Best Marketing Management Software Shortlist
Here’s the shortlist of the best marketing management tools that I’ll cover in this article, with detailed summaries below:
- Cascade - Best for managing your overall strategy
- WhatConverts - Best for easy lead tracking and revenue attribution
- Optmyzr - Best for PPC management
- Looker Studio (Google Data Studio) - Best free marketing analytics platform
- Buffer - Best social media management for small teams
- Sprout Social - Powerful social media management for enterprises
- Optimizely CMP - Best content marketing platform
- Wrike - Best marketing project management platform
- Hubspot Marketing Hub - Best for B2B campaign management
- Klaviyo - Best for ecommerce and B2C marketing management
- AdRoll - Best platform for managing remarketing campaigns
- monday.com - Powerful automations and integrations for marketing projects
What Is Marketing Management Software?
Marketing management software is a broad category of software that helps marketing managers do their job better—including tools like marketing dashboards, PPC management tools, social media management platforms, and more.
Overview of the 12 Best Marketing Management Software
Let’s dive into the list and explore the 12 best marketing management options for CMOs in more detail. Instead of a vague ranking system, I’ve tagged them all with headlines highlighting each software’s ideal use case.
1. Cascade - Best for managing your overall strategy
In its own words, Cascade is a “strategy execution” platform, made to help you design, stick to, and track the impact of your company’s strategy.
Why I picked Cascade: Rather than a platform for managing individual campaigns or marketing-related projects, Cascade helps organizations track progress against the overall strategy and specific goals. The individual dashboards are easy to work with, and you can quickly go from a “bird’s eye view” to a deep dive into a specific marketing goal or even specific actions.
It’s a good fit for CMOs and marketing teams in large organizations that need to adhere to strict quarterly and long-term objectives. You can use it to track and prove the direct impact of your campaigns on the company’s goals. And with a 4.8 average across 180+ G2 reviews, I was also impressed with the company’s customer reputation.
Cascade Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a color-coded strategy map with progress bars, cascade planning for different teams, and progress tracking with 1,000+ potential data sources.
Integrations include spreadsheet software like Excel, Google Sheets, and other data sources like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, and Google Analytics.
Free trial: Cascade offers a 2-week trial of any premium plan. Cascade also offers a freemium version of their product with 2 dashboards and up to 4 users.
Plans and pricing: Besides the free plan, Cascade offers a premium plan that starts at $29/user/month with a minimum of 5 users. For a 5-person team, this would be $145 per month.
Pros:
- Great platform for boosting sales and marketing alignment.
- Ability to group and track multiple projects and KPIs in logical units.
- Supports multiple frameworks like OKR and balanced scorecard.
Cons:
- Might be too feature-rich for small teams.
- Per-user pricing.
- Not the best option for managing implementation.
2. WhatConverts - Best for easy lead tracking and revenue attribution
WhatConverts is a lead-tracking and reporting solution specifically designed to help marketers track and prove the bottom-line impact of their various campaigns.
Why I picked WhatConverts: Marketers that stop at tracking a lead as a conversion can’t make truly data-based decisions about which platforms and campaigns to spend their money on. With WhatConverts, native integrations and pre-defined reports, even small and inexperienced marketing teams can quickly get deeper insights into the effects of their campaigns.
Plus, with a 4.9 average rating on G2, its customer reputation isn’t exactly shabby either.
WhatConverts Standout Features and Integrations
Features include multi-channel phone call tracking, revenue tracking based on real sales in your CRM, easy-to-use customizable dashboards, and automated call transcription and recording.
Integrations include 80+ different apps including ad platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, and CRM platforms like Salesforce, Hubspot, and Zoho CRM.
Free trial: WhatConverts offers a 14-day free trial.
Plans and pricing: Starts at $30/month for a basic call tracking plan. To track other lead actions, you need the $60/month Plus plan. And to build custom reports you need the $100/month Pro. (All plans include unlimited users, but only one account).
Pros:
- Generate automated lead value reports based on call tracking.
- Flat pricing (not per-user).
- Sales call recordings and transcriptions are useful for training new sales reps.
Cons:
- Many useful features are locked behind expensive plans.
- Only tracks leads specifically (not sales from ecommerce).
- Relies on dynamic call insertion (a unique trackable number) which can confuse existing customers.
3. Optmyzr - Best for PPC management
Optmyzr is an AI-powered PPC management platform that helps you get more out of your Google Ads and Bing Ads campaigns.
Why I picked Optmyzr: While Google Ads, Bing Ads, and Facebook Ads have started to develop their own automated optimization tools, Optmyzr identifies missed opportunities (or wasted ad spend) that the ad platforms fail to find on their own.
It’s a great fit for a marketing manager (with a serious PPC budget) that’s tired of manually analyzing data in spreadsheets or an analytics platform to find potential campaign improvements.
Optmyzr Standout Features and Integrations
Features include AI-powered PPC campaign improvement suggestions, an advanced automation rule engine, and a feed optimizer for Google Shopping campaigns.
Integrations include Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, and Google Analytics.
Free trial: Optmyzr offers a 14-day free trial.
Plans and pricing: the core plan starts at $228/month and includes all core features. Beyond that, you can request a custom quote for enterprise or advanced plans.
Pros:
- Improve your PPC campaigns with a few clicks rather than intensive research.
- Use simulations to forecast the impact of changes to your campaigns.
- The rule engine eliminates a lot of hands-on optimization work.
Cons:
- For smaller budgets, it can be hard to generate a positive ROI in the long term.
- Report formatting is a bit clunky.
- Limited to search and Facebook, no support for LinkedIn, Twitter, or other social campaigns.
4. Looker Studio (Google Data Studio) - Best free marketing analytics platform
Looker Studio is a data analysis and reporting platform, which helps you create shareable reports and dashboards for various marketing campaigns and platforms.
Why I picked Looker Studio: Not only is Looker Studio one of the best platforms for creating custom reports and dashboards based on any data set, but it’s also completely free.
It’s especially useful for marketers that rely on Google Ads, Google Search Console, or other Google properties in their marketing (and who isn’t these days?), as the data will be ready for use with suitable tags and templates.
Looker Studio Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a custom report builder with a variety of data sources, native support for data from Google Ads and Google Analytics, and automatic data tagging and preparation.
Integrations include all Google properties that matter (Ads, Analytics, Search Console, etc.) as well as 700+ outside data sources.
Free trial: Freemium version is available (with the vast majority of features you’ll need).
Plans and pricing: the basic plan is free, but Looker Studio Pro (with unlimited data sources, access management, and other enterprise features) starts at $7/user per month.
Pros:
- It’s free.
- Big library of templates.
- Good automatic data tagging and chart creation.
Cons:
- Steeper learning curve than marketing-specific reporting software.
- No native integrations with competing ad platforms like Facebook Ads.
- Date reporting is unwieldy (you can’t seamlessly switch between weekly, hourly, etc.)
5. Buffer - Best social media management for small teams
Buffer is a social media management platform that helps companies plan and publish posts across a wide variety of platforms from a single dashboard.
Why I picked Buffer: not only is Buffer a well-established platform (founded in 2010), its team has continued to expand the software with new features and even new channels (like TikTok and even Mastodon) over the years.
Its publishing features are easy-to-use with a straightforward social calendar, but it also includes advanced features like AI-powered alerts to help boost engagement.
Buffer Standout Features and Integrations
Features include automatic important comment detection, approval workflow tools, annotated custom reports, and multi-channel publishing management.
Integrations include most social channels (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok), as well as Google Business Profiles.
Free trial: Freemium plan with up to 10 scheduled posts per channel (and 3 channels) is available, and a 14-day free trial of any paid plan.
Plans and pricing: Essentials starts at $6 per month per channel with a single user, and Team starts at $12 per channel with unlimited users and approval workflow tools.
Pros:
- Easy-to-use publishing tools for multiple social channels.
- It’s an affordable option for small teams (especially if you focus on a few channels).
- Improve social engagement with smart listening tools.
Cons:
- Bulk upload of images can be unreliable.
- Mobile app interface is a bit clunky.
- Analytics are not as powerful as alternatives.
6. Sprout Social - Powerful social media management for enterprises
Sprout Social is a social management platform that is more focused on the advanced needs of enterprises, CMOs, and agencies than being “accessible” for all companies.
Why I picked Sprout Social: what sets Sprout Social apart is the completeness of the platform: you get top-of-class social listening, social analytics, publishing, engagement, and social commerce tools all in the same package.
Of course, all of this comes at a premium price tag, but for the right company (enterprise, agency, social-first ecommerce startups) it is more than worth it.
Sprout Social Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a built-in image editor for post images, a customizable content intelligence dashboard, social engagement tools, and in-depth content insights.
Integrations: Sprout Social integrates with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, and WhatsApp.
Free trial: Sprout Social offers a 30-day free trial for any of its plans.
Plans and pricing: Standard starts at $249 per month (extra users cost $199/month) with basic features for up to 5 social profiles. Professional starts at $399/month (extra users cost $299/month) and includes competitive reports.
Pros:
- Ideate better content with insights from both social listening and post data.
- Engagement tools make it easy to keep up with comments on multiple channels.
- The default reports are extensive and easy to decipher.
Cons:
- The price tag.
- Limited customizability of interface and reports.
- Can be difficult to handle multiple incoming messages (they need their own dialog box open).
7. Optimizely CMP - Best content marketing platform
Optimizely CMP is an all-in-one content marketing management platform that helps you plan, schedule, track, and optimize your content marketing efforts.
Why I picked Optimizely: First off, Optimizely includes marketing project management features for planning and managing content-based campaigns. Secondly, Optimizely offers content intelligence, analytics, and content testing tools that help you create better campaigns.
Optimizely Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a drag-and-drop content dashboard with widgets, workflow tools designed specifically for content teams, smart topic suggestions, and an interactive content calendar.
Integrations include 50+ platforms including Adobe Creative Cloud, SalesForce, and Marketo Engage.
Free trial: Optimizely offers a 14-day trial and a freemium version for up to 5 users.
Plans and pricing: The free plan includes basic project and task management features like kanban boards, timelines, and an editorial calendar. The Manage plan starts at $79/user per month and includes capacity planning, smart routing rules, and unlimited guest users.
Pros:
- Built-in digital asset management eliminates the need for another expensive subscription.
- Unlimited guest users (suitable for non-managers).
- The dashboard is easy to customize.
Cons:
- Publishing and analytics features are locked behind more expensive plans.
- New product so there are still a few kinks to work out.
- Limited integrations.
8. Wrike - Best marketing project management platform
Wrike is a project management software solution that can help you manage events, campaigns, budgets, projects, and teams, with a special focus on marketing teams.
Why I picked Wrike: Wrike offers a project management solution designed with marketing teams and agencies in mind — approval workflows, KPI tracking, ad platform integrations, all included.
In short, it’s a great platform for marketing managers who aren’t just looking to manage the dollars and cents of their ad spend, but the actual people in their teams and content in their pipeline.
Wrike Standout Features and Integrations
Features include built-in content planning and scheduling tools, workflow and dashboard templates for marketing teams, and a simple workflow automation builder.
Integrations include Google Ads, Hubspot, LinkedIn, and 400 more applications.
Free trial: Wrike offers a limited freemium plan with basic task management features.
Plans and pricing: Beyond the limited free plan, Wrike team costs $9.80/user per month with features like custom workflows, analytics, and use case templates. To access dashboards you need the Business plan which costs $24.80/user per month.
Pros:
- Get started quickly with marketing-minded templates and workflows.
- See the impact of initiatives inside the same platform.
- Edit suggested creative directly with Adobe integration.
Cons:
- Per-user pricing.
- Social integration is a paid add-on.
- Onboarding inexperienced staff can be an issue.
9. Hubspot Marketing Hub - Best for B2B campaign management
HubSpot Marketing Hub is a platform that helps companies attract organic traffic, convert it into leads, and nurture those leads into customers.
Why I picked HubSpot Marketing Hub: instead of needing CRM, analytics, lead tracking, and email marketing platforms separately, HubSpot gives you all of this functionality in a single solution.
HubSpot Marketing Hub Standout Features and Integrations
Features include start-to-end lead management, lead tracking, a content dashboard, blog analytics, multi-channel revenue attribution, and email personalization.
Integrations include Facebook Ads, Google Analytics, Salesforce, WordPress, Databox, and 100+ other tools.
Free trial: Freemium version is available with limited features.
Plans and pricing: The starter plan is $20 per month with minimal features and 1,000 contacts. The starter CRM suite is $50/month (but mostly increased volume, not features), while the professional plan at $890 per month includes advanced analytics, testing, and reporting tools.
Pros:
- All-in-one platform makes lead campaigns easy to manage.
- Strong integrations.
- Great content marketing tools.
Cons:
- Most useful features are tied to the expensive plan.
- Not ideal for B2C funnels.
- A lot of wasted features if you’re not invested in content marketing.
10. Klaviyo - Best for ecommerce and B2C marketing management
Klaviyo is an email marketing platform designed to manage, track, and optimize email campaigns for ecommerce.
Why I picked Klaviyo:
Klaviyo is a good option for an ecommerce marketing manager that specifically wants not just complete oversight over their email campaigns, but personalize campaigns based on usage and purchase data from your online store.
Klaviyo Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a built-in customer data platform, personalization based on ecommerce data, easy multi-variable testing, real-time reporting, and more.
Integrations include all major ecommerce providers including Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce, and 300+ other platforms.
Free trial: Freemium plan available with up to 250 contacts.
Plans and pricing: After the free plan, the email-only plan starts at $20 per month (with up to 500 contacts), but the price scales up with the number of contacts.
Pros:
- Makes it easy to send relevant emails to prospects and customers.
- Plenty of pre-built automation recipes.
- Highly detailed email analytics.
Cons:
- Not suited for B2B campaigns.
- Not the easiest platform to get started with.
- Manual segmentation is quite labor intensive.
11. AdRoll - Best platform for managing remarketing campaigns
AdRoll is a programmatic ad-buying platform that helps marketers get their digital ads in front of the right person at the right time.
Why I picked Adroll: You might be wondering why an ad-buying platform is included on this list, but no, I’m not a paid actor selling out to the highest bidder.
I just know from experience that setting up cross-platform campaigns to retarget interested buyers is a lot of work. AdRoll does this for you automatically (for a commission), which can be helpful, especially for smaller companies and budgets.
AdRoll Standout Features and Integrations
Features include automated retargeting campaigns across multiple platforms and sites, revenue attribution across multiple channels, and smart ad resizing for different platforms.
Integrations include Google Analytics, Campaign Monitor, ReportGarden, and 20+ other tools.
Free trial: There’s no free trial available, but there’s no startup fee beyond advertising costs (plus commission).
Plans and pricing: Unlike the other items on this list, AdRoll charges a “small percentage” of each ad placement you pay for. They also offer a “marketing ads plus” plan that starts at $36 and includes social ads and email marketing.
Pros:
- It’s very easy to start a multi-channel campaign.
- There are no fixed monthly costs.
- Massive reach.
Cons:
- A percentage-based commission means a lot of money for big advertisers.
- Not suited for longer sales funnels which include a variety of channels.
- Easy to waste money if inexperienced.
12. monday.com - Powerful automations and integrations for marketing projects
monday.com is a project management platform with unique features and templates for marketing teams.
Why I picked monday.com: Beyond its strong project management and workflow automation features, monday.com also offers a number of integrations that make it a good choice for a marketing team.
monday.com Standout Features and Integrations
Features include built-in time tracking, automated workload management, and an automation builder with helpful recipes
Integrations include Facebook Ads, Hubspot, Sprout Social, Mailchimp, and 50+ other apps.
Free trial: 14-day free trial available, and a freemium plan for up to 2 users.
Plans and pricing: the basic plan starts at $10/user per month but doesn’t include automations or integrations. Standard costs $12/user per month and includes limited automations and integrations.
Pros:
- Marketing templates mean you don’t start from scratch.
- Automate approval workflows.
- Use color coding and notifications for better project oversight.
Cons:
- Per-user pricing.
- Automations limited except in expensive plans.
- No Salesforce or Google Ads integration yet.
Selection Criteria for the Best Marketing Management Software
If you’re wondering how I compiled this list, I not only considered my own experience of using several different platforms, but researched every available option on the market and compared price, usability, features, customer reputation, and more.
I also made sure that I covered all subcategories of marketing management tools, including:
- Marketing dashboards
- Marketing attribution and reporting tools
- Social media management software
- Marketing project management platforms
- Content marketing management platforms
To boil it down to just the top 12 software (out of 100+ options) I singled out four specific selection criteria to help me narrow it down to the best of the best.
Marketing and Sales-Specific Integrations and Features
Tool replacement is an epidemic in marketing teams across the country. In 2021, the majority of surveyed marketers said they had replaced key software like CRM, email distribution, or marketing automation tools over the past 12 months.
To help you pick the right tool on the first try, I’m focusing on platforms with key features that fit right into a marketing team (like support for approval workflows, digital asset management, and more).
Ease of use
I also considered how easy it is to get started with the software, how easy it is to connect to relevant third-party software (like ad platforms), and just get it to do what it’s supposed to do in general.
Customer reputation
The last thing I want is to recommend a tool that looks good on the surface but has major issues with things like downtime or lackluster customer service. So I’ve only highlighted options with a healthy customer reputation.
Price and value for money
According to Gartner, 25.4% of marketing budgets went to marketing technology in 2022. And when any cent saved here can go directly towards campaigns, it’s crucial to consider not just the price, but what you get for your investment.
For example, if one software solution can do the work of two other ones, that’s one less subscription you have to pay for.
People Also Ask
Below, I answer some of the most commonly asked questions about the topic of marketing management software.
What is marketing management software?
What is enterprise marketing software?
How much does marketing management software cost?
What are some examples of marketing management?
Other Marketing Management Software Options
Here are a few more worthwhile options that didn’t make the best marketing management software list:
- ReportGarden - Best for creating reports for external clients, not internal marketing teams
- SuperMetrics - Best for collecting and preparing data for analysis in other tools
- ClickUp - Best workflow management app for creative teams
- Google Analytics - Best platform for basic web analytics
- Ahrefs - Best platform for SEO management
- Adalysis - Best PPC management platform for testing ads
- Salesforce - Best CRM and email management combination
- ActiveCampaign - Easiest marketing automation platform to get started with
- Wistia - Best platform for managing on-page video content
Did You Find the Right Fit For Your Use Case?
After taking a closer look at my hand-picked list of marketing management software, did you find what you were looking for?
Because every company is different, it’s hard to prescribe a specific solution, like an email marketing management platform, without knowing your unique situation and needs.
I’ve done my best to categorize the software on this list by use case, which hopefully helped you out on your software hunt.
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