What Software Do Advertising Agencies Use?

Advertising agencies­­­­­ take on a lot of responsibilities. They conduct strategy planning, brand and campaign development, and more—all while working to meet the needs of several clients simultaneously. Agencies also track multiple projects, manage dependencies, meet ever-shrinking deadlines, ensure proper resource allocation, and measure campaign performance. Sounds exhausting, right?

If this rings familiar to you, it might be time to find a tech stack that truly moves the needle for your advertising agency. If you are wondering what kind of software advertising agencies use to streamline project workflows and improve efficiency, we’ve got you covered.

We compiled this list of the 10 best advertising agency software based on reviews from users just like you. (Products are listed alphabetically. See the end of this piece for our full selection methodology).

AgencyAnalytics is a web-based, reporting software designed for advertising and marketing agencies, including automated reporting, customizable dashboards, an SEO toolset, and client and staff management capabilities. It offers a library of pre-installed templates and drag-and-drop functionality to help you customize reports with personalized comments, recommendations, executive summary, and relevant data to support your report. 

Once you have created a report, you can schedule it to go out on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. With AgencyAnalytics, you can put the approval process on autopilot and send instant updates when the client makes a change or comment. It also offers dashboard customization per campaign requirements and specific client metrics.

White-labeling capabilities allow you to customize elements like logos and color schemes to suit your brand language. Advertising and marketing teams can use its SEO toolset to scan, identify, and rectify issues such as duplicate content, missing page titles, broken links, and 404 errors that may be affecting the organic search engine results. 

AgencyAnalytics offers live chat functionality and email to reach their customer support team.

Custom dashboards for each campaign in AgencyAnalytics (Source)

Avaza is a business management tool equipped with project management, resource scheduling, time and expense tracking, and invoicing capabilities. It lets you choose between Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and list views to visualize your projects. 

The agency project management software manages workflows, schedules resources, monitors who’s working on what project, and edits assignments. It also allows you to auto-schedule tasks by changing the date of the primary tasks, and all the dependent tasks get scheduled automatically. 

Avaza enables one-on-one conversations or group chats, creates particular channels for discussions, file sharing, and client collaboration. The business communication platform also allows you to convert estimates into invoices with customizable branding, automate recurring invoices, and access multi-currency expense tracking and credit note functionality. 

The advertising agency software offers chat and email support. A mobile application of the web-based tool is available for iOS and Android devices.

Resource scheduling in Avaza (Source)

ClickUp offers a suite of project management tools to help you manage tasks, access docs, set goals, and collaborate with teammates. Using ClickUp, project managers can track multiple projects from start to finish and create custom workflows. It has a Gantt chart template that helps check project schedules, manage dependencies, and prioritize tasks. 

Using mind maps, you can plan your project ideas and distribute tasks into different project phases. You can also sort tasks by their due date, assignee, status, name, priority, and more. 

The project management software helps in managing employee workflows, tracking project progress, and handling bottlenecks. You can add comments, give suggestions or feedback on any task or document, and stay on top of project timelines. It also features a global timer that tracks how much time is spent on each project.

ClickUp offers phone, email, and chat support. The agency project management tool has a mobile app for both iOS and Android devices.

Drag and drop interface in ClickUp (Source)

Filestage is a content review and collaboration tool that streamlines creative workflow by helping you proofread, comment on, approve, annotate, timestamp, and share files or documents. It facilitates real-time communication between teams to improve collaboration. 

The software tool features automated file sharing, reminders, and status updates to speed up your approval process. It creates an automated to-do list based on comments, and also enables your stakeholders to annotate videos, PDFs, and audio files directly from the browser without any sign-in requirements. 

Filestage also offers version control features to track your design and monitor changes. You can reach Filestage’s customer support team via query ticket, phone, or email. 

Project and catalog collection in Filestage (Source)

GoVisually is an online proofing software platform designed for advertising agencies, marketing teams, content creators, and graphic designers. It streamlines the creative content review and approval process.

This tool lets teams share their annotated files with stakeholders in multiple formats (PNG, JPG, PSD, PDF, MP4, and GIF) and get feedback. Users can also generate to-do lists to track and manage issues across designs.

With this software, businesses can classify design changes into several categories and mark them according to their preferences. For example, freelancers may use statuses such as 'needs review', 'approved', or 'finalized' to categorize their revisions.

The tool also allows marketers to view historical client interactions on the sidebar of each project, as well as send email notifications about client comments to help teams stay on top of feedback and suggestions. It enables designers to add private comments and file attachments for internal teams. 

GoVisually offers a mobile app for iOS users, enabling them to remotely access, review, and approve designs. You can reach out to customer support via live chat and help center.

Dashboard in GoVisually (Source)

ProWorkflow is a project management and time tracking tool with workflow management, resource tracking, reporting, file sharing, contact management, and other features. It enables users to manage projects, track time, generate reports, and organize contacts for the business. 

ProWorkflow comes with a task manager to create and delegate tasks. Project managers can use the dashboard to view start and due dates, check the timeline, assign tasks, track task statuses, and attach relevant files. It has drag-and-drop functionality to set up and edit projects. It also features pre-installed templates, dashboards, and Gantt charts to help teams visualize projects. 

The resource management feature plans realistic project goals and forecasts personnel resources. You can also get a real-time view of how specific employee workloads are affected. The marketing software includes robust reporting tools to help you make data-driven decisions for your business. 

The agency project management tool has a mobile app for both Android and iOS users. ProWorkflow offers customer support via email, phone, and live chat. 

Gantt chart in ProWorkflow (Source)

Resource Guru is a scheduling software tool with resource management, project scheduling, leave management, and project forecasting. It is a forecasting and scheduling solution that respects people's time and prevents overburdening or burnout.

The product provides a bird’s eye view of your team to show you who is working on what project, who is overloaded with tasks, and who isn’t utilized effectively. You can use drag, drop, extend, contract, split, or duplicate elements to organize your project's dashboard.

Filter employees based on their skills, departments, locations, or even your custom fields, to find the right people for the job. Resource Guru comes with an availability bar that helps you track availability, ensuring proper capacity planning. 

The marketing software offers data-driven insights into resource utilization rates and other key metrics such as billable and non-billable time, overtime, and time-off, helping you maximize profits. You can reach out to its customer support team via live chat, email, or call.

Main schedule in Resource Guru (Source)

Stackby is a project management software and real-time collaboration platform that allows users to create customizable spreadsheet databases by using pre-designed templates or adding data from existing sources. It offers built-in integrations with third-party apps to help automate project workflows. 

Spreadsheet automation is generated by connecting columns to popular services via APIs, such as Facebook, YouTube, MailChimp, and Google. Once you have done that, you need to reference your input column, and relevant data gets pulled automatically. You can also refresh the cell(s) to reflect real-time data in the rows.

With Kanban layouts, a project tracker, and the ability to generate product roadmaps for project planning, you can create individual checklists and project task reminders. The agency project management software facilitates communication and collaboration between teams while also helping improve their productivity.

Stackby has a mobile app for both Android and iOS users. You can reach its customer support team via live chat, email, and a knowledge base.

Kanban view in Stackby (Source)

Workzone is a project management tool that helps you monitor which projects are on track, which are falling behind, and what each team member is working on. Its dashboard offers a Gantt chart view, so you can easily see the timeline and dependencies for each project.

The software provides a group calendar for marketing teams and advertising agencies to track events or project tasks for each client. Different client calendars can also be merged into one master calendar for the entire organization.

Workzone creates and sends to-do lists for each employee, providing a focused, cross-project view to organize each day’s work. You can also create project templates to save time and improve consistency across projects. You can share files securely with the whole team, and send email notifications each time files, comments, or approvals are updated. 

This ad agency software offers customer support via message, call, and email. 

Projects dashboard in Workzone (Source)

Ziflow is an online proofing and approvals solution for brands and marketing agencies. It enables creative teams to upload any media type, annotate them, and receive comments as well as feedback from multiple collaborators and clients. 

The tool enables you to collaborate directly on creative content using annotations and engage in real-time conversation threads allowing comments, responses, and file sharing. It also lets you create and apply custom labels to comment threads, and mark them as resolved or unresolved.

You can also merge multiple files into a single proof, archive them automatically or manually, and include a custom choice questionnaire for reviewers to follow. It offers customer support via query ticket, call, or email. 

Annotation tools in Ziflow (Source)

How to choose the best advertising agency software for your business

This article covers 10 of the best advertising agency software options available. To determine which one best fits your advertising agencies unique tracking requirements, you should consider the following factors:

• Research all-in-one tools: Using too many tools at the same time can be confusing. All-in-one software provides more than one service in a single tool. That means you will have one tool featuring project, task, and workflow management while also supporting email marketing, collaboration, and client communication. Such tools are not just cost effective but also time-efficient.

• Determine marketing management requirements: With multiple marketing campaigns running concurrently, advertising agencies are required to stay on top of campaign analytics and reporting while also monitoring multiple projects, tasks, and workflows simultaneously. The software you choose should offer marketing automation tools and project management solutions.

• Establish budget and pricing plans: It is better to set a budget for software you want to purchase, especially when you are planning to buy a bunch of them. Once you have defined a budget, you can compare the pricing plans of each tool. For every marketing agency tool, analyze the list of features each plan is offering. Choose a plan that adds value to your business and aligns with your goals.

• Take advantage of free trials: Most software providers offer free trials or demos of their tool, which usually comes with a limited access for 15 to 30 days. Free trials help you understand the features and functionality of a tool so that you can make the right choice.

Common questions to ask software vendors when selecting an ad agency software

Before deciding on the software you need, ask the software vendor these questions:

• Is there any limitation on the number of users? Some tools don’t offer unlimited user access. Before investing in a software, make sure to check whether the user seats and functions they provide are something you can work with or not.

• Is your software mobile friendly? Most tools offer a dedicated mobile application that lets you monitor project progress and manage resources remotely from any device. Before investing in a solution, ask the vendor if they have a functional mobile app for their software.

• What are your integration options? Most advertising agency software integrate with CRM tools to manage client relationships and leverage client data. Before finalizing, ask vendors if they provide easy integration with third-party tools and apps.