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Part of Marketing planning: the working files behind the plan
A scorecard for choosing marketing planning tools
A scorecard for marketing planning tools, with selection criteria, product layers, finalist-scoring steps, and an exit test for supplier lock-in.
What to take away
- Start with the smallest governed toolset that survives one real planning cycle: a decision record, a model, and a task board. Add specialist layers only after a named failure repeats.
- Named products sit in named layers. Airtable and Confluence hold decision records, Anaplan and Pigment model scenarios, Asana, Wrike and Smartsheet run portfolios, Frontify and Bynder hold briefs, GA4 and Looker Studio carry outcomes.
- Score finalists against fixed weights rather than vendor demos. The weighting below fits a mid-size in-house team and should be edited for yours.
- Exit is decided on day one. Export rights, open standards and deletion terms outweigh any feature list.
This is a framework, not a ranked list. Two teams can score one toolset differently and both be right.
How the scorecard works
Set the weights before the first demo. Score each finalist from 0 to 5 on every row, multiply by the weight, then compare totals.
| Criterion | Weight | A high score means |
|---|---|---|
| Decision record | 20% | Decision history, rejected options and approvals stay searchable |
| Scenario model | 15% | Known inputs reproduce identical outputs |
| Portfolio control | 15% | Owner, dependency and change history survive turnover |
| Briefs and assets | 10% | One approval state, with rights and expiry attached |
| Outcome definitions | 10% | Metrics reconcile with the source system |
| Claims and risk | 10% | Evidence, market and expiry ride with each claim |
| Security and integrations | 10% | Audit logs, data region and documented APIs |
| Exit | 10% | Full export and deletion verified inside the trial |
Weights are judgement calls. The marketing planning benchmarks article shows what sits behind published figures, which helps when finance asks why exit scores as high as modelling.
Public-sector buying advice travels well. The GOV.UK guidance on choosing technology asks for adaptable choices, security review and whole-life cost rather than a feature count.
Eight layers and the named shortlist
Named tools
- Decision record
- Notion, Confluence, Airtable
- Scenario model
- Excel, Google Sheets, Anaplan, Pigment
- Portfolio
- Asana, Wrike, Smartsheet, Jira
- Briefs and assets
- Frontify, Bynder, Brandfolder
- Outcomes
- GA4, Looker Studio, Power BI
- Claims and risk
- Airtable, Smartsheet, ServiceNow
- Reporting
- Looker Studio, Power BI, Tableau
- Integration and exit
- Zapier, Workato, native APIs
Strength
- Decision record
- Flexible schemas, version history
- Scenario model
- Auditable formulas, driver trees
- Portfolio
- Dependencies, intake, workload
- Briefs and assets
- Approval state, rights, expiry
- Outcomes
- Session and event definitions
- Claims and risk
- Audit history, reminders
- Reporting
- Variance and assumption views
- Integration and exit
- Scheduled sync and export
Limit
- Decision record
- Weak financial modelling
- Scenario model
- Anaplan and Pigment need specialists
- Portfolio
- Strategy and economics sit elsewhere
- Briefs and assets
- Cost tracks asset volume
- Outcomes
- Scope is misread as causation
- Claims and risk
- Needs a named owner
- Reporting
- Dashboards without decisions
- Integration and exit
- Failures arrive quietly
Pricing model
- Decision record
- Per seat, free tiers
- Scenario model
- Sheets bundled, platforms by contract
- Portfolio
- Per seat, tiered
- Briefs and assets
- Annual contract, storage tiers
- Outcomes
- GA4 free, BI per seat
- Claims and risk
- Per seat or per module
- Reporting
- Free to per seat
- Integration and exit
- Usage based
The marketing planning process sets the gates a task board has to reflect, so read it before buying seats.
Read a row as a question, not a purchase. A row with no credible answer becomes a cost in month nine.
Pick the layer that carries the decision, not the layer with the best demo.
Decision records and scenario models
Airtable earns its place when claims, evidence and the decision log live in one linked base. Confluence suits teams already paying for Atlassian, where page history and permissions feel familiar. Notion is cheaper and looser, which suits drafts and weakens approved records.
Scenario work stays in Excel or Google Sheets until a driver tree needs approvals. Anaplan and Pigment sell connected planning and normally arrive with an implementation partner. Ask whether an analyst can change a driver without raising a ticket.
Portfolios, briefs and claims
Asana, Wrike and Smartsheet cover intake forms, dependencies and capacity. Wrike and Smartsheet add proofing and resource modules at higher tiers. Jira handles engineering delivery well and budget history badly.
Frontify, Bynder and Brandfolder give one approval state with rights and expiry attached. They price on annual contracts built from storage and user bands. A shared drive can pass a small trial and then fail at the second market.
Claims need evidence attached to the claim itself. The FTC guidance on advertising and marketing states the truth-in-advertising standard US campaigns must meet.
A short marketing planning checklist covers the contractual controls to confirm before signature, from data export to notice periods.
Outcome definitions and the exit test
GA4 defines sessions and events at a scope many teams misread as causation. Looker Studio is free with Google data and thin on governed definitions. Power BI and Tableau suit finance-led variance reporting.
Export decides the exit. Ask for a full export during the trial, then open it in the replacement tool. The GOV.UK note on working with open standards explains why interoperability reduces supplier dependence.
Log the export date, the file format, and the owner of the account after termination.
Steps for scoring three finalists
Scoring three finalists
- Choose three finalists, one per layer, and refuse vendor-led demos.
- Run one live cycle with a rejected option, a budget change and a claim review.
- Score each finalist from 0 to 5, multiply by the weights, and re-score after the export test.
- Buy the lowest total that keeps decision history readable by someone outside the team.
None of that work belongs to one vendor. What the good funnel tools share lists the features that repeat across shortlists, which is useful when scoring the analytics layer.
