In Pursuit of Productivity: A Digital Marketing Agency's Search for the Right Project Management Software

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Workload capacity data
Gantt Chart Capabilities
Time control integration
Multiple people assigned per task
Periodic tasks
Speed ​​dating
Once the list was made and agreed upon, I went ahead with my search for project management software candidates, or as I like to call it, speed dating. With hundreds of options to choose from, these platforms only had a few minutes to hold my interest before I moved them to the no pile.

I started the process by searching for “ agency project management platforms .” Quick no’s were any software that required a long and expensive customization process, like JIRA and Kantata (formerly Mavenlink). Next, I eliminated vp media email list platforms that didn’t match the features that Basecamp offered from the list, because that felt like a step backward.

After a few days, I had a list of about 10 platforms, which was still too big. From there, I scoured the internet for every blog, podcast, and hieroglyphic I could find related to other agencies talking about their experiences with project management platforms.

Unsurprisingly, I found a lot of other people disappointed with Basecamp, but I was able to narrow the list down to a promising group of five: ClickUp, Asana doInbound, Teamwork , and Flow .

The Final Five
With my list in one hand and coffee in the other, I started programming demos . All the platforms offered their services, but in the end I settled on a provider that met my original list of 15 requirements.

DoInbound was a quick choice. At first, the platform seemed like a perfect fit. They built a project management platform specifically for HubSpot’s inbound marketing funnel, and as an inbound marketing agency, we were sold. But without the flexibility to integrate agile components into the platform, it was impossible.

I was excited to learn more about Asana because it had great reviews. What I wasn’t excited about was being left hanging. After emailing and calling several times with no response, I was finally informed that our agency was too small for a live demo and was sent to their Resource Center. If the demo experience was any indication of what customer support would be like, I was out.

TeamWork and Flow were both good options. They ticked most of the boxes on my list, but there was one competitor that far outperformed the others: ClickUp.