itself is somewhat limited when it comes to storage and customization, Trello is a great solution for teams that want to smoothly transition into using project management software. Trello offers many relevant marketing integrations and power-ups as well, making it a strategic option for teams that want to better manage social media, customer journeys, and other marketing workflows.

Trello cards can be used to manage a variety of marketing tasks, including marketing campaigns, in a more visual way.

Trello cards can be used to manage a variety of marketing tasks, including marketing campaigns, in a more visual way.

Key Features

  • Workflow and task automation with Butler
  • Trello Power-Ups and plugins
  • Community-created project templates
  • Third-party integrations
  • Drag-and-drop functionality
  • Custom fields
  • OKR template
  • Task and resource management

Pros

  • Intuitive user interface with helpful project visualization and drag-and-drop functionality.
  • Integrations are available for other Atlassian products.
  • Great value; priced affordability for the number of features users can access.

Cons

  • Somewhat limited customization opportunities.
  • Limited storage in the free plan.
  • Some difficulties when managing multiple projects at once.

Relevant Integrations

  • Slack
  • Jira Cloud
  • Gmail
  • Hootsuite
  • Salesforce
  • Mailchimp
  • Autopilot
  • Google Drive
  • Confluence Cloud
  • Toggl

Learn more: Trello Software Review


The Basecamp logo.

Basecamp: Best For Internal Collaboration and Communication

Basecamp emphasizes effective internal communication and collaboration that isn’t one size fits all. For real-time chat, user groups can use the Campfire feature. If your marketing team wants to collaborate on documents and files, Basecamp makes it possible to attach discussions directly to those assets. Automatic polls and check-ins, straightforward dashboards, and the Messages feature all work differently but serve the purpose of creating constant communication and performance checkpoints. Basecamp also makes it possible to add clients and track their feedback in the system.

Although Basecamp doesn’t have as many integration opportunities as a lot of its competitors, its existing integrations are great for internal team management and time tracking, such as Earned Value App, BrightGauge Software, Toggl, and Everhour. For teams that need more transparency and granular performance measurement, Basecamp is a great option.

Basecamp’s dashboard format makes it easy to track conversations, tasks, assets, and deadlines for marketing campaigns in one place.

Basecamp’s dashboard format makes it easy to track conversations, tasks, assets, and deadlines for marketing campaigns in one place.

Key Features

  • Team management and time-tracking integrations
  • Client access and client feedback management
  • Campfire for real-time group chatting
  • Automatic team polls and check-ins
  • Cloud file and storage support
  • Hill Charts for project progress tracking
  • Hey! menu for aggregated notifications
  • Project deadline and milestone scheduling

Pros

  • Intuitive user interface.
  • A variety of ways to chat with teammates are built into the platform.
  • Strong, varied customer support options.Bananas

Cons

  • Limited automation capabilities.
  • Slightly less customizable than many of its competitors.
  • Occasional lag times.

Relevant Integrations

  • Project Buddy
  • Zoho Flow
  • Everhour
  • Toggl
  • Klipfolio
  • Slickplan
  • Zapier
  • Ziflow
  • Akita
  • Proposify

Learn more: Basecamp Software Review


ProProfs Project logo.

ProProfs Project: Best For Customer Support

ProProfs Project is a simple but effective project management solution that wins over its customers with excellent user support. Customers can contact the team through traditional avenues, such as phone calls and ticket submissions, but they can also chat live with customer support, visit the help center, submit ideas to the suggestion box, and review FAQs in the ProProfs Project Help Center. Every new customer also receives a dedicated onboarding manager to improve the onboarding process.

Although ProProfs Project does not come with a free-tier pricing option, it is still one of the most affordable project management platforms available. The company does not follow a per-user pricing model and supports unlimited users, so larger marketing teams that want simple PM functionality can particularly benefit from investing in this software.

ProProfs Project offers a simple tool with time tracking, task management, and workload management all included.

ProProfs Project offers a simple tool with time tracking, task management, and workload management all included.

Key Features

  • Unlimited projects and tasks
  • Task and milestone management
  • File sharing and collaboration
  • Kanban board and Gantt view options
  • Workflow customization and automation
  • Client management, with time tracking, invoicing, and billing
  • Custom roles and permissions
  • @mention communication capabilities

Pros

  • Flat-fee, no per-user pricing could be a great benefit for larger teams.
  • All customers work with a dedicated onboarding manager.
  • Several client management features are available.

Cons

  • Somewhat lacking in integrations.
  • Simplistic reporting capabilities.
  • Users have encountered some bugs while using the platform.

Relevant Integrations

It’s important to note that ProProfs Project has only limited integration opportunities. Some of the following integrations have been developed by third-party companies and will require interested buyers to contact them directly for pricing information:

  • VivifyScrum
  • Salesforce
  • ProProfs Help Desk
  • Zapier
  • Dropbox
  • Box

Methodology

I conducted this review through a mixture of personally testing and using platforms, reading customer reviews of different PM software, combing through case studies from marketing industry customers, and exploring the marketing-specific features discussed on each vendor’s website. I also reviewed product screenshots to assess the user-friendliness of different tool interfaces, read through lists of available third-party integrations, and considered how the pricing of each software package compared to its included features and user seats.

I researched over 30 project management platforms in order to formulate this buyers’ guide. monday.com was selected as the best overall marketing project management solution for its balance of customization, marketing-specific features, and integrations, advanced reporting and analytics, user-friendly interface, project portfolio management capabilities, and reasonable pricing structure.

Based on these criteria, I determined the options listed in Our Picks as the overall best project management software options for most teams. These tools are highly rated by users and experts, provide essential project management features, are customizable, and most offer free trials that allow users to test drive before making a financial commitment.

Marketing Project Management FAQs

Marketing projects, especially in marketing agencies and client-facing environments, are typically complex and multifaceted, meaning marketing teams must juggle different roles and responsibilities, short-term and long-term deadlines, and performance KPIs while staying on top of their day-to-day task work. The simplest of tasks can easily fall through the cracks in this kind of environment, leading to unmet goals and unhappy customers. 

Many marketing teams use CRM software to manage their customer relationships more effectively, but the majority of CRMs don’t include all of the project and portfolio management functionality marketers need to get organized. A solution that many marketers are turning to is marketing project management software, which is project management software that specifically caters to the project types, campaigns, employee time management, and performance tracking features marketing teams need to succeed.

Instead of working through long email chains and files that live in personal drives, marketing PM software unifies all of these communications and projects in a single platform, helping teams to stay organized and manage their deadlines more effectively.


Read our guide to Choosing Marketing Project Management Software


Project management software is incredibly helpful for marketing teams that want to streamline and automate their processes for internal and client communication, content marketing and management, and campaign management. These are some of the immediate and long-term benefits your marketing team can expect when you incorporate marketing project management software into your tool stack:

  • Organized and unified communications: PM software includes various ways to chat with project teammates and, in some cases, clients.
  • Improved project visualization: With various project view options and report dashboards with visual widgets, project teams of different backgrounds can quickly view and act on project tasks and performance data.
  • Concrete performance analytics: Most PM solutions include several analytics and reporting options to help you better measure and manage big-picture project data and individual performance stats.
  • Single source of truth for project data: Using dedicated PM software makes it possible to organize all of your relevant project data and assets in a single system that all users can access according to their user permissions.
  • Access to supportive templates and project strategies: Most project management solutions include templates that can be customized; this is particularly effective for marketing teams that want a structured way to manage project campaigns, social media calendars, and other task-driven marketing work.
  • Task automation and streamlined workflows: Many marketing tasks, like scheduling social media posts, are incredibly repetitive and require little skill but take a lot of time; several project management solutions natively offer or integrate with tools that automate your most mundane marketing workflows.
  • Helpful integrations with the rest of your tool stack: In many cases, project management tools integrate with CRM platforms, time tracking software, invoicing tools, and other software that’s important to the marketer’s tool stack.

Yes, there are free marketing project management tools available on the market. Many of the larger PM software providers offer free versions of their software with limited features and/or user seats.

Yes, marketing project management tools exist. Many of the largest providers, such as monday.com and Asana, offer marketing-specific modules and templates to support a marketing team’s most important tasks. Other platforms, such as Workamajig and FunctionFox, are smaller and lesser-known but solely focus on project management solutions for marketing, agency, creative, and design teams.

Additional Top Marketing PM Solutions to Consider for Your Business

Dozens of project management solutions can be customized and fitted to marketing team requirements. If our top 10 selections for marketing project management software don’t suit your specific wants and needs, consider adding one or more of these solutions:

  • Smartsheet
  • Jira
  • nTask
  • Adobe Workfront
  • Toggl Plan
  • Airtable
  • Confluence
  • Microsoft Project
  • Workamajig
  • ProofHub
  • FunctionFox
  • Paymo


Read our comprehensive Top 10 Project Management Software Buyers’ Guide


  • 10/26/23 – Web Webster verified vendor information including features, easier-to-read top picks table.
  • 4/24/23 – Shelby Hiter researched and rewrote this buyers’ guide, including all new content, new screen shots.

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