The 8 best digital asset management (DAM) tools

Are people across your organization constantly losing time searching for marketing assets? Digging through shared folders, frantically pinging coworkers, trawling emails and chat messages for the right links to marketing materials? If these scenarios sound familiar, your team needs a tool for digital asset management (DAM). 

A DAM is software designed to securely and efficiently store, manage, and share digital files among a team or organization. It is a centralized repository for documents and published materials that gives teams easy access to content to use in marketing and customer outreach.

An effective DAM solution should have version control, advanced search capabilities, and tagging. It should help maximize content utilization for the best ROI, and help strengthen asset usage, performance, and engagement tracking. 

The 8 best digital asset management tools

1. Airtable

2. Adobe Experience Manager

3. Bynder

4. Brandfolder 

5. Wrike

6. Widen

7. MediaValet

8. Canto

What is digital asset management software?

Digital asset management software is a centralized system that allows organizations to effectively store, organize, retrieve, and distribute digital files. Assets may include images, videos, audio, documents, graphics, and other media files. DAM software provides a secure and organized repository where you can tag items with relevant metadata. This metadata makes it easy for the rest of the team to easily search and access relevant marketing materials to repurpose and use in other campaigns and outreach. 

DAM tools often offer integrations with other software like content management systems or project management tools. These integrations help streamline workflows by making it easy to share assets between different channels, platforms, and teams.

What are the benefits of DAM? 

DAM software helps streamline the entire content life cycle—from creation and editing to distribution and archiving. Features like version control, rights management, and collaboration tools also enable marketing teams to work together efficiently and maintain brand consistency across various channels.

A DAM solution also provides a centralized and easily accessible library to help marketers: 

• Save time: Marketers can find the right assets for their campaigns without repetitive searches or recreating items. 

• Organize items: You can categorize assets based on criteria like keywords, campaign types, or target audience with metadata tagging.

• Use the latest version of assets: When marketers have the latest version of a document, it minimizes errors and inconsistencies in messaging and campaigns.  

• Collaborate: Marketers can collaborate and share across teams (both internally and externally), fostering better communication and efficient workflows. 

• Create better campaigns: Marketers can extend the longevity of every asset while improving brand consistency and delivering more impactful campaigns. 

• Maximizes the ROI of all campaign materials: DAM solutions help cut the cost to reproduce assets which helps maximize content utilization. 

What are the challenges of DAM? 

DAM software comes with its own set of challenges. Some challenges include:

• Metadata requirements: Establishing metadata standards across a team requires careful planning and collaboration. Ensuring that metadata is consistently and accurately applied across all assets, across the entire org, can be time-consuming—especially when working with a large volume of existing documents. 

• Integrations: Many organizations use various tools for different purposes, like project and campaign management, content planning, and more. Integrating DAM software with these existing tools can be complex and may require custom development or the use of APIs. Without seamless integration, you could end up with data silos or inefficient workflows.

How to choose the best digital asset management tool

The best digital asset management tool depends on your team's needs. Still, some features are useful in any DAM tool.

• Ease of use: A DAM tool needs to be easy to use, or else your team will still struggle to find the assets they need. It also needs to be easy to maintain in uploading new files and deleting old ones.

• Scalability: If your team is getting the most out of the tool, you’ll want it to store a lot of items. Your DAM solution should have plenty of storage, so it can scale with your team and you won’t grow out of it. 

• Support for different file types: You definitely don’t want to be limited in the file types you can upload. A DAM tool needs to accommodate a diverse range of media assets like images, videos, audio files, and documents. 

• Security: Security is a must. Features like user permissions or two-factor authentication help keep your digital files safe.

• Metadata-handling capabilities: With large-scale asset libraries, your files need metadata to provide helpful context and organize items at scale. The right tool will have custom metadata fields so your team can have full control over updating and standardizing metadata.

• Searchability: Your team needs to be able to quickly find your digital files. Search functions should accommodate complex queries and metadata-based searches to save you time retrieving assets.

• In-suite asset editing: Streamline your workflow by eliminating the need for external editing tools for small adjustments. Your team will save time not having to export and import documents between platforms.

We believe Airtable is a great platform for digital asset management, but we wanted to provide a clear-eyed evaluation of what else is out there. So we researched and tested each option—here’s a look at the most highly rated solutions for managing your digital assets.

1. Airtable

Airtable is a connected apps platform that spans several use cases, including DAM. With Airtable, you can connect to other marketing use cases like content calendars, marketing campaign management, event planning, and more. This connectivity breathes life into your digital assets, linking them to your strategic marketing initiatives and ensuring critical metadata enriches every stage of the marketing lifecycle.

That means you can link the creative documents you upload to your DAM to your content calendars or integrated marketing campaigns. Plus, when you update that asset in one place, it will automatically update everywhere else it’s displayed. Not only will this save you time in your workflow, but it also means that everyone on your marketing team operates with the exact same information—no more miscommunication on whether the final version of that image was blue or purple. 

This level of connection maximizes utilization and drives better outcomes across teams. For example, product teams are free to leverage assets within in-product user journeys, and sales teams are empowered to send relevant marketing assets to prospective customers. 

There’s also no limit to the metadata you can include on the items you’re uploading in Airtable, unlike more project or task-focused tools. And, because Airtable’s foundation is a relational database, you can structure your data however you need. Some benefits include: 

• Flexible governance: With Airtable, you can lock down permissions to control who has access to what and reduce security risks.

• Advanced automation for scale: Airtable’s custom automation feature allows you to set automatic notifications and reminders for actions like when a new item is uploaded or moved to a different category. 

• Scale to 250K records: You won’t have to ever worry about running out of storage with Airtable as your DAM tool. The platform can store up to 250k records with an enterprise subscription.

• Flexible data model for diverse use cases: Create a data model that fits your needs and then connect that data to multiple use cases throughout cross-functional teams. Because Airtable is so flexible, marketing teams can use it to orchestrate and connect marketing asset management, content calendars, launch plans, and more.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.6 stars; 2,126 reviews

• Capterra: 4.7 stars; 1,781 reviews

2. Adobe Experience Manager

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is a flexible digital asset and content management solution. On the DAM side, it helps teams adapt and personalize their assets to scale them to a variety of channels and audiences. On the CMS side, it enables users to create custom sites to present content. Regardless of the use case, automation and AI are front and center.

The following features make AEM stand out:

• Adobe Sensei GenAI: AEM offers a generative AI editor that provides tools for copywriting, adapting copy to a branded voice and tone, and scaling content variations for a variety of personas.

• Support for unique file types: While it handles all the normal file types, AEM also supports panoramic photos, 3D, AR, and VR. 

• Smart tagging: This tool automatically tags content with keywords that are specific to your business, going beyond a simple description. AEM uses AI to recognize and add both business-specific and standard tags to save you time tagging and finding the asset later.

Reviews:

• G2: 3.9 stars; ‎185 reviews

• Capterra: 4.3 stars; ‎102 reviews

3. Bynder

Bynder is a cloud-based marketing platform that creates, organizes, and helps distribute digital assets. Its DAM software is primarily designed for marketing and creative teams.

In addition to being a centralized platform for storing and organizing brand collateral, Bynder also offers collaboration features that allow teams to create, review, and approve new assets.. Brand management features including brand guidelines, version control, and approval workflows also help strengthen brand consistency.

A few of Bynder’s other notable features include:

• Digital asset transformation (DAT): DAT includes in-suite editing tools so you can resize, focus, crop, and remove backgrounds from your assets within the software.

• Security controls: You can enforce two-factor authentication, assign user rights, and set access and usage permissions to keep digital files secure.

• Asset detail overview: When you preview an item in Bynder, you can pull up relevant metadata alongside the preview to immediately  review file information like upload date, usage rights, and version history.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.5 stars; 442 reviews

• Capterra: 4.4 stars; 170 reviews

4. Brandfolder

Brandfolder is a DAM point solution designed to simplify digital organization for businesses and marketing teams. The tool’s customizable branding options enable teams to create a personalized library that aligns with their organization’s visual identity. 

Brandfolder also has search functions that speed up the process of finding assets with filters, tags, and metadata. It includes user permission control features that ensure the right files are accessible to the right users.

Here are some additional features that make Brandfolder stand out:

• Brand intelligence: Brandfolder uses AI and machine learning to figure out who is using your assets, where they’re being used, and which are the highest-performing. This feature also automatically tags files as they’re uploaded, prevents duplicate uploads, locates brand-specific metadata, and transcribes video audio into text. 

• Drag-and-drop uploading: This feature lets you import files without opening additional windows, which enhances the overall user experience and expedites the uploading process.

• Creative workflow tools: In-suite editing tools allow teams to resize, reformat, and  update items automatically across the web. This feature saves time and keeps your creative editing workflow within the tool.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.5 stars; 1,170 reviews

• Capterra: 4.7 stars; 436 reviews

5. Wrike

Wrike is a project-management platform that’s also used for digital asset management. This solution is best suited to a company that has smaller DAM requirements and greater project management needs, as Wrike is more project- and task-focused than other solutions. 

You can use Wrike to create workflows and tasks to streamline creative and review processes. Wrike also offers version control so you can track changes and maintain a history of revisions. 

Additional Wrike features include:

• Customizable workflows: You can customize spaces, folders, tasks, and timelines with view options like Kanban, Gantt chart, and dashboards. 

• Advanced search functionalities: With Wrike, you can search by keywords or metadata, or you can visually browse files to find what you need. 

• Proofing: Wrike’s proofing tool lets you mark up new or existing files within the platform. This feature centralizes feedback, automates approvals, and promotes collaboration between stakeholders. Once your asset has been approved, you can publish it to your DAM in Wrike with just a few clicks.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.2 stars; 3,359 reviews

• Capterra: 4.3 stars; 2,386 reviews

6. Widen

Widen is a DAM point solution designed to scale across businesses of all sizes. With customizable metadata fields, Widen lets teams tailor the tool to their specific needs. Widen also provides comprehensive analytics and reporting features with insights into asset usage, performance, and engagement—this allows marketing leaders to see how their content is performing in sales outreach and across campaigns, helping strengthen data-driven decision making and planning. 

Take a look at some of Widen’s other notable features:

• Access levels: You can assign user role permissions, determine a user’s level of interaction, and dictate different types of approval authority across your team. 

• Metadata search: Widen offers metadata keyword search and predictive search to efficiently find what you’re looking for.

• Expansion options: Widen offers add-on features for project item management, brand management, and marketing resource management.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.5 stars; 532 reviews

• Capterra: 4.4 stars; 324 reviews

7. MediaValet

MediaValet is a centralized, cloud-based platform with DAM functionality. With version control and automatic file conversion, you can maintain asset integrity and access items in your preferred file format. 

The tool also has collaboration and sharing features like comments, annotations, and workflow management so team members can work together seamlessly on creation and review. Plus, MediaValet offers secure sharing options to send assets to external stakeholders while maintaining control over access and permissions. 

Check out these other noteworthy features from MediaValet:

• AI search: MediaValet’s AI functionality automatically tags uploads with object, text, and color recognition. Audio and video files can also be automatically tagged with people, objects, text, and speech metadata, with caption generations in over 70 languages.

• Unlimited users: An enterprise subscription will get you unlimited users and admin (as well as unlimited training and support) so your team can scale with the tool.

• Editing tools: Instantly reformat and resize assets with in-suite editing as well as social media sizing templates for social media sizing so you can resize your image to a social platform’s specific dimensions with one click.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.6 stars; 159 reviews

• Capterra: 4.7 stars; 105 reviews

8. Canto

Canto is a DAM-focused software. The tool offers features like version control, tagging, and permissions management to ensure effective collaboration and streamlined asset workflows. Canto also provides customizable branding options so you can create a branded library that aligns with your organization’s visual identity. 

Canto also has practical features like:

• Metadata mapping: This lets you import mapping of metadata from external files to custom fields, speeding up the process of adding metadata to your imports. 

• Permission-based security: Canto lets you lock down your assets with permission-based access portals, SSO, and MFA. You can also share content externally with temporary or permanent links.

• Digital rights management: You can track copyright license details and add watermarks within the platform, streamlining your digital rights workflow.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.3 stars; 602 reviews

• Capterra: 4.5 stars; 655 reviews

DAM software FAQ

Below, we answer some questions you might have about DAM software. 

What does DAM stand for?

DAM stands for digital asset management. It refers to storing, organizing, accessing, and sharing digital documents within an organization. It’s often used to help execute DAM practices.

What types of DAM exist? 

Some different types of DAM include:

• Brand management: Organizes files like logos, fonts, and brand guidelines to ensure consistency across all marketing channels and materials.

• Video asset management: Stores video content so teams can easily manage, edit, and distribute videos for purposes like marketing campaigns or internal communication.

• Product information management: Creates a centralized repository for accurate product data like descriptions, specifications, images, and pricing, to ensure a reliable source of information for channels like e-commerce websites or printed catalogs.

• Marketing resource management: Facilitates the planning, allocation, and tracking of marketing resources like budgets, assets, and campaigns to streamline marketing operations and optimize resource utilization.

• Production asset management: Manages digital assets related to the production process, like scripts, storyboards, audio files, and other visual elements to ensure the smooth flow of documents throughout the production workflow.

Some solutions may offer support for all these different types of DAM.

Is Google Drive a digital asset management tool?

No, Google Drive isn’t typically considered a comprehensive digital asset management tool. While Google Drive does offer cloud storage and file management capabilities, it primarily focuses on document storage and collaboration rather than dedicated DAM functionalities.

Although Google Drive can handle various file types, it lacks advanced features like metadata management, version control, tagging, and advanced search capabilities typically found in dedicated DAM solutions.

DAMs don't only share similarities with file management tools like Google Drive—they also often get confused with content management systems, DMS's, and enterprise content management tools. While you can definitely store assets in these other tools, a DAM is equipped with specific features like automatic tagging that make workflows more efficient.

While individual tools may excel in certain areas, Airtable allows you to meet your DAM needs while ensuring seamless workflow integration and alignment across multiple teams and use cases. It’s a versatile solution that caters to the complexities of enterprise marketing teams.