Feature
Editor's Note: This article has been updated on January 30, 2024 to include new data and information.
Online marketing is an essential tool for modern businesses. Marketing across multiple social media platforms, email and other digital avenues presents fresh challenges for brand owners. Digital Asset Management (DAM) solutions can help make common challenges such as localization, rights management and maintaining a consistent brand identity easier for growing brands to cope with.
Even small business owners can now conduct campaigns with a reach that big brands would have envied in the 1990s. They can reach more customers, collect more data and have more touchpoints and assets. DAM software helps creatives and marketing teams keep track of those assets. There are many solutions available, from free and open source platforms suited to smaller teams, to enterprise-level solutions offering support, management, hosting and API integrations that make each department’s job that little bit easier.
According to one study by Research and Markets, the global digital asset management market is expected to be worth more than $8.1 billion by 2026 — a significant leap from the $2.9 billion valuation in 2020. Brands who run ad campaigns, have podcasts, share video content and run online streams need to be able to keep track of their content.
What Is Enterprise Digital Asset Management?
Enterprise digital asset management solutions allow organizations that deal with media-rich content to create, manage, archive, repurpose and manipulate digital media assets. Those assets could be images, videos, 3D assets or documents. It organizes digital assets based on associated metadata that contains a unique description to each asset, making it more searchable, reusable and manageable.
Digital asset management software can also be used to control which employees have access to specific assets. Asset management also helps organizations avoid issues with duplication, where people recreate existing work because they couldn’t find the original asset.
DAM has played a significant role in brand management by ensuring teams have access to the correct brand materials at all times. This helps to facilitate brand consistency across the organization and across external touchpoints. In addition, DAM can help an organization to keep their digital assets secure, safe organized. When relevant assets are stored in a central location in the cloud, they're accessible to workers from around the world. Marketing managers can easily keep track of assets’ usage for rights management purposes.
Related Article: Why Customer Experience Pros Should Care About DAM
What Is the Value of DAM?
When used correctly, these systems can increase productivity: Each person can focus on the core part of their job, whether that's the production or distribution of assets, while also staying updated about each step in the workflow. For instance, DAM can help content creators attribute the correct source in their materials, public relations staff find the best images to use with their press releases and graphic designers find new assets for their work. When a campaign is ready to go, a marketer can search for the resource they need in the DAM. They can then distribute it to the relevant marketing channels.
There are free DAM platforms; however, they often lack important features used by enterprises. If you want to build a strong brand, it's important to use the right tools. In this article, we take a look at 19 enterprise DAM solutions included in Gartner's Peer Insights.
1. Acquia DAM
Acquia acquired Widen in 2021 and the Widen Collective now goes by Acquia DAM, which is available as a standalone product or as an integration with Acquia DXP. Acquia offers a combined DAM and PIM platform with automated content lifecycle management and enterprise governance control. Acquia DAM allows users to curate groups of assets for different teams and provides self-service access to finalized content.
Acquia DAM is a SaaS-based platform used by a number of large brands, including Crayola, Dyson and LG. Like many other enterprise offerings, its features include searching, sharing and collaboration tools, as well as workflow automation. The platform also offers brand management tools to help marketing executives stay in control of their image across multiple channels.
2. Adobe Experience Manager Assets
Adobe’s DAM, Adobe Experience Manager Assets, enables you to manage all content and digital assets on a single platform. It also works to streamline collaborative processes, which will allow marketers and creatives to work together more effectively. Equipped with AI capabilities and data-driven insights, the tool identifies which content is achieving a high ROI.
It integrates smoothly with the rest of the company's tools, including Adobe Creative Cloud, and works well for high volume asset management. Digital assets are stored in the cloud, offering security, redundancy and ease of storage and management. When coupled with the Adobe Workfront tool, it offers powerful integration and workflow features. Workfront includes numerous planning and collaboration features for various departments, and the Workfront Library serves as a digital content hub.
Workfront Library puts organizations in control of every step of the lifecycle of their digital assets, from creation to inclusion in marketing and social media campaigns. When used alongside other Creative Cloud tools, every team member benefits from a seamless working experience.
3. Aprimo Digital Asset Management
Aprimo's software as a service (SaaS) digital asset management system acts as an asset repository that can automate the delivery of approved, brand-compliant content. It comes with ideation capabilities that help to streamline both content ideation and content planning. Also, you can connect Aprimo to third-party systems like web content management, ecommerce, Adobe Creative Cloud, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning and product information management.
Aprimo lets companies monitor content design, creation and distribution in one easy to use tool. This means managers always know how much content costs to create and how well that content performs for the organization. There's no need to be a tech expert to get the most out of Aprimo. All of the information your team members need is right there on their dashboard.
4. Brandfolder
Brandfolder by Smartsheet is an enterprise-grade platform for secure collaboration, including digital asset management. Unlike some other platforms that focus exclusively on managing creative assets, Smartsheet’s ecosystem offers tools to monitor marketing campaigns, calculate campaign ROI, assign tasks to different team members and generally unify marketing efforts.
The platform promises enterprise-grade security and governance controls to ensure compliance with local data security and privacy standards. Integration with Adobe and other popular creativity tools means designers can work in the way they prefer, while still ensuring other team members are kept in the loop.
5. Bynder
Bynder aims to provide a central storage point for digital assets. It leverages AWS global services to enable scalability and performance. The system can handle a huge variety of files and makes searching for content easy. Users can search tags, metadata and even inside PDF documents to find what they need. The file preview feature lets users view digital content without having to download it first.
Bynder has publishing on demand features that give users access to a smart template tool which helps to create branded materials. It can support a variety of asset types, meaning it's suitable for business cards, advertisements and banners. To cater to a variety of users with varying levels of expertise, it offers intuitive workflow options. The search interface can be customized to meet an individual organization’s needs.
6. Canto
Canto is a digital asset management platform used by many big brands, including Domino's, Rolex and Birkenstock. The platform offers time-saving smart sharing features to help marketers and creatives create new content quickly and easily. Assets can be tagged and categorized, and it's easy to view metadata about each file without having to drill through complex menus.
Canto comes with a gallery-style interface where you can preview visual content. Administrators can define user roles by admin, contributor and consumer and each role comes with their predefined permissions and capabilities. The platform's dashboard is easy-to-use, and you can run various reports to see which content is performing well.
Related Article: Beyond the Hype: Real-World Impact of Generative AI in Content Management
7. CELUM
CELUM’s DAM solution provides a platform where users can upload, search, manage and share files. It is compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and integrates with a variety of other platforms and applications. The agile collaboration system streamlines each step of creating assets and using them for marketing and branding campaigns. There are several different pricing structures available to support companies of various sizes.
Learning Opportunities
Webinar
Apr
18
Redefining Social CX: Drive Growth and Foster Loyalty at Every Touchpoint
Transform social interactions into a competitive edge. Learn how!
Register
Webinar
Apr
23
AI: The Essential Vitamin for a Healthy CX
Join us as we unravel the mysteries of AI adoption and discover the key to unlocking a thriving CX ecosystem.
Register
Webinar
Apr
23
Navigating Market Dynamics: Leveraging Reputation to Propel Business Growth
Join us to uncover the secrets of mastering reputation management in today's competitive environment.
Register
Webinar
Apr
24
The State of Outsourcing: At the Crossroads of AI, Quality, and Cost Savings
Learn how companies can maximize the results from their outsourcing investments.
Register
CELUM supports file sharing, custom workflows and automation of common tasks. Creatives and editors can work together, adding annotations and proofreading documents in the cloud interface. The work-in-progress feature enables you to automate and track the creative process via version and task management. CELUM’s DAM is designed to cover the entire document lifecycle.
8. Cloudinary
The Cloudinary platform aims to bridge the gap between asset management and delivery. It helps the creative, development and marketing teams work together to use assets effectively and efficiently. Not only does the platform support asset storage, it allows users to manage, search, share and manipulate assets online.
Cloudinary’s DAM platform has AI capabilities that can assist you in tagging assets. You can set the automatic tagging feature by color, object and facial recognition for both images and video content, and assets stored on the DAM can be manipulated in real-time. The platform also has an extensible API to support easy integration with other systems in your workflows.
9. Digizuite
Digizuite’s DAM is based on Microsoft Azure and AWS, offering maximum performance and scalability in a secure environment. They provide a mobile client and an easy-to-use media manager for accessing media stored in the cloud.
These sophisticated tools let your marketing and sales team access digital content across many channels from any of their devices. Confidential information is secured and controlled by enhanced access and permission controls. In addition, Digizuite offers standard integration to commonly used applications like Microsoft Office, Sitecore and open API integration services.
10. Extensis Portfolio
Extensis Portfolio is an enterprise-grade digital asset management suite. The platform is designed for sharing all forms of digital content with on-site colleagues, remote workers, contractors and even clients. It works with audio, documents, images and videos.
This DAM software has a feature known as Flexible Organization. Using this feature, you can define multiple catalogs and folders to meet the needs of your company. Using a combination of tags, categories and metadata, the predictive, Google-like search feature can help to speed up the search process dramatically. The search function also automatically saves conditional search settings and assigns metadata to them to create a smart gallery with that search setting. This feature can save your team a lot of time if they regularly work with the same kinds of files.
11. Filecamp
Filecamp is a digital asset management solution that caters to the needs of diverse industries, designed to streamline the organization, sharing and management of digital media files. Filecamp's interface is user-friendly, facilitating easy navigation and asset retrieval. It also supports various file types, including images, videos and documents, and enhances collaboration through customizable sharing options and granular access controls.
The platform leverages cloud-based technology, ensuring that assets are secure and accessible from anywhere in the world. It also offers custom branding capabilities, allowing businesses to personalize their DAM workspace.
12. Hyland's Nuxeo Platform
Nuxeo integrates with legacy enterprise content management, so you can access your organization’s digital assets without changing the location of the assets. It is a powerful, extensible and highly customizable asset management system that is aimed at organizations handling high volumes of assets.
The AI-powered auto-tagging features enable users to quickly find content despite where it has been created. Users can create detailed, granular taxonomies to enhance the power of the search feature. This makes it simple for designers to find the photo, logo or video they are looking for. In addition, Nuxeo comes with a pay-as-you-go video transcoding tool and a low-code workflow management feature.
Related Article: 4 Ways to Boost CX With an Outstanding Digital Content Strategy
13. IntelligenceBank
IntelligenceBank combines advanced features like AI-driven asset management, approval workflows and creative templates, aimed at enhancing marketing operations. It facilitates smooth asset management, sharing and compliance with brand guidelines, making it ideal for a range of industries. Currently, it's used by a number of well-known brands, including Hertz, Hyatt and KFC.
The platform integrates with various creative applications, content management systems and Microsoft and Google Apps, streamlining workflows and improving efficiency. It also emphasizes ease of use and customization to suit diverse business needs.
14. Kontainer
Kontainer is both a digital asset management and product information management solution. It offers a centralized system for organizing, managing and distributing various assets like images, videos, logos and PR material. This platform is designed to be user-friendly and efficient, featuring tools such as auto metadata tagging, integrations with Office, content management systems, Adobe and email marketing, as well as advanced search and filter capabilities.
Kontainer emphasizes security and GDPR-compliant rights management, allowing for differentiated access control both internally and externally. It's aimed at optimizing workflows and enhancing collaboration across different teams and external partners.
15. MediaValet
MediaValet enables you to upload large media files (up to 5 TB/file) with its high-speed and secure upload application. It is a powerful content management and DAM system that helps a company centralize its data storage. The tool also helps brands maintain a consistent and professional image across all of their digital assets.
The tool lets managers centralize storage, searching and distribution. Designers and creatives know they have one central place to go to when they need assets for a project. Creatives can make use of MediaValet’s Creative Spaces to work on assets stored on the DAM via native applications (e.g., InDesign, Illustrator, PhotoShop). The Creative Spaces feature is a hybrid application made specifically for simultaneous collaboration on works in progress.
16. OpenText Media Management
OpenText can integrate with various stakeholders and departments including marketing, ecommerce and design. The tool is aimed at large organizations and has particularly strong support for video marketing content.
It also provides you with the digital tools to create a “media-enabled” organization. The OpenText tool can automate repetitive tasks and streamline the review and approval process. OpenText has recently redesigned the user experience on their OpenText Media Management (OTMM) platform to allow users to find assets easily.
17. Veeva Vault PromoMats
Veeva is a cloud platform that aims to speed up the process of creating and distributing compliant content. It is aimed at highly specialized industries, such as the pharmaceuticals industry, and includes support for medical, legal and regulatory reviews.
Another useful feature of the platform is the reporting tool that helps marketers gather information to inform their future campaigns. In addition, the platform features a tool that can bulk publish or withdraw content across multiple platforms. This is a particularly useful tool for those who may need to quickly withdraw or update campaigns based on regulatory requirements.
18. Wedia
Wedia is a cloud-based, cross-platform DAM with support for a huge list of file types. It can handle 360-degree images, 3D assets, documents, photos and videos. Wedia developed their DAM to allow users to find assets quickly and conveniently. Users can search, view and manage content on their desktops, laptops or tablets.
The platform comes with automated rendition features that enable you to produce numerous versions from a single master copy. This DAM solution also gives users full control over published content through tracking and recording. AI auto tags and metadata offer powerful search features, including ones to extract text and recognize emotions or faces in images.
Related Article: Content Management Systems Solutions: Examining Your Core Issue
19. WoodWing
WoodWing is an enterprise-grade content orchestration solution used by several major brands, including Coca-Cola, Forbes and Heineken. It includes tools for digital asset management, workflow management and publishing. The platform aims to be scalable, flexible and easy to use for managing storytelling and content creation for companies in a variety of industries.
WoodWing integrates with Adobe Creative Cloud and features automated versioning and sophisticated collaboration tools. Granular permissions and powerful library and collection management features ensure people can always find and access the assets they need while keeping marketing leaders in control of the brand’s look and identity at all times.
