Designing, building, and launching a website isn’t as simple as it sounds. Many moving parts affect a project's success, including creative differences, feedback rounds, and client revisions. Before you know it, your carefully planned timeline is entirely out of whack. You can avoid this scenario by investing in design agency project management software to streamline operations and improve team collaboration. In this guide, we’ll explore the benefits of this software, including how it helps marketing agency operations, like productized services.
Key Services of Design Agency
Integrating artificial intelligence into creative tasks is an effective way to streamline operations and improve productivity at your agency. We’re not talking about using AI-generated images and text. Most clients won’t want to pay for something they can do using a free online generator. Instead, we mean complementing human creativity with AI tools that help deal with some of the more tedious aspects of the creative process.
Demonstrating to clients that you’re embracing emerging technologies while retaining your creative expertise is a great way to drive new business.
AI-Powered Text Checking Tools
Tools like Grammarly, Hemingway, and others are handy assistants for helping you hone written content. Unlike simple built-in spell checkers, these tools can do the following:
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Understand the tone and goals of your writing
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Shorten lengthy sentences and make writing punchier
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Provide analysis such as reporting on reading grade level and complexity
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Suggest alternatives to unwieldy words and phrases
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Provide SEO tools such as keyword suggestions
Utilizing these tools allows creative agencies to retain their unique style while ensuring absolute grammar, spelling, and style correctness. Some tools even allow agencies to upload a client’s brand style. For example, if certain words are forbidden, they can be programmed into AI-writing tools. From then on, the tool will prompt the writer to remove instances of those words from their content.
Brand Development Techniques: Building Unique Business Identities
Branding and messaging are the only ways businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors in crowded markets. Whether your clients are solo entrepreneurs or huge conglomerates, you can help them develop and define their brand to expand their target audience. Forbes’ Agency recently predicted that they expect brand marketing to win out over performance marketing in 2024 and beyond. That’s a massive opportunity for creative agencies to leverage, especially as many businesses follow the advice offered by Forbes’ business experts.
Services That Support Switch from Third-Party Data to First-Party Data: Prepare for the New Normal
Whether you’re in advertising or web design, your creative agency has to change with the times. In 2024, Google’s decision to scrap third-party tracking cookies was one of the most significant changes. This challenges many marketers, as some third-party cookies were explicitly designed for tracking consumer actions. For example, your client wants to know if a website visitor browses a particular product catalog section. Third-party cookies report on this so BI tools can collate and report on the most popular sections of a website.
This data helps marketers and web designers understand any changes needed and where to direct follow-up communications. However, without those tracking cookies, marketers must rely on first-party data. That means data volunteered by the consumer, without digital tracking. Creative agency services could be in huge demand to deal with these significant changes, so be ready to offer some of the following solutions.
Direct Mail Assets: Don’t Overlook Traditional Marketing Tactics
Direct mailers, postcards, flyers, and catalogs sent through the post are still surprisingly effective in our digital world. Mailers are more challenging to ignore than emails and messages, and creative agencies can design personalized, impactful mail campaigns for their clients.
UX/UI Development and Design: Help Clients Achieve Business Goals
As markets become saturated with providers, one of the major differentiators for consumers is how easy a service is to use. If they download an app but have to spend ten minutes setting it up, they will likely delete it. Conversely, if an app has an excellent user interface (UI) and provides great user experiences (UX), it’s expected to be a winner.
These are the apps that get glowing reviews and thousands of shares. If your creative agency works in the app or web design field, consider focusing on UX/UI design in 2024. Show your clients that you understand the digital landscape and how to help them cut through the noise and make a difference for their customers.
5 Tips for Efficient Project Management for Design Agency
1. Utilize Orchestra for a Smooth Transition
Orchestra is an all-in-one growth toolkit for design agencies. It simplifies launching productized services by providing everything needed to get started, including a client portal, task management, and analytics. Orchestra is designed for creatives ready to scale, so it can help you elevate your services and get organized as you grow.
You can customize your setup with integrations like Slack and webhooks to deliver a branded experience as you transition to a more efficient approach to project management. You can try Orchestra for free to see how it can help your design agency.
2. Provide Training for Your Team
When transitioning to new project management software, you must train your team before fully implementing the system. Provide comprehensive training to ensure all team members are comfortable using the software. This will help minimize any disruptions to the workflow during the transition period.
3. Migrate Your Data
Before using the new project management software for live projects, transfer relevant project data and files from your existing system to the new one. This will help to ensure that nothing is lost during the transition. Make sure that everything is properly organized and accessible for your team.
4. Customize Your Workflows
Every design agency has its specific processes for managing projects. To make project management software work for you, take the time to customize the system to match your existing workflows. Tailor the task management, file-sharing, and approval processes to align with your team’s needs to promote efficiency from the start.
5. Promote Team Collaboration
Effective project management hinges on communication and collaboration. To encourage teamwork and improve project outcomes, promote collaboration features within the software. These can facilitate effective communication and feedback among team members and clients.
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20+ Best Design Agency Project Management Software
1. Orchestra
Orchestra simplifies the launch of productized services with its all-in-one growth toolkit. Built for creatives ready to scale, it offers task management, real-time analytics, and a customizable, white-labeled client portal—no coding needed. Whether you're a designer, developer, or copywriter, Orchestra streamlines your workflow, letting you collaborate seamlessly with clients while maintaining a private workspace for your team.
Add integrations like Slack and webhooks to customize your setup and deliver a branded experience. Enhance your service with a platform built to grow alongside you. Try Orchestra free to grow your productized service today.
2. Hubstaff
Hubstaff is a simple yet highly efficient time-tracking app that pulls no punches. You can easily track performance across devices with Chrome, desktop, and mobile apps. Hubstaff is designed to improve productivity, and with over 40 integrations, it works like a charm. It automates team management and frees your time, allowing you to focus on things that matter. You no longer have to worry about check-ins and will receive detailed activity reports for each employee. It’s one of the most popular marketing agency management software programs.
Pros
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Affordable enterprise plan. Mobile app.
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Free version and trial.
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Screenshots are available even in a free plan.
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A balanced approach to employee privacy and monitoring.
Cons
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One-user limit in the free plan.
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There is no video screen recording.
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Many features are only offered via an add-on in lower-tiered paid plans.
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No add-ons were available in the free plan.
3. Asana
Asana can be a perfect solution for cross-functional teams that work with agile methodologies, such as website project development companies. However, agencies with more robust needs might find that certain features, especially regarding budgeting and financial performance, could be more developed.
Pros
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Free plan available. Several integrations.
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Helps track time spent on projects.
Cons
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New users have difficulty understanding the Asana interface.
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It's not ideal for small teams or single projects.
4. Wrike
Wrike is a powerful work management platform built for teams and organizations looking to collaborate, create, and exceed daily. Wrike's solution for agencies creates a central hub that allows teams to monitor all client projects and resources in one place, improve workflow, and track progress. Key features include real-time collaboration, time tracking, cross-tagging for complete visibility, proofing and approvals, resource management, insights, and analytics. Wrike is where agencies unite to delight their clients by completing more projects in less time.
Pros
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Unlimited projects in a free account. Unlimited subtasks with unlimited levels of nesting.
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Kanban, Calendar, and Table views.
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Unique customization for marketing/creative teams and professional services.
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20 free external collaborators.
Cons
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The Gantt chart view is available only in paid plans.
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An in-app timer for time tracking is only available on a Business plan or higher.
5. Workamajig
Workamajig is a fair project and agency management tool that integrates essential financial tracking and support with project management features. However, the most notable downside of Workamajig is the somewhat outdated user interface and occasionally poor platform performance, as reported by multiple reviewers. This can make some features more complicated than they initially seem.
Pros
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Comprehensive project management features. Ideal for creatives and well-suited for freelancers. Provides analytics and reporting in real-time.
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Teams can collaborate from a single message portal.
Cons
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Some users have concerns about slow customer support response.
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The software loads slowly at times.
6. Kantata
Kantata is an agency management system that can manage everything from client relationships to workflows and project tracking. This highly customizable tool allows agencies of all sizes to streamline their operations and increase profits. This guide will explain how you can use Kantata for successful agency management. Kantata has various features designed specifically for agencies, including tools for client onboarding, project planning, time and resource tracking, invoicing, contracts, communication management, and more.
With these features in place, you can easily monitor your team’s progress against deadlines or budgets and track the status of clients or projects at any given time. You’ll also have access to key performance data such as team utilization rates or revenue forecasts. Kantata's core function is to provide users with comprehensive data management solutions.
It allows you to store customer information, generate reports, manage tasks and projects, track expenses, collaborate with colleagues or partners remotely, and share information organizationally. Additionally, it offers real-time insights into customer trends and market conditions so that you can make informed decisions quickly. This makes Kantata an excellent solution for businesses that need to stay ahead of the competition by utilizing data-driven insights.
Pros
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Intuitive task management.
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Real-time collaboration.
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Robust reporting.
Cons
- Limited integrations. Learning curve.
7. Clickup
I tested ClickUp’s free plan to explore its features and capabilities. This marketing project management software provides a centralized hub for handling sprints and adjusting to evolving project requirements. Whether it’s campaign tasks, resources, or deadlines, everything’s in one place for easy access. I liked the freedom to set goals weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. Tracking progress became significantly easier with different project views, including Kanban boards that enhance task visibility. I could schedule daily tasks and reminders to stay on top of project deadlines. Adding to that, custom widgets made it possible to measure ROI efficiently.
Pros
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You can streamline affiliate sign-ups and client requests with ClickUp forms access to Docs, wikis, and more for seamless team collaboration.
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Resource management capabilities to track resource workload for best optimization.
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Assigned comments help establish clear task responsibilities.
Cons
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It does not offer agile reporting in the free plan.
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Too many features on the dashboard can overwhelm users.
8. Airtable
Airtable is a cloud-based collaboration and project management software that combines an easy-to-use spreadsheet with the power of a database and the flexibility of custom applications. With Airtable, small teams can create highly collaborative workspaces to work together on projects. The platform also integrates with other apps and services like Slack, Zapier, and Dropbox to provide a complete client management system for customer management.
Pros
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Actions to goals linking functionality to streamline reporting.
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Shareable forms to populate records into the Airtable base.
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Timeline view to track events, resources, and projects.
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Automation with JavaScript functionality. Form view for contact management.
Cons
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Limited sorting and filtering options compared to other client management software tools.
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Limited customization options for workspace appearance.
9. Brafton
The Brafton Content Marketing Platform is a project management tool with one goal: to simplify content marketing for any organization or business. The Brafton Platform accomplishes this by streamlining any content team’s workflows, organizing marketing collateral in an easy-to-use system, and giving visibility into all past and current projects to all pertinent stakeholders.
Pros
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They cover multiple industries and have writers who are experienced in producing content for each. They are a one-stop shop for all of your marketing needs.
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They will create your marketing plan, make your content, and then help you promote it. Brafton ensures that the content they produce for you is 100 percent unique and checked for plagiarism.
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Brafton guarantees that your content is formatted correctly and ready to publish straight away.
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You won’t have to worry about things like using the correct font sizes, headings, and if the layout is correct.
Cons
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The main downside of working with Brafton is that they charge much more than freelancer platforms and other marketing agencies.
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However, you have to weigh the extra cost against the quality of the content you will receive and the higher level of service you will receive.
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You can’t build direct relationships with any writers who produce your content as you deal with a client manager.
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This makes it difficult to bring your marketing operations in-house at a later date if you wish.
10. Base Camp
For remote teams seeking improved campaign tracking, Basecamp has you covered. It offers a platform to align goals and manage projects seamlessly, regardless of team members’ locations across different cities or countries. You can set project schedules, assign tasks, and monitor progress effortlessly. Plus, real-time messaging and chat features enable instant communication to overcome obstacles. Easy access to files ensures you can find what you need when needed. To-do lists help you stay organized and focused, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. Also, with data backup, you can work confidently, knowing your project information is safe and sound.
Pros
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Real-time task reminders ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
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Collaborate on files to get work done faster.
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Transparent workflows to track project schedules from anywhere and anytime.
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Its remote team management features, like automatic check-ins, Campfire chat, and Ping, make it ideal for marketing project management tools.
Cons
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Limited customization ability with poor drag-and-drop capabilities.
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No time tracking ability to track where team members are engaged.
11. Jira
Jira is a flexible tool that fits well with marketing teams. It supports agile methods like Scrum and Kanban, which help manage marketing campaigns effectively. Its Sprints dashboard offered me a structured way to plan and execute marketing iterations for my company’s campaigns. I also used epics and stories to organize my marketing projects into manageable tasks.
Customization is another benefit. Jira can be adapted to your marketing team’s needs with custom fields, workflows, and issue types. Whether you’re a small team or a large enterprise, it scales easily to meet your unique marketing project and campaign requirements.
Pros
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A backlog feature keeps track of marketing tasks, ideas, and user stories.
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Comments, notifications, and tags make communicating about tasks and projects more manageable.
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Seamless integration with Trello, Confluence, and third-party apps from the Atlassian Marketplace.
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Rich dashboard features to track and analyze your marketing project’s progress and performance.
Cons
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Weak team chat functionality, such as struggling to connect with colleagues online via the platform.
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It takes time to set up projects.
12. Bonsai Agency Software
Bonsai Agency Software is an all-in-one agency management tool built to simplify agencies' lives. It handles everything from project management to client collaboration so that you can focus more on the creative side and less on admin headaches. This integrated approach makes it easy to organize tasks, track progress, collaborate with both your team and clients, and give you a clear idea of how your agency is performing.
Bonsai also includes time tracking, client onboarding, resource management, and automated workflows to keep your operations running smoothly, ensuring projects stay on schedule and within budget.
It offers various visual tools like Gantt charts, Kanban boards, and list views to help you stay organized and see everything at a glance. Real-time reporting gives insights into profitability, resource utilization, and your agency’s overall health. Additionally, Bonsai simplifies the process of managing agency finances. You can track expenses, send invoices, and handle budgeting in one place. Bonsai is a solid pick if you’re looking for a tool to streamline your agency’s operations and boost productivity.
Pros
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User-friendly interface. Client-centric focus.
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Strong focus on small businesses affordable pricing plans.
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There is no need to switch between several tools as Bonsai offers an all-in-one approach.
Cons
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Limited advanced project management features for larger enterprises.
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Bonsai integrations are fewer than those of some competitors (although Zapier integration expands its possibilities).
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Mobile apps could be further enhanced with additional features and functionality.
13. Bitrix24
Although Bitrix24 may be outlined as a CRM tool, it also doubles as a fantastic piece of client management software. The solution is a well-designed collaboration tool for communication and project management. Beyond lead generation, Bitrix is a helpful tool for customer support, making it ideal for client management.
The platform has its own Customer Contact Center, so you can answer client queries and solve problems in real-time, whatever channel they use. Bitrix can also help businesses set up automated support if needed and offers help with creating company websites or setting up a chat network on your homepage.
Pros
- Comprehensive business suite. Affordable pricing. Unlimited contacts with all plans.
Cons
- It's a very steep learning curve. Doesn’t support chatbots for sales or support.
14. Proofhub
ProofHub is the perfect tool for marketing project managers. It puts you in charge of tasks, resources, and deadlines, making project and team collaboration a breeze. With customizable templates, you can start your marketing project in no time. Just tweak the project name, add tasks, assign resources, and set due dates, and you’re good to go! ProofHub lets you create project plans, milestones, and goals.
It even offers chat and discussion boards for quick, real-time communication, saving you from a cluttered inbox. ProofHub made marketing project management much more straightforward. It clarifies daily tasks, helps me track resources and workload, and makes it easy to turn ideas into action.
Pros
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ProofHub lets you set deadlines, prioritize tasks, and keep everyone in sync. It supports various file formats like PDF and JPEG, making collaborating on documents, images, and other assets easy.
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Teams can track their time spent on tasks and projects, helping with accurate billing and cost estimation.
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A shared calendar allows teams to schedule events, meetings, and deadlines.
Cons
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The mobile version falls short compared to the web version.
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Customer support lacks prompt responsiveness.
15. Workable
Workable is excellent for recruitment agencies. It makes hiring easier with job postings, candidate tracking, and team collaboration. Plus, it uses AI to help you find the right candidates faster.
Pros
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Comprehensive candidate evaluations.
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Swift and straightforward onboarding. User-friendly interface.
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Unlimited collaborative options. Cost-effective.
Cons
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Incompatibility with virtual conferencing services.
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Email syncing issues.
16. Insightly
Insightly delivers a lot of bang for your CRM buck. It's one of the easiest to use among the tested systems, even if it's not quite as feature-rich as some. Importing data is a smooth process. Insightly's built-in reporting engine is AI-powered, providing one-button data export to Microsoft Power BI.
Pros
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Smooth data input and sharing. Slick interface that's consistent and easy to pick up.
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Highly customizable.
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Easy integration with Insightly's help desk and marketing apps.
Cons
- Expensive high-end tiers. Lacks advanced features like custom workflows.
17. Confluence
I found Confluence, a fantastic tool for my team. It enabled us to effortlessly create, edit, and organize documents and knowledge bases as a group. No matter where we were, we could all pitch in, which is especially handy for virtual teams. Take, for instance, the times I’ve used this feature extensively for our marketing efforts.
Whether crafting blog posts, coordinating social media campaigns, or putting together email newsletters, Confluence has been a lifesaver. It allows multiple team members to simultaneously work on the same document, leave comments, and track changes. All in all, it’s made collaboration a breeze for us.
Pros
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Mobile apps for iOS/Android allow team members to collaborate on the go, which is vital for virtual teams.
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Customizable workspaces where teams can create specific spaces for different projects, departments, or teams.
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Access to templates and macros that simplify everyday tasks, such as creating meeting notes, project plans, and product requirements.
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Powerful search functionality makes it easy for team members to find the necessary information quickly.
Cons
- Some advanced features come at a premium price: occasional sluggishness and technical glitches.
18. Zapier
Zapier isn’t a regular AMS but is excellent for automating tasks between apps. It connects software for you, so you don't need coding skills. For example, you can create a “Zap” to add new leads to your CRM from your website or get a Slack alert when an invoice gets paid.
Pros
- Free forever plan and low-cost paid plans starting at $5.99 per month. Deep level of customization. Easy-to-use automations. Agency-oriented nomenclature and features. Built-in time tracking.
Cons
- A minimum of three users for the low-priced paid plan. Slower run time once more work gets added. Most features are only unlocked with the Deliver plan or above.
19. Teamwork
Teamwork is a project management platform built to help agencies manage the entire lifecycle of their client work in one place. Teamwork provides all the features you’d expect, including integrated time tracking, financial management, robust reporting, and free client access, to ensure your projects are delivered on time and within budget. Forget crossed wires, unread Slacks, and endless emails.
Collaborate in real-time with your team and clients to get your questions answered. Keep clients, teammates, and leadership on the same page. Centralize your work, communicate easily with your team, and reduce the complexity of collaboration so your team is free to focus on what they do best. Keep your team members and clients in the loop with Teamwork. Communicate with colleagues and clients without having to switch platforms. Update the team, ask for input, and get feedback in context. Working as a team has never been easier.
Pros
- Free forever plan and low-cost paid plans starting at $5.99 per month. Deep level of customization. Easy-to-use automations. Agency-oriented nomenclature and features. Built-in time tracking.
Cons
- A minimum of three users for the low-priced paid plan. Slower run time once more work gets added. Most features are only unlocked with the Deliver plan or above.
20. Zoho CRM
One of the areas where Zoho CRM stands out as a client management tool is its omnichannel approach. This allows firms to engage with clients via whichever medium they prefer, whether email, telephone, or something else. Zoho CRM has made a great effort to become an all-in-one platform. It allows businesses to monitor lead activity and customer buyer preferences and view price lists or documents without changing applications - everything your company needs for client management is right here.
Given that AI is such a hot topic right now, it should come as little surprise to hear that Zoho offers users its assistance. You won’t find ChatGPT levels of intelligence here, but personal assistant Zia Voice can retrieve information, update accounts, and generate performance reports. It’s certainly a handy addition that improves Zoho’s ease of use. Although there is no free tier with Zoho CRM, a free trial is available. Given that the platform is currently used by more than 150,000 businesses across 180 countries, a free trial may be all you need before you’re convinced this is the right client management software for you.
Pros
- Workflow automation. Customization. Email marketing.
Cons
- Steep learning curve. Limited customer support.
21. Productive
Productive is a well-rounded agency management software with a stack of robust functionality that gives you the tools and data you need to keep an agency running smoothly. The tool was built by a team with a decade of experience in founding, managing, and scaling a software development shop, so it's especially well-suited to digital agencies.
The tool's features fully satisfy my criteria for agency management tools. You'll find client and prospect management in the sales pipeline (manage deal flow, get sales organized). The resource planning feature, time tracker, and task collaboration tools fit the resource and project management criteria I look for in an agency tool or platform.
Billing and invoicing can also be managed straight from the tool, along with valuable reports on profitability and costs to help with finance management. The reporting feature goes beyond that, with real-time reports on margins, utilization, and much more, including reports on individual employees' or contractors' history with the company, salary reports, etc. Productive's integrations include Zapier and Jira, Open API, QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Exact.
Pros
- Customizable dashboards. Integrated financial management. Client portal.
Cons
- Learning curve. Customization constraints.
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How to Choose the Best Design Agency Project Management Software
Why Ease of Use Matters for Design Agencies
When searching for design agency project management software, it’s crucial to prioritize ease of use. The software should have an intuitive interface that helps users adapt to its features quickly. A complex and convoluted interface can lead to frustration and hinder productivity, which is the opposite of what you want. Instead, look for project management software that has a simple design and helps teams organize their tasks without getting in the way.
Collaborate with Your Team and Clients Seamlessly
Effective collaboration is crucial for design agencies. Look for software that promotes seamless collaboration between team members and clients. Features such as easy file sharing and real-time communication can significantly enhance the efficiency of the design process.
Choose Software That You Can Customize
Every design agency has its unique workflows and processes. Therefore, it is important to choose software that offers customization options. Customizing workflows and project templates significantly improves efficiency and flexibility, allowing the software to adapt to your agency's needs.
Ensure Your Project Management Software Integrates With Existing Tools
Design agencies often rely on various tools and software to complete their projects. It is essential to check if the project management software integrates smoothly with crucial tools such as design software, time-tracking systems, and communication platforms. Seamless integration can streamline workflows and eliminate the need for manual data transfer.
Look for Scalability as Your Design Agency Grows
Choosing software that can accommodate that growth as your design agency grows is essential. Ensure the software can handle increasing projects and team members without sacrificing performance or functionality. Scalability is crucial to ensure that the software can grow alongside your agency.
Try Orchestra for Free to Grow Your Productized Service Today
Orchestra's all-in-one growth toolkit for launching and scaling your productized services. With Orchestra, you get a branded, white-labeled client portal, task management, and real-time analytics with no coding needed. Connect your Stripe account to launch your productized services in a few days.
Whether you're a designer, developer, or copywriter, Orchestra streamlines your workflow, letting you collaborate with clients seamlessly while maintaining a private workspace with your team. Add integrations like Slack and webhooks to customize your setup and deliver a branded experience. Elevate your service with a platform built to grow alongside you. Try Orchestra for free and develop your productized service today!
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