Marketing project management guide: tips for success [2025]

Marketers are under enormous pressure to move quickly, tell a consistent brand story, and fuel the sales funnel with the most relevant leads. Today, there are many tools to help, but marketing teams typically juggle multiple campaigns, coordinate workflows cross-functionally and with agencies, and reach audiences across platforms. 

In short, there are many moving parts—perhaps more than ever—and the stakes continue to rise. According to Airtable’s 2024 Marketing trends report, 88% of marketing leaders are responsible for meeting a top-line revenue goal—a 79% increase from 2023. Still, just 25% of marketing leaders have high visibility into ROI, down 33% from the year prior.

Why the gap? It remains difficult to gain a cohesive view of all marketing activities at any given time. From the same report, 73% of marketing leaders said they had to consult between 5 to 15 sources for updates on marketing activities, representing vital time lost, wasted or duplicated efforts, and a fragmented customer experience.

Introducing marketing project management is a step in the right direction. By implementing a good system to organize and track different types of projects, marketing project managers can help teams finish work on time, within budget, and keep the work aligned to overarching company goals.

What is marketing project management? 

Marketing project management is the process of planning, organizing, and tracking marketing campaigns or activities from start to finish. It's about applying proven project management approaches to the project lifecycle, and supporting the best use of people's time, skills, and budgets.

Marketing project management involves:

Effective project management ensures that work meets expectations, sets sales teams up for success, and contributes to company growth, on time.

Why is project management important for marketing?

Marketing teams juggle multiple projects at once—often across regions, industries, and channels like SEO, webinars, or pricing pages. With so many moving parts, it’s easy for work to become siloed and visibility to slip.

Project management introduces structured systems that keep everything organized, from deadlines to budget management, and provides a clear and coordinated approach that makes it easy to understand what’s most important to work on, who the work will benefit, who should be involved, and how the work will be distributed.

The benefits of managing marketing projects effectively

Here are four ways you’ll benefit from effective marketing project management:

What is a marketing project manager?

Project managers typically sit within an overarching project management organization and are assigned to specific teams, such as marketing, so that they can learn the ins and outs of different teams, such as email marketing or content marketing, and what’s required from the final project deliverables. Project managers do not have to be marketing experts; instead, they serve as the person who orchestrates activities within the marketing department.

What does a marketing project manager do?

Marketing project managers ensure that marketing initiatives are successful. They are mired in the details, shepherding projects toward the most optimal outcome. Marketing project managers:

Skills of a marketing project manager

Effective marketing project management requires a skilled project manager. Think of this individual as someone at the helm of a ship, navigating weather conditions and choppy waters, and working with the crew to navigate the way forward. In other words, marketing project management is no small job. Here are five project management skills a marketing project manager needs to be effective:

Strategic thinking

Project managers can connect the dots between small tasks and big goals. While they manage day-to-day details, it’s important that they never lose sight of the bigger picture. They make sure that everything the team does moves them closer to primary goals and creates real value for the company. They’ll also need to strategically choose the best project management methodology for each project. 

Strong communication and soft skills

Marketing project managers need to be great communicators who can talk to different people in different ways. This can mean explaining technical concepts to executives in simple terms, translating business goals into creative briefs for designers, and keeping everyone informed about what they need to know. They build relationships that can make people feel excited to work together and motivated to work toward the shared goal. When things go wrong, it’s never about pointing fingers; instead, it’s about finding a way forward.

Marketing knowledge

While project managers don't need to be experts in everything, they should understand enough about the disciplines they support to have meaningful conversations. In marketing, this means gaining working knowledge of different marketing channels and teams. This helps to ask good questions, spot potential problems, and build a strong digital marketing strategy. 

Flexibility and problem-solving

Marketing changes quickly, as can the entire business landscape, and project managers need to be comfortable with uncertainty. When things don't go according to plan (and they often don't), project managers are tasked with staying calm, thinking creatively, and finding new paths forward without losing sight of what the team is trying to accomplish.

Understanding data and results

Today's marketing project managers use data to guide and inform decisions. They track how projects are performing, figure out what the numbers really mean, and use those insights to make smart recommendations that improve current work and set up future projects for success.

The role of AI in marketing project management

AI project management is rapidly reshaping how marketing teams plan, execute, and deliver projects. It's no longer just a nice-to-have skill—it's becoming a core capability for modern project management.

With AI, marketing PMs can automate repetitive tasks, surface risks before they escalate, and provide stakeholders with real-time visibility into progress. AI-powered tools can flag blockers early, suggest resource reallocations, and even predict project delays—giving teams the insights they need to stay agile and proactive.

For marketing teams managing complex, multi-channel campaigns, AI doesn’t just save time—it sharpens focus. It frees up space for strategic work, improves collaboration, and helps project managers make faster, data-backed decisions that drive better outcomes. 

Get started with AI for project management in minutes with our AI project management template. 

5 phases of the marketing project management process

Project management is a well-documented and defined process, and it’s not advisable to cut corners and tackle these phases out of order.

Initiation

The initiation phase is where the groundwork for success is laid by getting clear on what the team is trying to achieve. Project managers work with key team members to outline the project scope, goals, target audience, main deliverables, and measures of success, including any key market research that will inform the project.

During this phase, project managers will ensure the team has the necessary resources and identify any early roadblocks or risks. They will also determine whose input, support, and approval are needed. This phase typically ends with a document or project charter that captures the project's purpose, how the team will measure success, and a rough project timeline. This is a single source of truth that everyone can refer back to.

Planning

The project planning phase is where the high-level plans become a detailed roadmap. The project manager breaks down large deliverables into smaller, specific tasks, assigns them to team members, estimates how long each will take, and creates a realistic schedule or marketing calendar that shows how everything fits together. Some project management platforms offer AI features that can be useful during this phase. For example, marketing project managers might use AI to search previous campaign assets and identify those that can be reused or updated for a new campaign. Or, they might use AI to help brainstorm ideas for new assets that would benefit or supplement the campaign.

The planning phase is when it’s time to get specific about budget, roles and responsibilities, and required marketing tools. A detailed roadmap may also contain contingency plans, should anything go awry. Key stakeholders must review and approve the plan before work begins. Project planning templates can streamline the process.

Execution

The execution phase is when the actual work and team collaboration happen, beginning with a kick-off meeting. The project manager’s role is to help the relevant project teams to understand their part and convey the project milestones. Then the team begins creating assets, building campaigns, and implementing the activities outlined in the plan—meeting regularly for check-ins on status, brand adherence, and to assess risk management.

The project manager manages the review and approval process, tracks versions, and handles any requests for changes that may arise.

Reporting

Also known as “monitoring and control,” this phase happens concurrently with execution. Project managers track project progress while marketing teams complete work, flag any issues, and report on progress against the goal, including key performance indicators (KPIs). Performance metrics are established during the planning phase. 

Regular status meetings and progress reports keep everyone informed and ensure that changes don’t derail the project schedule. This phase helps keep the team ahead of problems and in a good position to make smart decisions when trade-offs between time, cost, and quality are necessary.

Closure

The closure phase is when the project officially wraps. The project manager makes sure all deliverables have been approved and any administrative loose ends are tied up. They conduct final reviews of all materials, confirm launch details, and hand off ongoing management to the appropriate team.

Documentation is important during closure—the project manager archives all assets, compiles performance data, and updates process documents. They also hold a retrospective meeting  with the team to determine and document what went well and where there are areas for improvement. This is a valuable step so that lessons learned can be applied to future projects.

How to create a marketing project plan

There are many marketing plan templates and examples you can lean on so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. But in general, here are five steps for creating a successful marketing project plan:

1. Define objectives and success metrics

Begin by setting goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Next, decide how you'll measure progress and success. Choose metrics that are aligned with what you're trying to accomplish—whether that's building brand awareness, getting qualified leads, increasing sales, or improving customer engagement. 

Ensure that key decision-makers are on board with priorities, expectations, and measures of success, early on. 

2. Identify scope and deliverables

Once you know your goals, define the boundaries of your project. Clearly document what's included and—just as importantly—what's not included. This helps prevent the project from gradually expanding beyond what was originally planned. For example, a website redesign might include certain features and functionality, but not others. 

Each key deliverable, whether social media content, landing pages, entire campaigns, event materials, and so on should be described in enough detail that people know what’s expected. Consider whether deliverables have dependencies, such as seasonal timing, product launches, or legal requirements that might affect content creation and approval timelines.

3. Develop timeline and milestones

Break each major deliverable into specific tasks and estimate how long each will take. Work with the people who will actually do the tasks to make sure your time estimates are realistic based on the complexity and the resources available.

Create a timeline with clear milestones that show progress toward completing the project. Milestones often coincide with finishing deliverables, getting stakeholder reviews, or making important decisions. Experienced project managers often build in a little extra time for unexpected challenges and approval delays, especially for projects that need input from multiple people or legal review.

4. Assign resources and responsibilities

Identify which team members have the right skills and availability for each task. You may need to coordinate across departments or with outside partners, like marketing agencies. It should be clear who is responsible for what, often using a Responsibility Assignment Matrix, known as a RACI model (responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed).

Plan how you'll spend your budget across the project, including creative work, media placement, and app, tool, or technology costs, leaving some room for unexpected expenses. 

5. Create communication and approval workflows

Good communication is essential for successful outcomes. Document and share how the team will communicate, how often you'll meet, what reports you'll create, and how and where you'll organize files.

It’s also important to be clear about approval sequences across teams, including how long each team has to review, how feedback will be collected, and who has the final say. Also, establish simple ways to handle change requests, escalate issues, and notify the team about risks. 

Why you need marketing project management software and tools

Given the complexity of marketing across different platforms, regions, and products, it’s vital to use tools that provide transparency. Basic spreadsheets or emails can create bottlenecks and make it easy to miss important details or deadlines, whereas good project management tools give teams the structure and visibility they need to work together effectively.

Airtable’s project management software offers an intuitive, flexible solution with integrations to the most common tools within your marketing tech stack. The platform enables marketing teams to create workflows or automations that match how they work, track all campaign pieces across channels, easily follow the asset approval process, manage the team's workload, and create real-time reports showing progress. Whether you live in Gantt charts, calendars, or Kanban boards—track projects in the view that works for you. Better yet, the built-in AI-powered Airtable Assistant makes all this even easier.