Managing modern marketing campaigns isn't easy. Teams often juggle disconnected tools, messy approval processes, and reporting gaps that make it hard to measure impact. That's where marketing management software comes in. These platforms help businesses streamline campaign planning, execution, and analysis all in one place. Instead of switching between spreadsheets, emails, and project management tools, marketers can align their workflows, track performance, and deliver results more efficiently.
With the rise of cloud-based platforms, today’s teams are moving away from siloed systems and adopting marketing management solutions that support agility, collaboration, and data-driven decisions. In this article, we’ll explore some of the best options available in 2025 to help you choose the right tool for your marketing need.
1. Lark: Best all-in-one business automation suite
2. HubSpot marketing hub: Best for inbound & CRM integration
3. Wrike: Best for enterprise marketing operations software
4. Asana: Best for workflow and project marketing
5. Marketo Engage: Best for enterprise-scale campaigns
6. Monday.com: Best for visual campaign workflows
7. Trello: Best free marketing management app
8. Smartsheet: Best spreadsheet-style marketing planning
9. ActiveCampaign: Best marketing and automation CRM
10. Zoho Marketing Plus: Best affordable cloud marketing system
Why businesses need marketing management systems in 2025
Marketing in 2025 is more complex than ever. Campaigns span multiple channels, teams are often distributed across regions, and customer expectations continue to rise. Traditional tools simply can't keep up with this pace. This is why organizations are embracing marketing management systems platforms designed to bring everything together.
1. Centralized data with marketing information system software
Instead of storing data in scattered apps, marketing information system software consolidates customer insights, campaign data, and performance metrics into a single source of truth. This helps teams make smarter, faster decisions based on accurate, real-time information.
2. Improved visibility of workflows using marketing software.
As campaigns involve multiple stakeholders, creative teams, content marketers, and social managers, visibility becomes critical. Marketing workflow software ensures that everyone is aware of their responsibilities, deadlines, and dependencies. This transparency reduces bottlenecks, improves accountability, and accelerates project delivery.
3. Faster execution with marketing software cloud
Cloud-based platforms make collaboration seamless. With marketing software cloud solutions, distributed teams can launch campaigns, approve assets, and share reports in real time without versioning chaos or delays. Cloud-first systems also ensure scalability, keeping up with growing data and evolving campaign needs.
The five pillars of marketing systems
To run marketing campaigns that are strategic, collaborative, and scalable, modern businesses rely on five foundational pillars of marketing systems. These pillars ensure your campaign processes remain organized and responsive, even as complexity grows.
Marketing plans and strategies
Planning is the blueprint that aligns vision with execution. A robust marketing strategy template enables teams to visualize campaigns, product launches, and communication channels in a single, intuitive view. With built-in Kanban boards and AI-assisted social content generation, tools like Lark's marketing strategy template help marketers plan proactively and adaptively.
Marketing workflow automation
Repetitive campaign tasks, such as approvals, content handoffs, and reminders, can bog down execution. Marketing workflow software enables automated task routing, status updates, and notifications, significantly reducing manual work and delay. Lark's solution unifies planning, content creation, and collaboration through an AI-powered workflow, simplifying operations and boosting productivity.
Marketing information system software
Data silos pose a significant barrier to gaining insights and achieving agility. A centralized marketing information system software collects campaign data, performance metrics, and deadlines in a single dashboard, enabling real-time analysis and informed strategic decision-making. Lark's suite of templates, ranging from an annual marketing plan to content marketing management, organizes insights into timelines, budgets, and performance, creating a dependable single source of truth.
Marketing operations & execution
Execution requires orchestration across creative, content, and rollout silos. Lark's marketing project plan template serves as the operational backbone, enabling campaign managers to manage project briefs, KPIs, timelines, and budgets in one shared workspace. Built-in tables, Gantt/chart views, and real-time editing simplify coordination and ensure campaigns stay on track.
Integration & scalability in cloud marketing software
Marketing ecosystems are rarely standalone campaigns; instead, they are often connected to CRMs, analytics platforms, and creative tools. A cloud-native system with strong integration capabilities ensures scalable, cross-functional execution. Lark's cloud-first platform delivers real-time access, collaboration, and expansion capacity, whether you're sharing content, data, or team reach.
Comparison snapshot of the best marketing software cloud platforms
10 Best marketing management software in 2025
1. Lark: Best all-in-one business automation suite
When it comes to managing campaigns and business workflows under one roof, Lark stands out as more than just collaboration software; it's a business automation suite built for modern, cloud-first teams. Unlike traditional marketing workflow software that only covers approvals or task routing, Lark combines productivity, communication, and automation in one unified platform.
Key features:
Lark Base: Campaign planning and workflow automation
Lark Base acts as a customizable project database designed for campaign planning. Marketing managers can map every stage of a campaign—from creative briefing to post-launch reporting—inside Base. Campaign tasks can be assigned to owners, tracked with deadlines, and viewed as tables, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, or calendars. Automated workflows help reduce manual follow-ups: for example, when a designer completes an asset, Lark Base can automatically notify the content lead or trigger the next step in the process. This ensures campaigns progress smoothly without bottlenecks.
Lark Approval: Streamlined campaign sign-offs
One of the biggest blockers in marketing execution is creative approval. Lark Approval eliminates messy email threads by providing structured, automated workflows for reviewing assets. Teams can design approval routes that match marketing needs—for example, a social ad draft can move from copywriter → designer → marketing lead → compliance officer. Each step has deadlines, automatic reminders, and escalation rules to prevent delays. This ensures campaign creatives, ad copies, and promotional budgets get cleared on time for launch.
Lark Docs, Lark Wiki, and Lark Sheets: Centralized content collaboration
Marketing thrives on content, and Lark provides three powerful tools to manage it:
Lark Docs: Used for co-creating campaign briefs, ad copy, blog outlines, or strategy decks in real time. In-document comments and version history make collaboration smooth and transparent.
Lark Wiki: A structured knowledge base where finalized materials like brand guidelines, campaign playbooks, or SOPs can be stored for quick access by the whole team.
Lark Sheets: A lightweight yet powerful tool for tracking campaign budgets, ad spend, influencer performance, or channel KPIs. Because Sheets are cloud-synced, updates are instantly visible to all collaborators.
Together, these tools ensure every campaign asset—whether draft or final—is easily accessible and consistent across teams.
Lark Calendar and Lark Meetings: Campaign scheduling and coordination
Marketing campaigns involve multiple milestones, from content drops to launch events. Lark Calendar keeps everything in one place, with views that help teams track deadlines across weeks or months. Conflict detection prevents overlapping launches, while external sync ensures alignment with client or industry calendars.
When real-time collaboration is needed, Lark Meetings offers built-in video conferencing. Teams can run weekly campaign stand-ups, record discussions, and attach meeting notes directly to campaign tasks in Lark Base. This creates a complete feedback loop—conversations turn into documented action items tied to the campaign plan.
Lark Messenger: Context-rich campaign communication
Instead of scattered conversations across email and chat apps, Lark Messenger centralizes all campaign discussions. Dedicated channels (e.g., “Black Friday 2025 Campaign”) keep updates, assets, and decisions organized. Messages can be converted directly into tasks, approvals, or meeting invites, turning ideas into action without losing context. File sharing, pinned messages, and threaded conversations make it easy to stay aligned, even in fast-moving campaign cycles.
Best for: Lark is ideal for teams that want fewer tools and more intelligent workflows. Instead of paying for multiple apps for project management, analytics, collaboration, and automation, Lark delivers an all-in-one cloud-based platform that scales with your campaigns. Its flexibility makes it equally suited for startups needing lean operations or large enterprises managing multi-channel marketing campaigns.
Starter (Free):
Includes 11 core products with up to 20 users, 100 GB of storage, 1,000 automation runs, and unlimited AI translations across chat, docs, and email. Perfect for small teams testing marketing software cloud workflows.Pro ($12/user/month):
Supports up to 500 users with unlimited message history, advanced admin controls, 50,000 automation runs per month, and enhanced dashboard capabilities. Designed for growing businesses that need robust marketing workflow automation.Enterprise (Custom pricing):
Tailored for large-scale organizations requiring unlimited scalability, advanced compliance, premium support, and custom integration needs.
Try Lark's Savings Calculator: Switching to Lark's Pro plan can lead to significant cost savings— for example, a 100-employee company using Slack, Google Workspace, and Airtable could save approximately $25,200 annually by consolidating their tools with Lark.
2. HubSpot marketing hub: Best for inbound & CRM integration
HubSpot is one of the most popular platforms for inbound marketing and lead management. It combines a powerful CRM with marketing automation, making it easy to capture, nurture, and convert leads within a single system. With tools for SEO, content creation, social media, and analytics, HubSpot is an all-in-one solution for businesses looking to grow. Its user-friendly design makes it accessible to small teams while scaling up for enterprise needs.
Image source: hubspot.com
Key features:
Built-in CRM for seamless lead tracking
Email automation with drip campaigns
Content & SEO tools for blogs and landing pages
Social media scheduling & monitoring
Marketing analytics & attribution reporting
Lead scoring for prioritization
Best for: Teams that focus on inbound marketing and lead nurturing and want tight CRM integration to align sales and marketing.
Pricing:
Starter: from $20/month
Professional: from $890/month
Enterprise: from $3,600/month
3. Wrike: Best for enterprise marketing operations software
Wrike is designed for enterprise teams that need robust marketing operations management. It goes beyond project management with advanced features for resource allocation, proofing, compliance, and custom dashboards. With its strong integrations, Wrike ensures large, distributed marketing teams stay aligned and efficient. It's especially well-suited for organizations with strict governance and complex workflows.
Image source: wrike.com
Key features:
Advanced project planning with Gantt charts
Resource and workload management
Proofing & approval workflows for creative assets
Custom dashboards for campaign visibility
Enterprise-grade security & compliance
Integrations with Adobe Creative Cloud, Salesforce, and BI platforms
Best for: Enterprise teams managing complex marketing operations that require campaign oversight, compliance, and resource allocation at scale.
Pricing:
Free plan available
Team: $9.80/user/month
Business: $24.80/user/month
Enterprise: Custom pricing
4. Asana: Best for workflow and project marketing
Asana is one of the most widely adopted tools for managing tasks and projects, making it popular among marketing teams of all sizes. Its flexible layouts and templates allow teams to organize campaigns, track deadlines, and collaborate on deliverables. From content calendars to product launches, Asana provides structure and visibility to ensure campaigns run smoothly and efficiently.
Image source: asana.com
Key features:
Task and project templates for campaigns
Multiple views (List, Kanban, Timeline, Calendar)
Milestones & dependencies for deadlines
Collaboration with comments, files, and notifications
Workload tracking to manage team capacity
Integrations with Slack, Google Drive, and HubSpot
Best for: Marketing teams that require flexible workflow management and visibility into campaign deliverables across multiple teams.
Pricing:
Basic: Free forever
Premium: $10.99/user/month
Business: $24.99/user/month
Enterprise: Custom pricing
5. Marketo Engage: Best for enterprise-scale campaigns
Adobe's Marketo Engage is designed for enterprises that run highly complex, multi-channel campaigns. It specializes in lead nurturing, segmentation, and account-based marketing (ABM). With powerful automation and AI-driven personalization, it enables large organizations to manage complex customer journeys. Marketo is ideal for B2B companies with long sales cycles and big marketing databases.
Image source: adobe.com
Key features:
Lead nurturing & scoring
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) campaigns
Cross-channel automation (email, web, mobile, social)
AI-powered personalization
Analytics & revenue attribution
Large-scale database and workflow handling
Best for: Enterprises with complex, multi-channel campaigns and long B2B sales cycles, especially those prioritizing ABM strategies.
Pricing: Pricing not publicly listed; typically, enterprise-level contracts starting in the thousands per month.
6. Monday.com: Best for visual campaign workflows
Monday.com is a visually driven platform that makes campaign planning and execution intuitive and straightforward. With its colorful boards and pre-built templates, marketing teams can quickly set up workflows that match their needs. It's especially popular with creative and content teams who prefer a highly visual, customizable way to track progress and collaborate.
Image source: monday.com
Key features:
Customizable boards for campaign tracking
Pre-built marketing templates
Automations for status updates and reminders
Visual dashboards for campaign metrics
Collaboration tools (files, mentions, updates)
Integrations with Mailchimp, HubSpot, and Facebook Ads
Best for: Creative and content-driven teams that thrive with visual workflow management and customizable campaign views.
Pricing:
Free plan available (up to 2 users)
Basic: $9/seat/month
Standard: $12/seat/month
Pro: $19/seat/month
Enterprise: Custom pricing
7. Trello: Best free marketing management app
Trello is one of the most popular free project management tools used by marketing teams to organize campaigns. With its simple Kanban-style boards, it helps teams visualize workflows, assign tasks, and collaborate on deliverables. Trello's intuitive design makes it easy for teams of all sizes to get started with campaign planning and task tracking.
Image source: trello.com
Key features:
Kanban boards with drag-and-drop task management
Customizable lists, cards, and labels
Workflow automation with Butler (rules, triggers, commands)
Calendar and timeline views for campaign planning
Collaboration tools with file attachments, comments, and mentions
Integrations with Google Drive, Slack, HubSpot, and more
Best for: Small to mid-sized marketing teams that want a free, easy-to-use app for visual task and campaign management without complexity.
Pricing:
Free plan: unlimited cards and up to 10 boards per workspace
Standard: $5/user/month
Premium: $10/user/month
Enterprise: $17.50/user/month (volume discounts available)
8. Smartsheet: Best spreadsheet-style marketing planning
Smartsheet combines the familiarity of spreadsheets with advanced project management capabilities, making it an ideal tool for marketing planning and execution. It offers grid, card, Gantt, and calendar views, allowing teams to switch between spreadsheet-style planning and visual campaign management. With automation, reporting, and approval workflows, Smartsheet supports structured campaign execution at scale.
Image source: smartsheet.com
Key features:
Spreadsheet-style grid interface with advanced formulas
Multiple views: Gantt charts, cards, and calendars
Automated reminders, notifications, and workflows
Campaign dashboards with real-time data visualization
File sharing and proofing for creative asset reviews
Robust integrations with Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Salesforce
Best for: Marketing teams who prefer spreadsheet-based planning but need advanced project management features for large campaigns.
Pricing:
Free plan: up to 1 user + 2 editors
Pro: $7/user/month
Business: $25/user/month
Enterprise: Custom pricing
9. ActiveCampaign: Best marketing and automation CRM
ActiveCampaign is a comprehensive platform that combines marketing automation and CRM capabilities into a single solution. It's especially popular among growing businesses that want to personalize customer journeys and track sales pipelines without having to juggle multiple apps. With advanced segmentation, behavioral tracking, and AI-driven automation, ActiveCampaign enables marketers to run campaigns that are both timely and targeted.
Image source: activecampaign.com
Key features:
Advanced email automation with conditional logic
CRM with lead scoring and pipeline management
Behavioral tracking for personalized campaigns
Multichannel marketing: email, SMS, site messaging, and more
AI-driven predictive sending and content recommendations
900+ integrations, including Shopify, WordPress, Salesforce
Best for: Businesses seeking a combined marketing automation and CRM platform to deliver personalized campaigns while managing customer relationships seamlessly.
Pricing:
Marketing Lite: from $49/month (1,000 contacts)
Marketing Plus: from $149/month
Marketing Professional: from $259/month
Enterprise: Custom pricing
10. Zoho Marketing Plus: Best affordable cloud marketing system
Zoho Marketing Plus is an affordable, cloud-based marketing platform that unifies campaign planning, execution, and analytics. It centralizes email marketing, social media, webinars, surveys, and analytics in a single suite. With budget-friendly pricing and strong integrations across Zoho's ecosystem, it's a cost-effective solution for small and mid-sized businesses.
Image source: zoho.com
Key features:
Unified marketing dashboard for campaign management
Email marketing automation and social media publishing
Webinars, events, and survey tools built in
Real-time campaign analytics and reporting
Seamless integrations with Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics
Affordable, cloud-first architecture
Best for: Small to medium businesses that want an affordable cloud marketing system with a wide range of built-in tools and integrations.
Pricing:
Free trial available
Standard: from $25/month (for three users)
Professional: from $35/month
Enterprise: Custom pricing
Common challenges with marketing operations software and how to solve them
Even the best marketing teams struggle when their tools fail to integrate effectively. As campaigns grow more complex, traditional marketing operations software often creates as many problems as it solves. Here are the most common challenges marketers face, along with strategies for overcoming them.
1. Tool overload
The challenge: Many marketing teams rely on multiple disconnected platforms, each for a specific purpose, such as email, approvals, and analytics. This creates silos, duplicate work, and wasted time switching between systems.
The solution with Lark: Lark replaces fragmented tools with a unified marketing management platform. Campaign planning, content collaboration, approvals, and reporting all live in one workspace, reducing complexity and keeping teams aligned.
2. Manual approvals
The challenge: Waiting for campaign approvals delays execution. Manual processes, such as emailing files back and forth, cause bottlenecks and inconsistent reviews.
The solution with Lark: With Lark Approvals, teams can set up multi-step, automated workflows that route creative assets and campaign content to the right stakeholders. Everyone gets notified instantly, keeping campaigns moving without manual tracking.
3. Lack of real-time insights
The challenge: Without real-time data, teams struggle to identify bottlenecks and measure performance accurately. This leads to missed deadlines, overspending, and underperforming campaigns.
The solution with Lark: Lark Base provides live dashboards and reporting. Marketers can track campaign progress, monitor KPIs, and view budgets in real time. Built-in AI analytics also highlight areas for optimization, enabling teams to act more quickly and effectively.
4. Scaling costs
The challenge: Enterprise-grade marketing tools often come with high subscription costs. If they aren't fully utilized, ROI suffers.
The solution with Lark: Lark offers a cost-effective, scalable pricing model. With automation loops, AnyCross API integrations, and built-in communication tools, teams can replace multiple expensive subscriptions with a single platform. For example, consolidating Slack, Google Workspace, and Airtable into Lark can save a 100-person team over $25,000 annually.
Conclusion
Running campaigns isn't just about creativity; it's also about strategy. It's about execution, efficiency, and scale. The right marketing management software helps teams plan smarter, collaborate seamlessly, and measure impact with confidence.
While there are many great platforms on the market, Lark stands out as the all-in-one solution that unifies workflows, automation, collaboration, and analytics in one cloud-based system. By solving common pain points, such as tool overload, manual approvals, lack of visibility, and rising costs, Lark empowers marketers to focus on what matters most: creating campaigns that drive results.
FAQs
What is marketing management software?
Marketing management software is a platform that enables teams to plan, execute, track, and analyze marketing campaigns in one centralized location. Instead of juggling spreadsheets, emails, and separate tools, it centralizes workflows, data, and approvals. This makes it easier for marketers to align strategy with execution, collaborate across teams, and measure ROI. Examples include platforms for campaign planning, workflow automation, analytics, and collaboration. Tools like Lark take it a step further by combining communication, project management, and automation into a single, unified suite.
How is marketing workflow software different from marketing management systems?
Marketing workflow software focuses on automating specific processes, like campaign approvals, content reviews, or task assignments. It's about reducing manual work and keeping projects moving.
Marketing management systems, on the other hand, are broader. They include workflow automation, as well as planning, analytics, collaboration, and integration with other business tools. Workflow software serves as a single component, whereas a comprehensive marketing system, such as Lark or HubSpot, integrates all elements into a single ecosystem.
Which free marketing automation tools are best for small teams?
Free marketing automation tools can be a massive boost for small teams. Trello works well for visual task and campaign tracking, while Mailchimp's free tier offers basic email automation. For an all-in-one solution, Lark's free plan is the most versatile, with 11 integrated products, including Chat, Docs, Calendar, and Base for workflow automation.
How do I choose the best marketing management app for my company?
When selecting the best marketing management app, consider your team size, budget, and the complexity of your campaigns. Small teams may prefer simpler tools, while enterprises need scalable platforms with advanced features. Look for ease of use, integrations with your CRM and analytics tools, and scalability as your business grows. To avoid tool overload, all-in-one platforms like Lark combine automation, communication, and collaboration in a single workspace.
What are the must-have features of marketing operations software?
The best marketing operations software should enable multi-channel campaign management, streamline work with automation and approval workflows, and provide real-time analytics for performance tracking. It should also integrate with CRM and sales platforms while supporting team collaboration. Advanced tools like Lark add AI-powered insights and cloud scalability to ensure campaigns are continuously optimized.
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