A Day in the Life of a Marketing Project Manager Using Agency Project Management Software

Marketing project managers are the unsung heroes of today’s fast-paced marketing world: the people who wrangle teams, tasks and timetables, deliverables, details and communication, with one eye on the big picture and the other on a burning torch. Whilst project management for agencies has undergone a huge transformation, particularly in the marketing agency sector, if you’re doing it all in your head or on a piece of paper, you’re in for a tricky time!  

The good news is that there is agency project management software available to help marketing project managers juggle the multitude of projects that make up a comms or marketing campaign. With agency project management software, you can see through the clouds of chaos, communicate with the whole team and keep a lid on the pressurized pot. 

Take a look at how this example of how a marketing project manager might use a system like that, with a ‘day in the life’… 

6:30 AM: A Structured Start 

Sarah wakes to her alarm clock. As a marketing project manager and an experienced one, she knows that her day will be full-on! And so, before the coffee has even started to trickle through, she checks her project management for agencies app on her phone. She might not head into the office straight away, thanks to the agency software that keeps her in full touch with the project wherever she goes. She opens it to review overnight updates: a comment left by the international team; a couple of urgent emails; some tasks ticked off. 

Glancing at her project management screens, she notices a stop light on one of the client deliverables: a task is overdue. The content writing team didn’t yet submit the draft that was due yesterday. She’s not worried, however, as she has the tools to resolve that issue. She makes a mental note to address it when back in the office.  

8:30 AM: Kicking Off the Day 

Sarah has just arrived at her desk for the day, when she pours herself a cup of coffee and turns on her laptop. From her office platform, she can access the ad agency project management tool. It functions as her ‘mission control’ for the day: it shows her the project schedule, milestones and pending tasks at a single glance. 

She starts the day by drilling into the flagged item. She poses a question to the content writing team via the software’s integrated chat tool and learns that he asked the client for more information but had not received it. Without having to send a flurry of emails, Sarah includes the client and asks just for a quick response. 

After that exchange is entered into the system, Sarah gives the new draft deadline and informs the client about the change in timeline. Thanks to the ad agency project management tool, the team are spared from missing important details.   

9:00 AM: Daily Stand-Up Meeting 

Sarah summons her team to the daily stand-up meeting. Rather than wasting 10 minutes on an Excel spreadsheet or paper list that requires two hours of typing in and out each week, the team opens up the agency project management software. All of their tasks and project statuses are visible to all team members, with the ability for each individual to add notes about his or her own blockers. 

With this software, everyone can provide simple, quick and structured status updates, and Sarah can immediately identify any blockers that need attention, perhaps a design team requesting clarification on a branding guideline they received from the client. Because individual files and messages feed into the large, searchable project management tool, Sarah is able to quickly locate the document the design team needs, attach it to the task, and provide the context behind the ask. 

Within 15 minutes, the team has all the information it needs, everyone is on track, and Sarah is confident that the project is running smoothly as the day begins.  

10:00 AM: Managing Client Requests 

Sarah’s clients make many project requests: yesterday it was a last-minute change, today a new campaign idea. Clients rely on Sarah to keep all the pieces together and to ensure they achieve their goals. 

Midmorning, an email arrives from a client asking for a status update on an ongoing social media campaign. Instead of frantically pulling together data, Sarah opens the agency project management software that is linked with her team’s set of social media apps. She then runs a report that provides the metrics she is looking for – engagement rates, follower growth and clicks from recent posts. 

11:30 AM: Resource Allocation 

The biggest challenge for Sarah is balancing her team’s bandwidth: numerous clients and campaigns can run concurrently. Her staff shouldn’t be over-resourced. 

Sarah uses the resource management function in the ad agency project management software to check on her team’s capacity: the color-coded heatmap indicates who is under-allocated, at capacity, or overloaded in terms of the agency’s workload. She sees that one of the junior designers is falling behind her tasks, so she decides to unassign some of the work from the junior designer to a more available designer. 

By virtue of the software, the offloading is automatic. The tasks are reassigned with all related files and comments transferred to the other designer, ensuring continuity of work. The junior designer instantly receives a notification of a lighter workload, while the other designer is alerted about her new tasks. 

1:00 PM: Lunch and Learning 

Even on her lunch break, Sarah is thinking about efficiency. She’s taking this time to learn more about the automation features in her ad agency project management tool. The adoption of automation tools has been transformative for Sarah. She no longer has to create the reminder emails and manually update the timelines that a project entails. She can enable the software to automatically remind people when things are due, without having to chase them. 

Sarah gives herself a few minutes to watch a YouTube tutorial on automated project reports. By the time lunch is over, she’s scheduled an automatic weekly email, sent each update to clients, providing a summary of the status of each project. That’s one less thing for her to have to think about, and another good reason for her clients to continue using her company.   

2:00 PM: Collaborating with External Partners 

In the afternoon, she hops on a video call with an external media buying agency, who are handling ad placements for one of her clients. She gives them access to the latest creative assets through her project management software, sharing a link to the project folder. The latest approved assets for a given campaign are conveniently located together, organized by campaign and clearly labelled with version numbers. 

With integration, an external team can work with Sarah without getting into her internal systems. Sarah doesn’t have to send files back and forth on email, or wonder which version is the latest. The external team downloads whatever they need live from the platform, and any changes they make are tracked in real-time.  

3:30 PM: Unexpected Fire Drill 

No day is complete without some unforeseen crises. In the late afternoon, Sarah’s client calls, frantic because they need to send out an email blast in two days – two days earlier than was planned. Sarah’s ad agency project management software helps her stay calm, and she’s able to work through it. 

She begins by looking at the project timeline. She makes some adjustments in a Gantt chart that is part of the agency project management software, moving up a few deadlines to create space for the rush launch. An email goes out to the team instantly. Sarah uses one of the software’s functions to log the overtime the members of the email team will have to do to make the rush project happen.  

The team have now made the changes, and Sarah returns to the client with the new launch date within 30 minutes. Great news all around! The client is thrilled, and Sarah feels relieved that she avoided a disaster with the help of the software.  

5:00 PM: Wrapping Up and Reporting 

Then, early evening, Sarah checks in with the ongoing projects from the status board in the ad agency project management software, reviews the overall timelines of the projects, and prioritizes her to-do list for the following day, sending out an end‑of‑day status update to her clients. 

Finally, thanks to Sarah’s software, she can generate a dashboard with an at-a-glance review of her team’s performance metrics. The system reliably sums all the necessary data in the background, allowing Sarah to quickly review statistics on project completion, client satisfaction, and team utilization. And that wraps up a busy day. Everything is under control.  

The ad agency project management software saves time and effort for a marketing project manager like Sarah when it comes to daily tasks. By unifying communication, keeping work in order and automating recurring tasks, it leaves time for thinking about higher-level strategy and managing clients. If ‘time is money’ as it’s said, having the right tools is a distinctive factor making the difference for the project manager and the agency as a whole.