One of the greatest challenges for any marketing agency is optimizing productivity while maintaining a work-life balance for everyone.
Your tech stack is a crucial factor.
You have a ton of work to do, with many moving parts, varying deadlines to maintain, dispersed team members to keep track of, and clients to juggle.
The tools your agency uses — and how they work together — can make or break your entire stack.
So check out our list of the top nine marketing agency software to explore going into the new year. Because who honestly has the time to scroll through a list of 15+ tools when you’ve got so much work to do?
1. Motion – Best for AI-powered scheduling and project management
Motion is an AI-powered calendar app and productivity tool. It generates a daily schedule of prioritized tasks for every marketing team member.
It automatically reorders schedules to accommodate any additions and reprioritizes unfinished work. It also prevents anyone from having an unbalanced workload.
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Team members can view each other’s schedules, and a dashboard with different project views shows task assignments and statuses. You can integrate your personal and work calendars while masking personal events from the entire team.
Alerts remind you of upcoming deadlines and tasks coming due, and pop-up banners remind you to focus on your current task.
Motion also has an AI meeting scheduler. Customize your booking page, and share the link for others to self-schedule. With custom email copy, clients and team members can click the link to your booking page or select a time slot listed in the email to book immediately.
You can limit the number of meetings in your daily schedule and book them back-to-back rather than having them spread out throughout your day.
Key features
- Intelligent calendar
- Task scheduling and management
- Project manager
- Meeting assistant
Limitations
- Can’t share or collaborate on projects with non-Motion users
- No color coding for tasks
- Can’t import tasks from other apps
Pricing
- Individual plan: $19 per month, billed annually
- Team plan: $12 per user per month, billed annually
- 7-day free trial
Reviews
Capterra: 4.3 out of 5 (41 reviews)
G2: 4.3 out of 5 (81 reviews)
Software Advice: n/a
2. Calendly – Best for meeting scheduling
Calendly is an automated scheduling solution that enables self-scheduling, a customizable booking calendar, and shareable scheduling links.
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Embed the calendar anywhere you’d add a call-to-action button to allow prospective leads to book an appointment on the spot. Then Calendly seamlessly qualifies, schedules, and routes leads immediately.
Automated email and text messages remind clients of their appointments and provide an easy and convenient rescheduling link if needed. Follow-up messages enable clients to book a future appointment.
Analytics help determine key metrics such as popular meeting dates and times, favored meeting types, in-demand team members, and cancellation and rescheduling rates.
Calendly also allows for painless booking of meetings with your entire team, an individual team member, or various specific people.
Key features
- Connects up to 6 external calendars
- Automated pre- and post-meeting communications
- Customizable scheduling availability
- Embeddable booking calendar
- 100+ third-party integrations
- Analytics tools
Limitations
- Inability to manually override if you want to purposefully double-book or extend an appointment beyond a specific time slot
- Limited customization and branding options
Pricing
- Free plan available
- Standard plan: $10 per seat per month, billed annually
- Teams plan: $16 per seat per month, billed annually
- Enterprise plan: Call for custom pricing
- 14-day free trial of Teams plan
Reviews
Capterra/Software Advice: 4.7 out of 5 (3,086 reviews)
G2: 4.7 out of 5 (1,945 reviews)
3. Ahrefs – Best for SEO research
Ahrefs is a comprehensive digital marketing software and a household name for SEO. It helps agency managers track their clients' key performance metrics and offers advanced features for strengthening their competitive advantage.
Key features
- SEO dashboard to monitor all your projects from a single platform
- Keyword explorer for keyword research and discovery
- Site explorer for competitor analysis
- Site audit to evaluate and optimize websites
- Ranking tracker to monitor content performance in search engines
- Content explorer to research content ideas and linking opportunities
- Most active SEO web crawler
Limitations
- Price better suited for larger agencies than small businesses and independents
- Lacks local SEO tools
- Limited free tools
Pricing
- Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: Free, limited access to Site Explorer and Site Audit
- Lite plan: Starts at $83 per month, billed annually
- Standard plan: Starts at $163 per month, billed annually
- Advanced plan: Starts at $333 per month, billed annually
- Enterprise plan: Starts at $833 per month, billed annually
Reviews
Capterra/Software Advice: 4.7 out of 5 (539 reviews)
G2: 4.5 out of 5 (502 reviews)
4. Semrush – Best for cross-channel SEO, content planning, and competitive research
Another digital marketing software synonymous with SEO is Semrush. Semrush does more than inundate marketing experts with SEO data. It also has a wide range of tools for content ideation and creation, competitor research, advertising research and marketing, and social media marketing.
It even has an entire suite of resources specifically for agencies, the Agency Growth Kit. This includes the partner program, which lists member agencies through Semrush and promotes their business. It also helps them generate new leads and find new contracts.
It offers agencies a free CRM solution to help them further impress their clients.
Key features
- 55+ tools for SEO, content, advertising, competitive research, and social media
- Agency Partners Platform
- Semrush CRM
- Bid finder
- Free GoodContent Hub tools
- Free Local Marketing Hub tools
Limitations
- High price tag
- Interface and range of features can seem complex and overwhelming
- Steep learning curve for new users
Pricing
- Free sign-up account with basic features
- Pro plan: $108.33 per month, billed annually
- Guru plan: $208.33 per month, billed annually
- Business plan: $416.66 per month, billed annually
- Call for custom plan pricing
- 7-day free trial of the Pro or Guru plan
Reviews
Capterra/Software Advice: 4.7 out of 5 (2,158 reviews)
G2: 4.5 out of 5 (1,857 reviews)
5. HubSpot – Best for inbound marketing management
HubSpot is a high-level, interconnected business management resource. It offers agencies tools for managing content, marketing, sales, customer service, operations, and B2B e-commerce.
Free HubSpot CRM offers a wide range of tools for email marketing, contact management, meeting scheduling, ad management, reporting, and more.
HubSpot also offers free-to-use, no-plan tools, including a Blog Ideas Generator, a Marketing Plan Generator, and a Campaign Assistant.
Key features
- Online form builder
- Live chat
- Contact management
- Marketing automations
- Campaign management
- Marketing analytics
- Dashboards and custom reports
- 1,400+ third-party integrations
- HubSpot AI
Limitations
- High price jump beyond the Starter plan
- Salesforce integration reported to be glitchy
- Limitations with their landing page builder
Pricing
- Marketing Hub
- Free plan
- Starter plan: Starts at $18 per month, billed annually
- Professional plan: Starts at $800 per month, billed annually
- Enterprise plan: Starts at $3,600 per month, billed annually
Reviews
Capterra/Software Advice: 4.5 out of 5 (5,738 reviews)
G2: 4.4 out of 5 (10,489 reviews)
6. Sprout Social – Best for social media management
Sprout Social is a powerful, dedicated social media management platform. It facilitates content creation, campaign planning, post scheduling and publishing, engagement management, and performance tracking across top social media platforms.
AI, automation, and third-party integrations help digital marketing agencies maximize their clients' reach and impact on their social media platforms. All while minimizing the time it takes, simplifying the related workflows, and reducing manual work on repetitive tasks.
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Key features
- Custom groups and permissions
- Shared content calendar
- Content approval workflows
- Optimal send times
- Analytics and reporting
- Smart Inbox
- Message spike alerts
- Social listening tools
- Employee advocacy tools
- Influencer marketing management
- Agency Partner Program free with Sprout subscription
- 40+ third-party integrations
Limitations
- High pricing
- Can’t use the same draft to cross-post to different platforms
- Non-intuitive platform
- Learning curve
Pricing
- Standard plan: Starting at $249 per month
- Professional plan: Starting at $399 per month
- Advanced plan: Starting at $499/ month
- Enterprise plan: Call for custom pricing
- 30-day free trial of any plan
- Premium add-ons are available for all plans
Reviews
Capterra/Software Advice: 4.4 out of 5 (567 reviews)
G2: 4.4 out of 5 (2,617 reviews)
7. Google – Best for integrated, collaborative project management
Google has a wide range of project management software for marketing agencies to take advantage of.
With built-in automation and machine learning, Google Analytics tracks website traffic and analyzes trends. You can view real-time data and various reports to understand ROI better and more easily measure the performance of different media and marketing campaigns.
Google Workspace tools help digital agencies create, plan, collaborate on, share, organize, and manage client content. The usual suite of Google tools integrates seamlessly with each other and with many other third-party tools.
Plus, the familiarity and popularity of these tools make for easy onboarding of new team members and collaboration with clients.
Key features
- Workspace tools included in all plans — Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Meet, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Chat, Forms, Sites, Keep, Apps Script
- Duet AI and Google Voice add-ons for any plan
- Unique analytics insights and machine learning
- Integrations, including with other Google apps
Limitations
- Workspace has limited offline features
- Google apps are difficult to integrate with Apple or Microsoft apps
- Google Analytics has a steep learning curve
Pricing
Google Analytics:
- Free to use
- Analytics 360: Call for pricing
Google Workspace:
- Business Starter plan: $6 per user per month, billed annually
- Business Standard plan: $12 per user per month, billed annually
- Business Plus plan: $18 per user per month, billed annually
- Enterprise plan: Call for pricing
- 14-day free trial
- Add-ons are available for any plan
Reviews
Capterra:
Google Analytics - n/a
Google Analytics 360 - 4.7 out of 5 (7,703 reviews)
Workspace - 4.7 out of 5 (15,195 reviews)
G2:
Google Analytics - 4.5 out of 5 (6,232 reviews)
Google Analytics 360 - 4.4 out of 5 (575 reviews)
Workspace - 4.6 out of 5 (40,691 reviews)
Software Advice:
Google Analytics - n/a
Google Analytics 360 - 4.7 out of 5 (7,703 reviews)
Workspace - 4.7 out of 5 (11,875 reviews)
8. Zapier – Best for workflow automation
Zapier is a workflow automation software that facilitates integrations between thousands of apps and tools across the web.
Create trigger-and-action pathways, or “zaps,” between apps your agency already uses using if/then logic. Expand the effectiveness of your pre-existing tech stack, getting all your software to work together automatically like a uniform system to complete repetitive tasks.
Key features
- Drag-and-drop editor for building and customizing automated workflows
- Advanced roles and permissions
- Comprehensive activity log
- Database tables
- 6,000+ third-party integrations
- Interfaces for building forms, apps, and web pages (beta)
- AI automation features and chatbot (beta)
Limitations
- Steep learning curve for beginners, especially for creating more complex workflows
- Pricing can escalate quickly as your usage and needs increase
- Integration speed is slower on free and lower-tier plans than on higher plans
- Can be difficult to troubleshoot
Pricing
- Free forever plan
- Starter plan: Starting at $19.99 per month, billed annually
- Professional plan: Starting at $49 per month, billed annually
- Team plan: Starting at $69 per month, billed annually
- Company plan: Call for pricing
- 14-day free trial of Professional plan
Reviews
Capterra/Software Advice: 4.7 out of 5 (2,759 reviews)
G2: 4.5 out of 5 (1,179)
9. Scoro – Best for all-in-one agency management
Scoro is an all-around agency management software that helps agency owners keep track of every aspect of their business from a single platform.
Advanced features help manage every aspect of a digital agency’s projects, workforce, and finances.
Scoro aims to minimize your tech stack and position itself as your agency’s HQ. That said, it also integrates with various third-party tools for non-native features.
Key features
- Workflow management features
- Quoting and budgeting features
- Sales and CRM management
- Resource planning
- Retains management features
- Time tracking feature
- Custom reports and dashboards
- Automated invoicing, payment reminders, and collections
- Cost Management
- Team collaboration features
- 40+ third-party integrations
Limitations
- Takes time to set up, learn, and onboard due to all the extensive features
Pricing
- Essential plan: $26 per user per month, billed annually
- Standard plan: $37 per user per month, billed annually
- Pro plan: $63 per user per month, billed annually
- Ultimate plan: Call for pricing
- 14-day free trial of Standard or Pro plans
Reviews
Capterra/Software Advice: 4.6 out of 5 (229 reviews)
G2: 4.5 out of 5 (390 reviews)
Add Motion to your marketing agency software toolkit today
Work smarter, not harder, with an A+ tech stack that sets your agency up for success while maintaining everyone’s weekends.
To start, choose a tool listed above that offers the functions your agency needs (or needs to streamline) by signing up for its free trial.
Do you need marketing agency software with automation and AI that regulates your project and meeting schedules with low stress? Then make sure to sign up for Motion’s 7-day trial today!
Your calendar will thank you.
