25 Best Advertising Agency Software For Management In 2023

monday.com is a great advertising agency software because of the way the tool has done away with a lot of the trimmings of typical management tools and focused on simple, visually intuitive layouts that help clarify the sequence of work.

Why I Picked monday: monday.com offers features for managing advertising projects include resource and project management modules with some great collaboration tools. For example, users can upload and attach files to cards, make comments, mention teammates, and more. It also offers a great project reporting dashboard that can collect data from multiple boards, allowing better tracking abilities of progress. And while monday.com doesn’t offer a complete set of tools for project accounting and invoicing solution as other tools, you can use monday.com to track hours, timelines, and invoices.

Overall, it’s a highly customizable tool that lets you work in whatever methodology—kanban or otherwise—that fits your project and team. You’ll also find some useful workflow tools for automating parts of your process.

monday Standout Features & Integrations

Features include project management, task scheduling/tracking, resource management, scheduling, budgeting, API, calendar management, Gantt charts, file sharing, time management, email integration, third party plugins, and notifications.

Integrations include project management apps like Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform and many more, accessible through a paid plan with Zapier.

Wrike is an advertising agency software that is best for teams of five up to an unlimited number of team members. Wrike enables managers and teams to visualize projects on Kanban boards and drag-and-drop Gantt charts, as well as customize workflows, dashboards, reports, and request forms.

Why I Picked Wrike: Wrike allows teams and individuals to arrange their dashboard and task list in a view that suits their working style, as well as offers automations for admin tasks. Wrike also features employee capacity monitoring, resource management, and onboarding templates.

Wrike also offers a dedicated help center with interactive training, videos, a ‘Getting Started’ guide, and a thriving community. The tool includes a variety of specific solutions for every type of team or organization, including marketing teams and professional service teams. Users also have access to a variety of templates for common organizational processes.

Wrike Standout Features & Integrations

Features include project management, task scheduling/tracking, resource management, expense tracking, API, budgeting, Gantt charts, marketing automations, collaboration support, and reporting.

Integrations include over 400 pre-built integrations with the most popular file management software from Microsoft, Slack, Google, and Dropbox, along with sales and marketing software like Salesforce and Marketo.

Kantata is a project management software that helps agencies and other organizations manage their projects effectively and efficiently. It provides a centralized platform for teams to collaborate and organize tasks, track progress, and communicate with each other.

Why I Picked Kantata: Kantata has tools for resource management, project management, team collaboration, project accounting, and business intelligence. As far as advertising agency software goes, this tool is one of the most robust. Kantata also features file sharing, email integration, custom branding, time and expense tracking, project/job costing, invoicing and online payments, personnel planning, and more. Product plans include access to 24/7 customer support and a resource library.

Kantata Standout Features & Integrations

Features include task management, resource management, time tracking, communication & collaboration, project dashboards, reporting, file sharing, a mobile app, and third-party integrations.

Integrations include Netsuite, Quickbooks, Salesforce, Google Workspace, Jira, Expensify, Xero, Concur, Sage Intacct, Slack, Hubspot, Microsoft platforms, and more.

Height App is a project management software with features built specifically for advertising agencies, including the ability to invite clients to collaborate on projects.

Why I picked Height App: In addition to project management, the software has budgeting and financial capabilities. Users can add and edit project details, set deadlines, and assign tasks to team members. The calendar filters provide visibility of upcoming deadlines and operational activity, helping agencies to better allocate resources and manage workloads.

The time-tracking tool includes employees' billable hours, and the financial management module tracks budgets across projects. Users can create professional invoices, set recurring payments, and manage client estimates as well as generate reports on project costs, revenue, profit margins, and team performance.

The software's client communications module makes it easy for agencies to manage client emails and conversations. Users can store all client conversations in one place, making searching for and finding specific discussions easy. This feature also ensures that all team members have access to the same conversations, helping everyone stay up-to-date.

Height App Standout Features & Integrations

Features include spreadsheet and calendar views, Kanban and Gantt charts, workflows, tasks and subtasks with infinite nesting, real-time chat, inline image and video, emoji reactions, guest access, and light or dark themes.

Integrations include Discord, Figma, Fivetran, Github, Gitlab, Notion, Sentry, Slab, Slack, and Zendesk.

Hub Planner is a resource and project management and scheduling tool that's well-suited to the needs of advertising agencies.

Why I picked Hub Planner: This software can handle all the essentials of resource management, including employee scheduling, time tracking, and capacity management. The resource scheduling tool lets you see at a glance who's available when, which helps you plan projects and allocate resources effectively. Time tracking is also included, which gives you a clear picture of how much time employees are spending on each project.

As for project management, you can set project milestones and track projects using Gantt charts. You can also manage project financials, including internal and external rates as needed. This is especially valuable for agencies managing multiple projects and clients in the same system.

Hub Planner Standout Features & Integrations

Features include task scheduling and tracking, project management, skills mapping, API, calendar management, Gantt chart, file sharing, scheduling, budgeting, timesheets, vacation and PTO management, and templates.

Integrations include options via their Hub Planner API, which also offers integration with Zapier for more options.

Mosaic is a modern resource management software built for advertising and creative agencies. They offer resource planning, project management, workload forecasting, hiring insights via role demand, capacity planning, profit and loss analysis, budget and time tracking, and performance dashboards.

Why I Picked Mosaic: Mosaic offers a range of project management features including task management, time tracking, resource management, budgeting, and reporting. With its visual interface, Mosaic makes it simple to track project progress, allocate resources, and ensure that projects are delivered on time and within budget.

What Mosaic does best is providing a simple and streamlined project management solution that can be used by teams of all sizes and across various industries. It offers an affordable alternative to more complex and expensive project management tools, making it accessible to a wider range of organizations. Additionally, Mosaic's mobile app allows teams to access their projects from anywhere, making it ideal for remote or distributed teams.

Mosaic Standout Features & Integrations

Features include task management, collaboration, time tracking, resource management, Gantt charts, project budgeting, reporting & analytics, mobile app, customizations, and third-party integrations.

Integrations include Quickbooks, Unanet, Deltek, Asana, Salesforce, Jira, Workday, SAP, Oracle, and many other software applications.

Forecast is a platform for advertising agencies to manage resources and projects used in 40+ countries worldwide. The tool includes capabilities for managing the project life cycle from quote to invoice, as well as intelligent automation for predicting project delivery dates and forecasting capacity needs.

Why I Picked Forecast: Users can create project plans with Forecast’s auto-schedule. The powerful AI automatically estimates tasks, assigns and optimizes workload across resources, and sets a project delivery date. The tool also provides dashboards with overviews of the organization to allow for informed adjustments to time and resource allocation.

Forecast also introduced a unique feature for managing projects in a retainer setup. A dashboard with retainer periods and totals lets you track the financials of ongoing projects in addition to staff workloads and time spent on delivery.

Forecast Standout Features & Integrations

Features include resource planning, task management, time tracking, budget tracking, project portfolio management, collaboration, Gantt charts, reporting & analytics, mobile app, customization, and third-party integrations.

Integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, iCloud Calendar, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Outlook, Harvest, Trello, Asana, GitLab, Github, and dozens more using a paid plan through Zapier. Higher-tier subscriptions include native integrations with Timelog, Xero, QuickBooks Online, JIRA, Azure DevOps, Salesforce, Okta, OneLogin, and Azure Active Directory.

Paymo helps advertising agencies streamline the process of managing projects from start to finish, reduce the administrative work as much as possible while offering a frictionless experience along the way. This means that both project managers and team members will know exactly what they need to do, when, and also collaborate better and transparently.

Why I Picked Paymo: The features cover all of the processes, from creating the initial project estimate to adding and assigning tasks, setting up budgets, tracking work time, generating reports, adding expenses and invoicing the clients.

To keep everyone up-to-date and on the same page, Paymo allows commenting at the task and project level, along with real-time in-app and email notifications. The interface is modern, a bit crowded with features and options, but easy to navigate through. You can hide the modules you don’t plan to use.

Paymo Features & Integrations

Features include time tracking, task management, budget tracking, resource management, collaboration, Gantt charts, reporting & analytics, invoicing, mobile app, customizations, and third-party integrations.

Integrations include Slack, Adobe Creative Cloud, Google Drive, QuickBooks Online, Xero, JotForm, Shift, to name a few. Other integrations are available through Zapier or by syncing with their fully-documented API.

Copper is an easy-to-use CRM for small businesses that assist users in managing sales leads and growing customer relationships.

Why I Picked Copper: Copper integrates with Gmail and other Google Apps and automatically logs all emails and contact interactions to reduce data entry and repetitive admin tasks. Users can also see sales and relationship essentials from email threads, past interactions, and tasks in one place.

The tool also includes project management features such as Kanban boards, workflow management capabilities, revenue tracking, and more. Copper also has strong reporting features for sales data and processes. Users can view metrics for measuring quality of lead sources, top-performing sales team members, sales forecasts, and more.

Copper Features & Integrations

Features include task management, time tracking, collaboration, Gantt charts, resource management, budget tracking, reporting & analytics, mobile app, customer relationship management, and third-party integrations. 

Integrations include Google Workspace, Trello, Zoom, QuickBooks, HubSpot, Slack, Box, Microsoft Teams, Mailchimp, Asana, and others.

Hubstaff is a full-featured, free time tracking software tool for agencies (with freemium upgrades) that’s best for remote or distributed teams. It’s a lightweight, native time tracking tool that includes screenshots, time tracking, and project management. Its simple interface and design make it really easy for your team to enter their time and for you to track their progress.

Why I Picked Hubstaff: Budget management is straightforward—using Hubstaff you can easily set time limits and budgets for your team to bill against with a maximum number of hours you want a member to be able to work in a week and the app will automatically prevent them from exceeding the limit.

When you’re working with a distributed team it can be hard to verify exactly what people are doing and how they’re spending their time. Hubstaff has some pretty handy tools to give you insight into what your team is doing in the time they’re logging to your project with screenshots and activity levels. You can also see which applications your team members are using and what URLs they are browsing while they’re tracking time.

Hubstaff Standout Features & Integrations

Features include task management, time tracking, collaboration, Gantt charts, resource management, budget tracking, reporting & analytics, mobile app, invoicing, screen capture & activity tracking, GPS tracking, and third-party integrations. 

Integrations are well supported across stacks of different tools including project management tools Asana, Jira, and Basecamp, payments, accounting, and invoicing integrations including QuickBooks, Paypal, Wise as well as Salesforce and Zendesk among others.

FunctionFox offers three different plans with features that range from basic time tracking and estimating, to project scheduling and gantt charts, to customized project intake forms. FunctionFox can support teams with five or five hundred members.

Why I Picked FunctionFox: FunctionFox is entirely web-based and compatible with all up to date browsers, so users on both Mac and PC can work together seamlessly. FunctionFox allows for team collaboration through project scheduling, allows allocation of specific tasks through action assignments and to-do lists, and facilitates communication through the project blog. Another great feature is the availability tool, which project managers can use to monitor team capacity and utilize everyone’s time effectively.

FunctionFox is easy to use and made even easier with the tutorials and support provided. They offer dedicated onboarding and all customer support is unlimited, ongoing, and included in the subscription cost. Their website also includes a help center, and there are detailed help files included within the software itself.

FunctionFox Standout Features & Integrations

Features include time tracking, task management, budget tracking, resource management, collaboration, reporting, invoicing, mobile access, customization, client management, and third-party integrations.

Integration with Quickbooks is possible.

Basecamp includes the tools advertising teams need to work together: message boards, to-dos, schedules, docs, file storage, real-time group chat, and automatic check-in questions. You can rename prompts, turn off the ones you don’t need, or integrate with third-party tools.

Why I Picked Basecamp: Ad agency teams will find that Basecamp’s communication features, both internal and client-centric, are top-notch. Agency teams can use the “campfire” chat feature to keep up-to-date and the commenting features for external clients are extremely simple to use, making onboarding easier.

Basecamp Standout Features & Integrations

Features include task scheduling/tracking, project management, data import, email integration, calendar management, API, notifications, chat, time management, and data import/export.

Integration options include Unito.io, Automate.io, Zapier, TaskClone, Project Buddy, Pleexy, Field Trip, CData Software, RSSBus, Retool, To-Do Helpers, TImeshift Messenger, Zoho Flow, Mr.ToDo, Clockify, Toggl, Ganttify, and more.

Advertising agency teams and specialists can use ProWorkflow to manage their wide variety of projects by allowing their designers, developers, project managers, and freelancers to collaborate in a central hub where progress can be easily monitored and reported on.

Why I Picked ProWorkflow: ProWorkflow is uniquely positioned to excel in both project and resource management, particularly because of the sheer amount of projects teams can add as well as easy logging of all current and past jobs. One of the key strengths of ProWorkflow is its ease of use. The platform is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive, making it accessible to teams of all sizes and skill levels. ProWorkflow is also highly customizable, allowing users to tailor the platform to meet their specific needs and workflows.

In addition to its ease of use, ProWorkflow also offers robust project management capabilities. Teams can create and assign tasks, track project progress, and collaborate with team members in real-time. The platform also generates reports and analytics to provide insights into project performance, resource utilization, and overall project success.

ProWorkflow Standout Features & Integrations

Features include project management, task scheduling/tracking, customer management, scheduling, third-party plugins, contact management, dashboards, data visualizations, Gantt charts, notifications, budgeting, and expense tracking.

Integrations include Xero, QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, FreshBooks, MYOB AccountRight, MYOB Essentials, Kashflow, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Workspace, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Sharepoint, and thousands of more with a paid plan through Zapier. Plus, the ProWorkflow API lets you build your own reports, apps and integrations.

Projectworks is a project, resource, and expense management software that's well suited to the needs of advertising agencies and other professional services businesses.

Why I picked Projectworks: The software offers time tracking, resource management, expense tracking, and invoicing tools, making it a comprehensive solution for various business operations. You can gain a high-level view of your resource utilization, and spot anyone who's over or under capacity. This makes it easier to allocate work and assign projects to the right people at the right time.

The software also has expense management tools, to help you stay on budget as your projects progress. Employee timesheets and expense reports can both be used for generating invoices, speeding up your invoicing process and assuring accuracy when you charge your clients. You can also set billing schedules for fixed price projects.

Projectworks Standout Features & Integrations

Features include timesheets, billable rates, capacity planning, project budget management, revenue forecasting, project expenses, invoicing, leave management, access permissions, and custom reports.

Integrations include QuickBooks, Xero, MYOB, Jira, Azure DevOps, and Hubspot. You can also connect it with a paid Zapier account to access additional integrations, or use its API to build custom integrations.

Intervals is a great tool for agencies that need to manage work, track its value, and quickly prepare invoices for clients to get paid for their time. It’s used by advertising agencies as well as digital strategy agencies, web design and development shops, QA teams in larger IT companies, and other use cases.

Why I Picked Intervals: Agencies using Intervals will find a trove of useful features including project management (detailed task management, scheduling, file sharing, time tracking), as well as resource allocation, client management tools like invoicing and client reports. Overall, while it doesn’t have live chat and its document sharing features are on the basic side, Intervals is a well-rounded tool for making agencies run more smoothly.

Perhaps the best part of this tool is the reporting features. Because the tool includes time and expense management tools, you can also generate a variety of meaningful internal reports to find out exactly where your team’s time and efforts are going. You can also get a higher-level view of your agency, providing answers to questions like, “Which client have we done the most work for this year?” or “Who is our most billable employee?” The idea behind intervals is that you can keep track of every detail on every job so you’ll never again lose money on a project.

Intervals Standout Features & Integrations

Features include time tracking, reporting, invoicing, customization, mobile app, job tracking, dashboards, flexible workflows, and third-party integrations.

Integrations include QuickBooks online for invoicing, QuickBooks desktop for time data, Xero, FreshBooks, Slack, and Google Drive.