7 Best Agency Tools For Better Online Collaboration

Today we’re going to talk about the agency tools that will set you apart from your competition. We all know that the agency world is a unique one — one agency works for several, if not dozens or hundreds, of different organizations around the world that trust that agency with their marketing, advertising, and other digital campaigns. The vast impact that advertising agencies have on the business world as we know it can be surmised with a few statistics. Did you know that U.S. ad agencies are expected to generate 45 billion dollars in revenue in 2020? Additionally, the market size of the advertising industry, measured by revenue, in 2020 is over $54 billion. Those are staggering statistics.

To be successful in this sort of role requires a specific skill set, attention to detail, and the proper agency tools. The idea of agency tools is specifically important because agencies conduct largely project-based work. Because one team can be working on behalf of several clients, having a project management, task tracking, digital marketing, or file management tool at your disposal can make-or-break your success. In this article, we’ll round up some of the best agency tools for a range of purposes, including project management, SEO, file management, and more.

Hive

Best Agency Tool For: Project Management

Because agencies are doing project-based work, having a project management tool at your disposal is a no-brainer. It’s critical that you have a way to track tasks and projects throughout a campaign lifecycle, and for this, Hive is a great option.

Some features of Hive include:

• Flexible project views, including Gantt, Kanban, calendar, table, and portfolio view
• Ability to add comments, sub-actions, dependencies, and attachments to action cards
• Time-tracking and timesheets capabilities
• Resourcing functionalities
• Integrations with over 1,000 tools like Jira, Gmail, Zoom and Salesforce
• Native chat and email integrations that allow increased connectivity
• Detailed, real-time analytics
• Web and desktop apps

Dropbox

Best Agency Tool For: File Management

There’s a reason Dropbox is trusted by massive brands and agencies, like , all over the world. Over 500,000 teams are currently using Dropbox, and it’s because the file storage solution is simple and straightforward while also being robust enough to handle more complicated storage and file management. Bonus: Check out Dropbox Paper if you want a note-taking tool for your agency.

Some features of Dropbox include:

• Stress-free file sharing stored in the cloud that can be shared with anyone, even if they don’t have Dropbox
• Create shared team folders with Dropbox cloud solution for teams
• Manage folder permissions so only specific people can access sensitive information
• Sync files across devices and platforms
• Get offline access to files across devices

Hubspot

Best Agency Tool For: CRM Platform

For agencies all over the world, having a CRM, or customer relationship management platform, is critical when you’re pitching business and tracking customer engagement. Hubspot’s CRM is a great tool for agencies because it’s free, and has a lot of the basic functionalities you’d need to track pipeline and log sales activity.

Some features of Hubspot include:

• View up-to-date sales information on a customized dashboard
• Store all customer information and data
• Tracks customer interactions automatically
• Sort by deals won, meetings scheduled, or quota performance

SEMrush

Best Agency Tool For: SEO

SEO and content development or management can be a large part of an agencies day-to-day, especially for the content-specific agencies — in that case, SEO is a major part of their gig. SEMrush is amazing for agencies of all sizes, as it allows you to track and leverage actionable SEO insights for your clients.

Some features of SEMrush include:

• An SEO dashboard that includes macro-level keyword and ranking insights for your client
• In-depth traffic analytics
• Link-building and keyword research tools
• Site audit capabilities
• SEO content templates

Since there are tons of moving parts constantly in flux at an agency, having a centralized place where individuals can communicate is key. Slack is great because you can individually message people, group chat, or set aside “channels” for your whole team.

Slack

Best Agency Tool For: Instant Messaging

Some features of Slack include:

• Channels which serve as a central space for communications, file sharing, and news
• Chat for quick one-off messages with a colleague
• Video and voice calls through integrations with tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Cisco
• Integrations with over 2,200 tools including Hive and OneDrive

Google Analytics

Best Agency Tool For: Analytics Tracking

Google Analytics is a basic marketing and analytics tool that is absolutely necessary for any businesses who have a digital presence — if you’re an agency, you should be able to use GA to understand your client’s customer base, how they operate, and what parts of the site they resonate with. After you’ve hooked your client’s website up to Google Analytics, you can easily track visitors and parse in a variety of ways, including by if they’re new users, their source, and if they’ve made a purchase.

Some features of Google Analytics include:

• Real-time tracking of traffic on your or your clients website
• Ability to create custom reports based on traffic by source, URL, and more
• Conversion tracking reports
• Ability to set goals in-platform

Hootsuite

Best Agency Tool For: Social Media Scheduling

Hootsuite is a social media marketing and management dashboard that helps you plan and schedule social posts across networks — critical for any agency that is managing a client’s social media. It is one of the first tools to allow easy scheduling for social posts, which will save your social media manager tons of time.This tool also provides clear post performance analytics that help your team dissect successes and failures, and plan for improved reach in the future.

Some features of Hootsuite include:

• Ability to plan and schedule social media posts across platforms
• Monitor trending topics on social media
• Analyze past performance across platforms
• Integrate with over 250 tools in the Hootsuite ecosystem including Canva and Adobe

These are just a few of our favorite agency tools that your business can use to level-up your tech stack. We’ll be regularly updating the list with additional finds, so keep checking back for updates.

Originally published at https://hive.com on October 29, 2020.