The market is flooded with project management tools. They all do one thing very well: manage tasks and check boxes. But marketing isn’t just about tasks; it’s about strategy, storytelling, and execution across countless channels.
That’s why true marketing project management software must deliver equal parts project management discipline and marketing intelligence. It should bring the rigor of operations and the creativity of marketing into one connected platform, giving teams the structure to plan, the visibility to collaborate, and the flexibility to create.
Key Capabilities of Dedicated Marketing Project Management Software
Each platform was evaluated using the same feature criteria:
✅ = They fully have this feature
🟡 = They partially have this feature
❌ = They do not have this feature
Collaboration – A standard for almost all project tools, collaboration features streamline the review process by centralizing feedback and approvals in one place. This ensures clear communication, faster decision-making, and smoother collaboration across teams.
Campaign Execution & Workflow Automation – Campaign execution and workflow automation streamline marketing operations by standardizing recurring campaign types through reusable templates. Automated workflows ensure tasks and notifications are triggered based on project status or approvals, keeping teams aligned and efficient.
Full Content in Platform, Not Attachments – Marketing project management software enables you to build your content in the same platform where the workflow takes place. This enables you to see your full marketing content in context
Reviews on Content – Reviewing content is a cornerstone of a marketing project management workflow. Being able to leave comments directly on the content as opposed to in a separate space is a differentiator that a dedicated marketing PM tool should offer.
Status Dashboards – Being able to see the status of any project (or multiple projects) and who is responsible for it is an essential function to managing work.
Content Calendar – While any project management tool will have some sort of calendar view, marketers need more. Marketing project management software should have a dedicated content calendar that illustrates specifics about the content in the calendar view.
Time Tracking Capabilities – Having the ability to track employee time and assign it to a marketing project can be a part of this software feature set. This is particularly important for marketing agencies that need to assign billable time to projects.
Security & Permissions – Marketing work can be sensitive in nature. Naturally, teams need the ability to ensure that some work stays private and secure through permissions and user roles.
Here’s the list of tools we’re evaluating:
- Opal
- Monday
- Asana
- ClickUp
- ProProfs Project
- Hive
- Basecamp
- Jira
- Airtable
- Notion
This matrix summarizes the capabilities of these 10 tools.
| Tool | Collaboration | Campaign Execution & Workflow Automation | Full Content in Platform | Reviews on Content | Status Dashboards | Content Calendar | Time Tracking Capabilities | Security & Permissions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opal | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Monday.com | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Asana | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| ClickUp | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| ProProfs Project | ✅ | 🟡 | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | 🟡 |
| Hive | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | 🟡 | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Basecamp | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | 🟡 | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Jira | 🟡 | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Airtable | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | 🟡 | 🟡 | ✅ |
| Notion | ✅ | 🟡 | ❌ | ❌ | 🟡 | 🟡 | ❌ | ✅ |
Opal
| Feature | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | ✅ | Real-time collaboration through in-context comments, briefs, and approvals directly on content and campaigns. |
| Campaign Execution & Workflow Automation | ✅ | Supports standardized campaign templates and automated workflows that trigger based on approvals or project status. |
| Full Content in Platform, Not Attachments | ✅ | Core strength — content lives and is built within Opal, enabling teams to view and manage work in true marketing context. |
| Reviews on Content | ✅ | Centralized feedback and approval directly on assets; reviewers can comment in-line without external tools. |
| Status Dashboards | ✅ | Comprehensive dashboards give visibility into project health, ownership, and progress across all campaigns. |
| Content Calendar | ✅ | Dedicated, marketing-specific calendar that displays campaign and content details across channels. |
| Time Tracking Capabilities | ❌ | Not available today; time tracking is on the roadmap but excluded from scoring for fairness. |
| Security & Permissions | ✅ | Role-based permissions and user access controls ensure privacy for sensitive marketing initiatives. |
Strengths
Opal excels at enabling marketers to plan, collaborate, and execute campaigns all in one environment. Its content-in-context approach and built-in approvals make it a strong fit for teams focused on cross-channel visibility and creative alignment. The dedicated content calendar and dashboards give marketing leaders confidence in timelines and ownership.
Weaknesses
Lacks integrated time tracking, which may limit use for agencies or organizations with billable workflows.
Wrap-Up / Best For
Opal is a true marketing project management software. Ideal for brand and marketing teams looking to unite strategy, content, and execution. Opal is best suited for organizations prioritizing collaboration, visibility, and creative consistency over granular project accounting or traditional operations management.
Monday
| Feature | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | ✅ | Offers commenting, file sharing, and tag-based communication within boards; integrates with Slack and email for cross-platform collaboration. |
| Campaign Execution & Workflow Automation | ✅ | Strong automation engine allows teams to create custom workflows, recurring templates, and task dependencies for campaign execution. |
| Full Content in Platform, Not Attachments | ❌ | Content typically exists as file attachments or embedded links; no true content authoring or preview capabilities. |
| Reviews on Content | ❌ | Feedback occurs through comments or file attachments; lacks true in-line, visual content review functionality. |
| Status Dashboards | ✅ | Highly customizable dashboards with widgets for project health, ownership, and timelines; strong visibility and filtering options. |
| Content Calendar | ❌ | Calendar and timeline views exist, but they display tasks—not marketing content or campaigns in context. |
| Time Tracking Capabilities | ✅ | Built-in time tracking available as a native column type; supports billing and productivity tracking. |
| Security & Permissions | ✅ | Enterprise-grade security with granular permission settings, private boards, and admin-level access controls. |
Strengths
Monday.com shines in flexibility, automation, and visualization. Its dashboards, automations, and integrations make it a powerful tool for managing diverse workflows.
Weaknesses
Monday lacks marketing-specific capabilities: there’s no true content calendar, no ability to build or preview creative assets in-platform, and reviews happen at the task level rather than on the content itself. It’s an excellent general project management tool but requires multiple integrations to serve as a full marketing execution platform.
Wrap-Up / Best For
Best for teams seeking a flexible, customizable PM tool that can adapt to their workflow, but less suited for creative teams that need in-platform content creation, review, and contextual visibility.
Asana
| Feature | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | ✅ | Strong task-based collaboration with comments, file sharing, and @mentions to keep teams aligned. |
| Campaign Execution & Workflow Automation | ✅ | Offers rules, templates, and task dependencies to streamline campaign workflows and recurring marketing processes. |
| Full Content in Platform, Not Attachments | ❌ | Content lives in attached files or integrated tools (e.g., Google Docs, Figma); no native content creation or preview capabilities. |
| Reviews on Content | ❌ | Feedback is handled through task comments; lacks in-line, visual review tools. |
| Status Dashboards | ✅ | Provides dashboards, workload views, and portfolio tracking for high-level visibility across campaigns and projects. |
| Content Calendar | ❌ | Calendar view exists but only displays tasks and deadlines; lacks marketing-specific content context. |
| Time Tracking Capabilities | ❌ | No built-in time tracking; relies on integrations such as Harvest or Clockwise. |
| Security & Permissions | ✅ | Offers role-based permissions, private projects, and enterprise-level security controls. |
Strengths
Asana excels at project organization, workflow automation, and visibility. Its intuitive interface and flexible project views (list, board, calendar) make it easy for marketing teams to plan and track campaigns.
Weaknesses
Asana lacks marketing-specific content capabilities. There are no in-platform content creation, true content calendar, or in-line review. While collaboration is strong, creative and asset-based workflows require integrations. Its lack of native time tracking also limits its utility for teams that bill by the hour or track effort closely.
Wrap-Up / Best For
Asana is best for generic work management since it is very affordable.
ClickUp
| Feature | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | ✅ | Offers comments, threaded discussions, and @mentions within tasks; built-in chat and whiteboards enhance team collaboration. |
| Campaign Execution & Workflow Automation | ✅ | Robust automation and templating features for campaign planning, recurring workflows, and task dependencies. |
| Full Content in Platform, Not Attachments | ❌ | Docs can hold written content but aren’t tied directly to campaigns or previews; most creative work still lives as attachments. |
| Reviews on Content | ❌ | Proofing tools allow limited annotation on static files; lacks true in-context or visual review for marketing assets. |
| Status Dashboards | ✅ | Custom dashboards for tracking campaign progress, workload, and goals; highly configurable with widgets and visual reports. |
| Content Calendar | ❌ | Calendar view manages task timelines but lacks true marketing content visibility or channel context. |
| Time Tracking Capabilities | ✅ | Native time tracking with reports for billable hours, estimates, and manual or automatic logging. |
| Security & Permissions | ✅ | Role-based permissions, private spaces, and enterprise-grade access controls ensure data protection. |
Strengths
ClickUp combines automations, dashboards, and time tracking into a single, unified workspace. Marketing teams appreciate its depth and adaptability.
Weaknesses
Despite its breadth, ClickUp lacks marketing-specific content tools. There’s no native in-platform asset creation, true content calendar, or visual review workflow, meaning creative teams must rely on external integrations.
Wrap-Up / Best For
Best for marketing and creative organizations seeking an all-in-one, deeply configurable project management system that don’t care about marketing features.
ProProfs Project
| Feature | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | ✅ | Offers task comments, file sharing, and email notifications for communication; integrates with Slack and other tools for team updates. |
| Campaign Execution & Workflow Automation | 🟡 | Supports basic task dependencies and recurring projects, but automation is limited compared to advanced PM tools. |
| Full Content in Platform, Not Attachments | ❌ | Does not support content creation or previews; relies on external files and attachments for marketing assets. |
| Reviews on Content | ❌ | Feedback occurs through task comments or uploaded files; lacks visual or in-line review capabilities. |
| Status Dashboards | ✅ | Provides simple dashboards for tracking progress, deadlines, and workload across projects. |
| Content Calendar | ❌ | Includes basic timeline and Gantt views but no dedicated marketing content calendar. |
| Time Tracking Capabilities | ✅ | Built-in time tracking and reporting tools; supports billable hours and productivity tracking for agencies. |
| Security & Permissions | 🟡 | Offers basic user roles and access control, but lacks enterprise-grade permission granularity. |
Strengths
ProProfs Project is clean, accessible, and easy to adopt. Teams appreciate its built-in time tracking and simple dashboards for managing progress and deadlines. For small marketing departments or agencies focused on deliverable tracking and client reporting, it provides an efficient entry-level solution without a steep learning curve.
Weaknesses
The platform lacks marketing-specific capabilities like in-platform content creation, content calendars, or visual asset review. Automation tools are basic, and permissions are relatively lightweight for larger or more complex organizations.
Wrap-Up / Best For
ProProfs Project is best for small to mid-size teams or agencies that prioritize simplicity, affordability, and quick setup. It suits marketing operations that need task tracking and time management rather than full-scale campaign orchestration or creative collaboration.
Hive
| Feature | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | ✅ | Strong collaboration features, including real-time chat, comments, file sharing, and approvals; integrates with email and Slack. |
| Campaign Execution & Workflow Automation | ✅ | Offers automation triggers, templates, and recurring actions to streamline campaign and task workflows. |
| Full Content in Platform, Not Attachments | ❌ | Supports file storage and Hive Notes, but no true in-platform content creation or marketing asset previews. |
| Reviews on Content | 🟡 | Built-in proofing allows feedback on images, PDFs, and videos, but lacks contextual or multi-channel review capability. |
| Status Dashboards | ✅ | Customizable dashboards and analytics track project progress, productivity, and campaign performance. |
| Content Calendar | ❌ | Calendar and Gantt views exist but are designed for task timelines, not marketing content visibility across channels. |
| Time Tracking Capabilities | ✅ | Includes native time tracking and timesheets for monitoring productivity and billable work. |
| Security & Permissions | ✅ | Role-based access, single sign-on (SSO), and enterprise-grade security options. |
Strengths
Hive excels in team collaboration and campaign coordination, offering built-in chat, proofing, and automation within one workspace. Its dashboards, analytics, and time tracking make it particularly effective for teams managing multiple campaigns or client deliverables simultaneously.
Weaknesses
Hive’s proofing is helpful but not fully marketing-native—reviews occur on uploaded assets, not in live, contextual previews. It lacks true content creation and marketing calendar features, requiring teams to rely on integrations for those needs. Its interface can also be dense for smaller teams.
Wrap-Up / Best For
Best for mid-sized marketing teams or agencies that prioritize collaboration, automation, and campaign visibility. Hive is a strong fit for creative production and review cycles, but less ideal for teams that need to manage in-platform content or visualize cross-channel marketing timelines.
Basecamp
| Feature | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | ✅ | Centralized message boards, group chat, and to-do comments enable basic collaboration and team communication. |
| Campaign Execution & Workflow Automation | ❌ | Lacks automation and campaign templating; workflows are entirely manual. |
| Full Content in Platform, Not Attachments | ❌ | Stores and shares files, but doesn’t support building or previewing marketing content in-platform. |
| Reviews on Content | ❌ | Feedback occurs through comments or discussions; no visual or in-line content review features. |
| Status Dashboards | 🟡 | Hill Charts offer high-level progress visualization, but limited compared to dedicated dashboards. |
| Content Calendar | ❌ | Includes simple scheduling via to-dos and events, but no true marketing calendar or content view. |
| Time Tracking Capabilities | ❌ | No built-in time tracking; requires external integrations or manual entry. |
| Security & Permissions | ✅ | Solid security with admin controls and private projects, though not highly granular at the enterprise level. |
Strengths
Basecamp excels at simplicity and communication. Its centralized chat, message boards, and file sharing make it easy for marketing teams to stay organized without overcomplicating workflows. It’s a solid fit for teams prioritizing clarity and collaboration over complex automation or reporting.
Weaknesses
Basecamp lacks marketing-specific and advanced PM capabilities—no automation, content creation, or review workflows. Reporting and dashboards are minimal, and it doesn’t offer time tracking natively. It’s a great communication hub but limited as a campaign management tool.
Wrap-Up / Best For
Best for small marketing teams or agencies seeking a simple, communication-first project management solution. Ideal for teams that prioritize clarity, collaboration, and ease of use over advanced marketing functionality or workflow automation.
Jira
| Feature | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | 🟡 | Provides commenting, tagging, and integration with Confluence and Slack, but collaboration feels secondary to issue tracking. |
| Campaign Execution & Workflow Automation | ✅ | Extremely strong workflow customization and automation capabilities through rules, triggers, and templates. |
| Full Content in Platform, Not Attachments | ❌ | Manages tickets and attachments but not marketing content; no in-platform content creation or previewing. |
| Reviews on Content | ❌ | Feedback occurs in comments or attached files; lacks in-line review or creative proofing tools. |
| Status Dashboards | ✅ | Advanced dashboards and reporting with customizable widgets and progress tracking. |
| Content Calendar | ❌ | Offers timeline and sprint views, but no marketing calendar or content scheduling capabilities. |
| Time Tracking Capabilities | ✅ | Built-in time tracking fields and integrations with Tempo and other apps for detailed reporting. |
| Security & Permissions | ✅ | Enterprise-grade with granular user permissions, roles, and audit logging for large organizations. |
Strengths
Jira is powerful for workflow automation, reporting, and complex process management. Its flexibility makes it excellent for marketing operations or PMOs that value structure, governance, and visibility. Dashboards and time tracking integrations give teams deep insight into performance and workload.
Weaknesses
Jira is not marketing-native—it’s optimized for agile software workflows rather than creative collaboration. Teams can manage campaigns, but not content or approvals. Its interface and setup can also be overkill for small or creative-focused marketing teams seeking a simpler, visual experience.
Wrap-Up / Best For
Best for large marketing operations or cross-functional teams that need precise workflow control, reporting, and audit trails. Jira is ideal for organizations where marketing projects align closely with engineering or product processes—but less suited for content-driven, creative marketing work.
Airtable
| Feature | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | ✅ | Real-time collaboration with commenting, mentions, and shared views; supports synced workflows across teams. |
| Campaign Execution & Workflow Automation | ✅ | Automations trigger based on conditions, statuses, or approvals; templates streamline recurring campaign setups. |
| Full Content in Platform, Not Attachments | ❌ | Content can be stored in rich text fields or attachments, but Airtable isn’t built for true content creation or previewing. |
| Reviews on Content | ❌ | Feedback occurs through comments or file attachments; lacks in-line creative or content review. |
| Status Dashboards | ✅ | Interface Designer and prebuilt dashboard templates provide project overviews and status visualization. |
| Content Calendar | 🟡 | Calendar views help plan campaigns and editorial timelines but aren’t tailored for multi-channel marketing content visibility. |
| Time Tracking Capabilities | 🟡 | No native time tracking; relies on extensions or integrations like Clockify or Harvest. |
| Security & Permissions | ✅ | Offers role-based permissions, field-level access control, and enterprise-grade security for large teams. |
Strengths
Its dashboard and automation features make it a versatile platform for managing complex marketing operations. The ability to customize fields and views lets teams shape the tool around their exact process.
Weaknesses
Airtable lacks in-platform content creation or review tools, meaning creative work must happen elsewhere. Its marketing calendar view, while useful, isn’t purpose-built for cross-channel visibility. Time tracking and advanced workflow logic also require integrations or paid upgrades.
Wrap-Up / Best For
Ideal for campaign and content management where customization, automation, and organization matter most, but less suited for creative review or asset-heavy workflows.
Notion
| Feature | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | ✅ | Real-time collaboration with commenting, mentions, and shared workspaces; solid for asynchronous documentation and planning. |
| Campaign Execution & Workflow Automation | 🟡 | Supports database templates and linked views, but lacks robust automation; relies on tools like Zapier or Make for workflow logic. |
| Full Content in Platform, Not Attachments | ❌ | Designed for documentation, not marketing content; lacks asset creation, previews, or campaign content management. |
| Reviews on Content | ❌ | Comments provide lightweight feedback but no structured review or approval system. |
| Status Dashboards | 🟡 | Dashboards can be built manually using databases, but require setup and don’t provide dynamic reporting. |
| Content Calendar | 🟡 | Calendar and timeline views exist, but they show tasks or pages—not rich marketing content. |
| Time Tracking Capabilities | ❌ | No built-in time tracking; requires third-party integrations or manual solutions. |
| Security & Permissions | ✅ | Page- and workspace-level permission settings allow controlled access; enterprise plan adds SSO and advanced controls. |
Strengths
Notion is visually clean and highly customizable, which can make it a convenient space for jotting ideas, documenting strategies, or housing brand resources. It works fine as a lightweight internal wiki or campaign archive.
Weaknesses
Notion is not a true project management platform. It lacks real automation, reporting, marketing calendars, or review systems. Teams trying to manage marketing work in Notion quickly encounter friction and manual overhead—it simply isn’t built for structured execution or scalable collaboration.
Wrap-Up / Best For
In reality, Notion isn’t a fit for marketing project management at all. It can serve as a supplementary documentation tool, but it fails to deliver on the requirements of campaign planning, content creation, or approval workflows. Best described as “good for notes, not for marketing.
Opal for True Marketing Project Management
When it comes to marketing project management, most tools get half the job done. They excel at task tracking, but not at the creative, collaborative, and content-centric workflows that define marketing.
Only purpose-built platforms—like Opal—bridge that gap, combining operational rigor with creative context. The rest can serve as workarounds, but marketers who want true alignment across content, campaigns, and teams need a solution built for marketing from the ground up.
If your team is looking for a true marketing project management platform, see what Opal can do. Request a demo to explore how the world’s leading brands run their marketing in Opal.