Know which campaigns and clients are consuming your agency margin
TimeMagick is time tracking and profitability software for marketing agencies.
1-month free trial · See TimeMagick pricing
An agency can look busy and still lose money
Marketing work expands quietly. Another headline round, an extra report, a quick call that becomes an hour of account management, SEO content that takes longer each month. Everyone is busy, the client is happy, and the margin on the account keeps shrinking.
The question is not whether the team worked hard. It is which client, which campaign and which task consumed the hours, and what margin was left afterwards. TimeMagick tracks each hour against the campaign it served and carries it through to billing and profitability:
Step 1
Strategy
Campaign set up as a project with a budget and tasks.
Step 2
Production
Creative, copy and design hours tracked against their tasks.
Step 3
Campaign Delivery
Paid media and content work planned on the Gantt.
Step 4
Reporting
Reporting and account-management hours tracked too.
Step 5
Billing
Approved billable hours move to Project Billing and invoices.
Step 6
Profitability
Margin by client and project from the same hours.
Stage and task names are examples; you create your own tasks and statuses.
See where client hours really go
In a marketing agency, one person may write copy for one client, adjust paid media for another and spend an hour on a monthly report for a third. TimeMagick records each entry against the client, the campaign or programme, and the task:
A client total
Acme Retail: 38 h this month
No campaign or type of work behind it.
Campaign and task
- Spring campaign → Creative → 12 h
- Spring campaign → Copywriting → 8 h
- Spring campaign → Account Management → 6 h
- SEO programme → Content → 12 h
Illustrative totals built from individual time entries.
You create the tasks, so they can match your services: Strategy, Creative, Copywriting, Design, Paid Media, SEO, Content, Account Management and Reporting. TimeMagick tracks the team's time; it does not connect to ad platforms or track media spend.
How time tracking worksCatch over-servicing before the margin disappears
Over-servicing rarely looks like a problem on the day. An SEO programme priced at 60 hours a month that takes 71 is eleven hours given away, and it repeats next month unless someone sees it.
Give each campaign or programme an hour budget. TimeMagick shows it against time spent on the project card, in the project overview, on each Gantt task, beside the billable total in tracked-time approval and in the admin dashboard's Project Budgets table. Budget alerts and forecasting work from the same numbers.
Projects Over Budget is a headline KPI, so the number of over-budget client projects is visible at a glance, not buried in individual projects.
Move every campaign through your own stages
Campaigns, content programmes, videos and monthly reports for different clients all run at once. On the Projects board, each is a card you drag between your own statuses, such as Client Review, with two automatic columns that move a project to In Progress or Inactive based on whether time is being tracked.
- Due date, tasks done, completion % and budget use on every card
- Client, assigned members, chat and attachment indicators
- Filters by status, client and member
- Active, Archived and Completed tabs
Plan designers, marketers and account managers across clients
A launch date depends on creative, copy and media work landing in order, and on the same designer not being needed by three clients in the same week.
- An interactive Gantt per campaign, with drag to reschedule and resizable durations
- Assignees, progress, budget and spent hours beside each task
- A portfolio Gantt across every client's projects
- Resource planning that shows who is working on which project tasks across projects
Keep campaign conversations next to the hours they create
Headline feedback, content approvals by message and last-minute brief changes are where extra hours start. Every TimeMagick project has its own channel beside its tasks, hours and budget, with file attachments and search, so the request and its cost sit together.
Your team also has direct messages and groups, and Client Members join project channels and groups from their own workspace.
How project communication worksShow clients the work behind the campaign
Marketing clients often ask what they are getting for their monthly fee. Client Members are external accounts linked to one or more of your clients, with a Dashboard, Projects, Timesheets, Report, Message Channels and Sensai.
The Client Dashboard shows Total Projects, Total Tasks, Completed, Weekly Hours Logged and Overdue Tasks, with team members' hours and due tasks, and the Report shows the hours by project, member and task. Clients follow the work; they do not edit your projects.
How the client portal worksSeparate worked time from billable time
Not every hour worked on a client can be charged. The third round of concepts may be partly on the agency, and some account management is part of the relationship. In tracked-time approval, the approver sets a billable percentage for each entry:
- 5 hours worked
- approved at 80%
- 4 billable hours
- Project Billing
- invoice
The project budget sits beside the billable total, so the decision is made with the budget in view.
Turn approved hours into invoices
Project Billing shows billable hours against hours already billed for each client and project, so nothing approved is left uninvoiced. Invoices combine duration-based lines for hours with quantity-based lines, such as a stock footage licence, plus taxes and notes, and download as PDF.
For regular monthly billing, scheduled recurring invoices let you choose when an invoice becomes due; it then appears in TimeMagick and goes through approval. TimeMagick is not a retainer-management system or accounting software.
How billing and invoicing workFind the profitable clients, and the ones that are not
The client who pays the most can leave the least margin once every revision, report and call is counted. And an agency that depends on one or two large accounts carries a risk its revenue total does not show.
TimeMagick's KPI module shows Avg Client Margin, Effective Rate, Projects Over Budget and Revenue Concentration %, with the Most and Least Profitable Clients, Low-Profit Projects, Uninvoiced Hours and the Client Health ledger, from the hours, budgets, client rates, expenses and billing already in the system.
Illustration (demo data, fictional projects and clients).
Example workflow · fictional
Example: a seasonal launch campaign
A retail client books a 140-hour spring launch campaign. In TimeMagick, the agency would:
- Create the campaign as a project with its client and 140-hour budget, and add tasks for Strategy, Creative, Copywriting, Paid Media and Reporting.
- Schedule the tasks on the Gantt and check the designer's and copywriter's other client work in resource planning.
- Have the team track time against those tasks, including account management.
- See Creative pass its budget after a third round of concepts, and agree the next steps in the project channel.
- Approve creative hours at 80% and the rest at 100%, then check Project Billing.
- Invoice the approved hours and the stock footage licence.
- Compare the campaign's margin and the client's health with other accounts.
This is an illustrative example, not a customer case study.
Where TimeMagick fits in a marketing agency
TimeMagick tracks the team's hours and turns them into budgets, plans, client visibility, invoices and profitability. It does not manage ad accounts, analytics or media spend, and it is not a CRM or accounting system. If you run a broader creative, digital or multi-discipline agency, the agencies page covers that wider model.
Pricing is per user, and every plan includes every feature. See TimeMagick pricing.
TimeMagick for marketing agencies: key facts
- TimeMagick is time tracking and profitability software that marketing agencies use to track client hours by campaign, project and task.
- Work types such as Strategy, Creative, Copywriting, Paid Media, SEO and Reporting are tasks the agency creates.
- Each project's hour budget is shown against time spent, with budget alerts and forecasting.
- Projects move across a drag-and-drop board with custom statuses and automatic In Progress and Inactive columns.
- TimeMagick includes per-project and portfolio Gantt, and resource planning across projects.
- Approvers set a billable percentage per tracked entry before hours reach Project Billing.
- Invoices can be created from approved hours, and scheduled recurring invoices go through approval.
- Client Members get a workspace with Dashboard, Projects, Timesheets, Report, Message Channels and Sensai.
- The KPI module shows client margin, Effective Rate, Low-Profit Projects, Revenue Concentration and Client Health.
- TimeMagick does not integrate with ad platforms and does not track media spend.
Frequently Asked Questions
Campaign hours, over-servicing, planning, client access, billing and client profitability for marketing agencies.
Is TimeMagick suitable for marketing agencies?
Yes. Marketing agencies track time against client campaigns and tasks, watch each project's hour budget, plan their team on a Gantt and in resource planning, give clients their own workspace, approve billable hours, invoice, and see which clients and projects are profitable, all from the same data.
Can TimeMagick show which client projects are over budget?
Yes. Each project has an hour budget shown against time spent on the project card, in the project overview, on the Gantt, in tracked-time approval and in the admin dashboard's Project Budgets table, with budget alerts and forecasting. Projects Over Budget is a headline KPI.
Can marketing teams track time by campaign and task?
Yes. A campaign or programme can be a project, with tasks such as Strategy, Creative, Copywriting, Paid Media, SEO, Content, Account Management and Reporting. Every entry carries its client, project, task and member. TimeMagick does not connect to ad platforms; it tracks the team's time, not media spend.
Can TimeMagick separate worked time from billable time?
Yes. In tracked-time approval, the approver sets a billable percentage for each entry. For example, 5 hours of creative work approved at 80% become 4 billable hours, which then appear in Project Billing.
Does TimeMagick help plan designers, copywriters and account managers?
Yes. Each project has an interactive Gantt with assignees, progress, budget and spent time, a portfolio Gantt shows every client's projects, and resource planning shows who is working on which project tasks across projects.
Can marketing clients see their projects and reports?
Yes. Client Members are external accounts linked to one or more of your clients. Their workspace has a Dashboard, Projects, Timesheets, Report, Message Channels and Sensai, so they can follow progress and hours and talk to the team in project channels.
Can TimeMagick invoice monthly marketing work?
Yes. Invoices can be created from approved hours in Project Billing, and scheduled recurring invoices can be set up for regular billing: when one becomes due, it appears in TimeMagick and goes through approval. TimeMagick is not a dedicated retainer-management system.
Can TimeMagick show which marketing clients are profitable?
Yes. The KPI module shows the most and least profitable clients, Avg Client Margin, Effective Rate, Low-Profit Projects, Revenue Concentration and a Client Health ledger, using the tracked hours, budgets, client rates, expenses and billing already in TimeMagick.
Find out which clients are using your margin
Start a 1-month free trial and track your first campaign against its tasks and budget.