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Q: Selecting The Right Digital Asset Management Company For Your Brand

A:

85% of marketing and creative professionals say the demand for speed in content and asset creation has increased over the past 12 months. 

The speed and volume of content you need to create can make it hard to manage it all. That’s why brands are turning to technology like Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems to take control of their content, turn around campaigns faster, and get content in front of the right audience at the right time.

DAM software stands out as a key organizational tool. Initially developed for basic digital media management, DAM has evolved into advanced platforms featuring AI, cloud computing, and enhanced search functionality. 

Today, DAM is more than just a storage solution; it’s essential for strategic digital asset management. It not only secures valuable content but also optimizes its use, boosting brand consistency and creative effectiveness. DAM has become a cornerstone for businesses of all sizes and industries in the digital era, driving both creative and operational efficiency.

However, not all DAMs are created equal, so it’s important to know which DAM has the suite of tools and features that will set your brand up for success. 

  • Top 5 challenges managing digital assets
  • How poor digital asset management hurts company goals
  • What is a digital asset management system?
  • Why DAM software is important for marketing and creative teams
  • What your team wants from your DAM
  • 10 steps for choosing digital asset management software
  • How to compare DAM systems
  • The features & benefits of DAM in action
  • Top 10 questions to ask a DAM provider
  • DAM system examples
  • Your #1 digital asset management solution

Top 5 Challenges Managing Digital Assets

Brands can’t keep up with demand when asset management methods are outdated, inefficient, and aren’t working for marketing and creative teams. 

Too many marketers and creatives spend their time:

  • Looking for content: According to a study by Elastic, an open-source search company, 60% said they waste more time searching for information than on answering email.
  • Duplicating completed content: The 2019 Intelligent Information Benchmark report stated 83% of survey respondents had to recreate a document that already existed because they were unable to find it on their corporate network.
  • Using the wrong versions of content: 26% of survey respondents of the 2019 Intelligent Information Benchmark report stated they were unsure if they were using the wrong version of a file.
  • Using more than one solution for digital marketing assets: 43% of organizations in the 2024 DAM Trends Report use several separate solutions to manage digital assets. 
  • Keeping up with content demand: The demand for content has doubled in the last 2 years and Adobe projects this to increase 5X to 20X by 2025.

How Poor Digital Asset Management Hurts Company Goals

  • Time and effort wasted: A study from Asana revealed that 13% of an employee’s day – 6.5 hours per week is wasted on tasks that have already been completed. That’s 236 hours per year.
  • High ROI work can’t be done: According to Asana, With almost two-thirds (61%) of our day taken up by tasks like file sharing, searching for a sales team deck, or checking messages, only one-quarter (24%) of time is spent on the skilled job employees were hired to do.
  • Productivity is negatively impacted: 82% of survey respondents of the 2019 Intelligent Information Benchmark report stated that navigating different systems & locations to verify the most current versions of files negatively affects productivity.
  • Assets are not safeguarded: Statista found that more than two-thirds of company assets are not protected, leaving organizations at risk for lawsuits.
  • Brand consistency is a struggle: CMI found that 45% of marketers are having a hard time keeping up with demand and maintaining consistent brand guidelines and messaging.
  • Unused assets: 51% of study participants in a Digizuite report said they waste time and money creating assets that are never used because people don’t know they exist or can’t find them.

Without DAM: Businesses struggle with longer production cycles, increased risk of using outdated or unapproved assets, and inefficiencies leading to lost revenue.

What is a Digital Asset Management System?

A Digital Asset Management (DAM) system is a software solution that helps brands organize, manage, and distribute digital assets.

What is a digital asset? A digital asset is any media file type that has been created or stored electronically. Digital assets usually fall into one of the following categories:

Your DAM offers a centralized location where team members, clients, contractors, and other stakeholders can easily access all your digital media – from any connected device. 


This technology gives organizations control over their digital content, improving efficiency and protecting important brand assets.

Your digital asset management software should serve as a single source of truth, which helps your organization maintain brand consistency, increase productivity, and maximize ROI.

Why DAM Software is Important for Creative and Marketing Teams

Before DAM, your creative and marketing teams may struggle with disorganized digital assets, which can create inefficiencies and creative bottlenecks. DAM has changed the landscape. 

With DAM, your creatives and marketers can swiftly access, share, and collaborate on digital assets. It fosters an environment where user experience is elevated and your teams succeed.

Here are the top 4 ways DAM is improving the way your marketing and creative teams work.

1.) Consistent branding 

Maintaining a consistent on-brand image ensures uniform use of logos, images, and other assets across various channels – protecting brand integrity. The most common challenge happens when multiple creators produce content, leading to inconsistent brand asset styles. A DAM helps your team produce content that aligns with the brand’s look in seconds, ensuring all materials reflect the brand’s identity consistently.

2.) Cost and Time Savings 

When content is everywhere, your creative and marketing teams can’t easily find anything. By streamlining the process of finding and using files, your teams can focus more of their time on producing creative assets and less time on searching.

3.) Streamlined Marketing and Publishing Workflow Processes

In the fast-paced world of marketing and publishing, DAM software is pivotal in streamlining crucial processes like approvals, reviews, and publishing. This efficiency greatly reduces time-to-market for campaigns and content.

4.) Scalability and Future-Proofing

As organizations grow and digital assets multiply, the scalability and future-proofing offered by digital asset management software become essential. They adeptly handle increasing volumes of content, ensuring that businesses can manage their digital assets as they expand.

What Your Team Wants From Your DAM

Every member of your team can benefit from using a DAM. But understanding what each team member needs from your DAM can help you choose the right solution. 

C-Suite: Depending on your organization’s size, the CMO, CRO, COO, and even the CEO might weigh in on which DAM solution to choose. Executives will be more concerned with budget, future costs, and how the DAM system fits into the business’s future roadmap.

Marketers: Marketers are often intermediaries between content creators and other functions, such as sales. A strong DAM system enables marketers to keep track of digital content across its lifestyle, streamline approval and review processes, develop fresh content from pre-designed templates, and measure the success of individual assets.

Creatives: Designers, copywriters, and other creatives are fed up with manually entering metadata, juggling multiple creative platforms, and performing other repetitive work. With a modern DAM system, content creators can simplify their process, discover opportunities for collaboration, ensure brand consistency, and streamline asset management, end to end.

IT/Ops: IT and operations teams are more concerned about scalability, longevity, performance, security, compliance, integrating the DAM with your existing tech stack, and staying on budget. Finding a solution that automates time-consuming workflows and fits well with the organization’s current and future architecture will be a priority. IT and operations teams will be curious about more technical components, such as APIs and native integrations. 

External Stakeholders: Partners, agencies, contractors, and clients also need access to your brand’s content. A modern DAM platform equips your team with the right tools to seamlessly share media assets with third-parties.

10 Steps for Choosing Digital Asset Management Software

Choosing the right digital asset management tools can be a daunting task. To help you get started, we’ve put together a simple, step-by-step game plan:

  1. Determine what level solution you need. Just getting started? Basic for you. Need a bit more power? Grab a mid-grade software. Are you part of a large enterprise with complex needs? You’ll need an enterprise solution.
  2. Make a list of must-haves for your DAM software. Creating a list of necessary capabilities, customizations, and features can narrow your search. Helpful tip: analyze primary users and functional requirements per department. 
  3. Begin researching DAM solutions. Pay close attention to costs, features, customer support offerings, the onboarding process, flexibility, and integrations.
  4. Align with your organization. Understand who will use the DAM system. Engage key stakeholders early on, including marketers, agencies, sales teams, and others. You will also want to get support from an executive or other organizational champion, such as a CMO, CRO, or COO.
  5. Create a short-list of DAM solutions that meet your martech stack needs. Find 2 or 3 solutions that match your organization’s unique needs, both in terms of functionality and budget.
  6. Evaluate demos. Have the DAM’s sales team walk you through the platform. Some vendors offer short trials, while others provide additional assets to give potential buyers a better feel for the platform.
  7. Compare prices, features, and capabilities. Still not sure which to choose? Then evaluate the pros and cons of the DAM systems under consideration. 
  8. Chat with folks that use a DAM. If you know anyone in your network who has a DAM, ask them about their experience. If not, leverage online forums like Reddit to get honest answers about providers.
  9. Choose the right solution! Once you’re confident that you have found the right DAM that meets your organization’s unique needs, congratulations! You’re ready to sign the paperwork. 
  10. Begin the onboarding process, and witness the positive brand results. 

How to Compare DAM Systems

Before finalizing your decision, you’ll want to carefully compare solutions to make sure that you choose the best DAM system for your organization. 

DAM Features

Key DAM features to look for include: 

  • Search and filter capabilities: including advanced functionalities like AI-powered search
  • File formats: Ability to upload a wide variety of file formats 
  • Metadata management
    • Tagging: Automatically add metadata tags for people, brands, objects, etc. in an image
    • Customization: Customizable metadata fields like SKU or event location
  • Asset sharing and distribution: Internally, externally, and on social media platforms
  • Workflows
    • Automation: Set up automations that allow you to skip steps in your workflow
    • Real-Time: Move assets from the camera to social media feeds, websites, sponsors or key influencers in real time
  • Collaboration tools: Share, comment on, approve, and download assets for creative projects without leaving the platform
  • Version control: Easy tracking and management of different versions of assets
  • User management and permissions: Access control to set different levels of permission for confidential, proprietary, or regulated assets
  • Analytics and performance tracking tools: Insights and metrics such as daily downloads, search activity, and top search terms
  • User interface and usability: User-friendly interface, even for non-tech-savvy team members
  • Mobile app / on-the-go functionality
  • Integrations with other platforms and tools (more on integrations with your martech stack below.) 

Integration with current martech stack

While you will likely collect some tech debt during periods of intense growth, consider your current software vendors and tools to boost productivity and eliminate redundant tools. Your DAM solution should meet your short-term needs, as well as mesh well with your long-term roadmap. 

Closely evaluate which DAM solutions have integrations with the following:

  • Design tools to make it faster for your team to create (Adobe CC and Canva)
  • Content management systems & social media marketing tools so your content can be published directly from your DAM (WordPress, Sidearm Sports, Drupal, Socialie, Hootsuite, Greenfly, Inflcr, Opendorse, Slate)
  • File Sharing platforms so your team can easily import assets from where they already live (Box, Dropbox, Drive)
  • Communications platforms to ensure your team is up-to-date about what is happening with your content (Slack, Microsoft Teams)
  • Project management tools to help get content through the process faster (Asana, Wrike)
  • Photo workflow integrations to simplify the process for your photographers (Photo Mechanic, Fotobridge)
  • API so you can customize integrations for your organization

Ensuring that your future DAM solution integrates with your tech stack saves money and enables adoption. 

Usability

While some level of set-up and training is almost always required, it shouldn’t slow down productivity. 

An easy-to-use interface boosts adoption across the organization, especially for less experienced users. Select a DAM provider that puts a premium on customer experience.  

Usability may not be equal across the board. Here are the features you should consider:

  • How easy is it to onboard?
  • How easy is it to get set up?
  • How easy is it to upload and access assets?
  • How easy is it to organize, search for, and find assets?
  • How easy is it to distribute assets?
  • How easy is it to integrate into your current tech stack?

Performance

Speed, scalability, efficiency, and overall performance should be top of mind for decision makers. 

Some key components to evaluate are:

  • Uptime/Availability  
  • Upload speeds and responsiveness
  • Storage limits
  • Number of users (admins, editors, contributors)
  • Tools to evaluate key metrics and user insights 
  • Customizable workflows to optimize the DAM system’s architecture 
  • Content distribution speed 
  • System scalability 

Focusing on performance ensures that your DAM solution meets the needs of a scaling business, so you avoid switching costs in the future. 

Compliance and security 

With more hackers disrupting business operations each day, investing in a DAM platform that offers best-in-class security capabilities is a necessity. It’s crucial for maintaining compliance. 

At the minimum, your DAM solution should include:

  • SSO, or multi-step user authentication 
  • Encryption 
  • Antivirus and malware protection 
  • User permissions with different levels of access
  • Image licensing and copyright management tools 
  • Data loss prevention & protection measures
  • A disaster recovery plan 
  • 24/7 monitoring
  • High uptime 
  • Compliance with applicable regulations (e.g. GDPR compliance, HIPAA, FERPA, EU-US Data Privacy Framework, CCPA, CPRA, or PIPEDA)

Don’t let your security fall by the wayside. Safeguard your business’s intellectual property and sensitive information by choosing a DAM vendor that cares.

Customer support, onboarding, and training

Choosing a DAM platform with a robust customer support system makes the first few weeks even easier. 

In addition, double check that your DAM vendor provides a robust suite of training materials. This might include product updates, training manuals, one on one training sessions  or regular emails alerting users about what’s new. 

Costs

Pricing for DAM solutions varies. Your DAM vendor should provide you with an initial quote. Your annual DAM costs will be determined based on:

  • Number of users and user types 
  • Storage 
  • Features
  • Onboarding costs and fees, including implementation support 
  • Customization 

Download our DAM Buyer’s Guide including a DAM provider evaluation scorecard to help you choose the right DAM for your team. Download Now.

The Features & Benefits of DAM in Action

With the need to meet ever-increasing demand, it’s more important now than ever that companies make critical decisions about how they organize, manage, and distribute content to their customers, prospects, and wider audiences to gain the maximum return on their investment.

Now that you understand the key features that a DAM provides, it’s important to see how those key features can benefit your team and help you achieve your brand goals. Here is how DAM is helping 8 teams solve real-life challenges:

1.) Organizes and categorizes assets using metadata, tags, and folders, facilitating easy access and efficient management.

How organization and categorization works within DAM:

Without DAM: Marie Rossow, marketing director at Garden of the Gods Resort and Club, struggled to manage a high volume of digital assets. Significant hurdles slowed her workflow and the resort marketing campaigns, which impacted whether or not meeting spaces were booked, rooms were sold, and restaurant seats were reserved every night:

“The resort was storing files in multiple systems including Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, and Dropbox.” Marie recalls, “I’m being tasked with creating this social campaign, and I need to find pictures of the golf course in spring… just trying to find that took over an hour.”

With DAM: Transitioning from multiple disjointed storage systems to a single, comprehensive digital asset management platform significantly improved Marie’s work life. “The simplicity of being able to tag everything, and have everything searchable…We can just pull the assets right away and be able to share them with who we need,” says Marie.

One centralized digital asset management solution. PhotoShelter’s single, centralized DAM solution replaced the multiple platforms Marie was using before. She also was able to create a valuable archive of historical assets dating back to 1949. With upcoming features in local magazines, PhotoShelter made it easy for Marie to retrieve and reuse high-quality images for publication.

Learn more about the DAM for hospitality in the: Garden of the Gods Resort and Club Case Study.

2.) Enhances search and retrieval functionality, including keyword search and filtering.

How search and retrieval functionality work with DAM:

Without DAM: Jennifer White, Senior Manager of Digital Assets for the Philadelphia Eagles’ content and production team, faced significant challenges when she assumed her role in 2014. There was no system to keep digital photos organized and there were thousands of historic, physical photos that needed to be digitized to run effective marketing campaigns. 

“There wasn’t an easy way to search for images, content distribution was a slow, manual process, and they were missing fan engagement opportunities. “No matter how many times we trained people [on the old system]…it was very cumbersome. It just wasn’t user-friendly. It wasn’t like anybody could jump in and find assets easily” says Jennifer. 

With DAM: By leveraging PhotoShelter’s AI functionality, alongside Socialie’s content distribution automation capabilities, the Eagles were able to modernize their workflow and get content into their players’ hands in seconds, taking fan engagement to the next level. Now, anybody on the team can find what they need fast.

Learn more about DAM for sports in the: Philadelphia Eagles Case Study.

3.) Supports collaboration by enabling users to access and work on digital assets simultaneously. This is especially important in scenarios where teams need to collaborate on creative projects.

How DAM supports creative collaboration:

Without DAM: Sydnye White, VP of Content and Storytelling for the Special Olympics, was using a combination of fragmented systems to manage its digital assets. She and her team faced a few major obstacles in their day-to-day workflow, which impacted their ability to get out content in real time. 

“News is now… It is certainly not news 24 hours later. It’s important that we have editors in different time zones that can keep feeding the media assets that are captioned, tagged, and organized. They don’t have to go search somewhere else. They know there’s a one-stop shop for Special Olympics all the time, no matter where in the world they are” says Sydnye.

With DAM: Shawn and Sydnye were able to support a worldwide workflow. The organization’s distributed network of employees and volunteers can easily collaborate with 24/7 access to a centralized DAM platform. They were able to facilitate media coverage and brand exposure. Their communications team could create the best content possible for marketing materials and fundraising campaigns to drive donations and inspire volunteers.

Learn more about DAM for sports in the: Special Olympic Case Study.

4.) Tracks version control changes made to digital assets over time. This helps prevent the use of outdated or incorrect versions.

How tracking version controls work with DAM:

Without DAM: Cynthia Klusmeyer, Creative Services Manager, and Caitlin Hernandez, Project Coordinator at Baptist Health, stored all their photos on an internal server, which created several issues. These included inadequate control, lack of searchability, and diminished brand integrity. 

“We have a tremendous amount of assets, and they’re always being shuffled between so many different hands. With the old server, people would just start digging, and then they would either get frustrated and couldn’t find what they needed, or they would start using old assets. PhotoShelter has made it easier to keep what we want to be used at the forefront. The search feature is life-changing,” says Caitlin. 

With DAM: PhotoShelter simplified creative project management and asset organization at Baptist Health. With tailor-made software, the creative team can configure access however they want while improving creative workflows across the organization. “PhotoShelter gets what we need into people’s hands quicker — and in an easier way. It’s very intuitive and straightforward,” says Caitlin.

Learn more about DAM for healthcare in the: Baptist Health Case Study.

5.) Manages usage rights, permissions, and licensing information. This is crucial for ensuring compliance with copyright laws and protecting intellectual property.

How managing digital rights usage works with DAM:

Without DAM: Sam Craft, Assistant Director of Visuals and Multimedia, needed to widely display its digital assets while also maintaining control over who downloads their content. Before PhotoShelter, Texas A&M AgriLife was using a consumer solution, Flickr. This meant that Sam couldn’t customize permissions or require logins to access Texas A&M AgriLife’s image libraries.

Texas A&M AgriLife was using a combination of makeshift internal systems and Flickr to store photos, which resulted in a lack of security and control.

 “We had an internal system that ran on a free server. It was out of date. Servers fail, and when you don’t pay attention to it, retention is gone and assets are lost,” says Sam.

With DAM:  PhotoShelter’s secure network allows them to store their assets and control who has access to content. Sam can configure permissions and have peace of mind knowing that the organization’s photos are secure.

Learn more about DAM for higher education in the: Texas A&M AgriLife Case Study

6.) Automates workflow capabilities, streamlining processes such as approvals, reviews, and publishing. This can improve efficiency and reduce manual work.

How automating workflows works with a DAM:

Without DAM: Mads Pihl, Former Head of Photography and Market Development for Visit Greenland, wanted to reshape Greenland’s global reputation and attract more visitors. But a combination of a broken content management system, dated content, and too many content requests to handle was making it a challenge. Using Flickr and Dropbox was not making the job easier for anyone.

After investing considerable time and money into Flickr and Dropbox, Mads was still getting multiple requests for content and would still often have to package photos into zip files and send them to partners. “I wasted so much time adding [content] to Flickr,” says Mads.

With DAM: Mads moved his image database over to PhotoShelter for Brands, and the new platform has significantly consolidated the Visit Greenland team’s workflow. 

“[PhotoShelter] is formidable compared to Flickr, you can’t even compare,” says Mads. “It feels like it’s made for someone like us.” Using a centralized asset management system, they were able to streamline assets for stakeholders to build a clear and concise brand story. 

Learn more about DAM for hospitality in the: Visit Greenland Case Study

7.) Integrates with other martech tools, such as content management systems (CMS), marketing automation platforms, and creative software, to enhance overall workflow and productivity.

How integrating with other tools works with DAM:

Without DAM: Kimberley Fowke, Director of Communications of the Army Rugby Union, was trying to build the brand on a tight budget. The team’s process for working with photographers was time-consuming. Photographers would give ARU physical discs with photos stored on them, so if she wanted a particular image, she’d have to manually flip through folders of discs to find the right one. Getting images from photographers onto the website or social media was no easy task, which meant establishing a high-quality brand online was all but impossible. Then they met Geraint Ashton Jones.

Alligin UK Director (and former member of the Royal Navy) Geraint Ashton Jones created a workflow that would get images from the rugby pitch to ARU Director of Communications Kimberley Fowke as quickly as possible. During matches, FTP connections help photographers upload images straight from their cameras into the proper PhotoShelter gallery in seconds. 

“The biggest selling point of PhotoShelter is that it is genuinely intuitive. It’s easy to use, and it’s truly collaborative,” says Geraint, Director of Alligin UK

With DAM: Kimberley also makes heavy use of PhotoShelter’s Canva integration, which allows her to access ARU’s photos in Canva and quickly create social-media-ready designs with templates she has previously created. For an organization that’s operating with a tiny staff and limited resources, ARU is still able to put out professional-looking branded content with the help of PhotoShelter and its integrations. “What we’ve worked on over the last few years using PhotoShelter is our ability to put out content in real time. It’s enabled us to up our game in our social media,” says Kimberley.

Learn more about the Army Rugby Union Case Study.

8.) Security features are essential for protecting sensitive digital assets. DAM systems often include access controls, encryption, single sign-on (SSO), and other security measures to safeguard against unauthorized access or data breaches.

How security features work with DAM:

Without DAM: Chris Rakoczy, a staff photographer for Hartford HealthCare, joined in 2015 as a contract photographer and transitioned to a full-time role.  As the organization’s new Digital Asset Librarian, it was Chris’s responsibility to uncover what wasn’t working and how to fix it. He found a lack of organization and no easy way to collaborate and provide access to 37,000 people on the Hartford team. They were buried in requests and every asset took a long time to find and share.

“If we’re out at an event, and people have to wait for us to get back to our desks, find the thing they want, and send it, it could be too late for their needs,” says Chris. 

 With DAM: PhotoShelter Workspaces helped Hartford HealthCare’s employees manage and collaborate on creative projects. HHC also uses PhotoShelter’s single sign-on (SSO) feature to streamline access and ensure security without having to send individual user invites. With the added benefit of unlimited invited users, any of HHC’s 37,000 colleagues can access its vast asset library.

Cloud-based access anywhere = work gets done. With PhotoShelter’s secure, reliable, owned network, Chris and his team can quickly log on from anywhere. That means HHC’s staff photographers can easily upload images to PhotoShelter and designers can quickly access the files they need to complete their work.

“Through PhotoShelter, we’ve been able to empower everybody in the organization to get what they need when they need it — and also discover things they didn’t know they needed. They can pull something down within a couple of minutes, versus probably hours or days,” says Chris.

Learn more about DAM for healthcare in the Hartford Healthcare Case Study.

Top 10 Questions to Ask a DAM Provider

Before you move forward with a DAM provider, here are some vetting questions that can help you narrow down your choices:

  1. Can you describe the primary functions and capabilities of your digital asset management (DAM) system?
  2. What file types and media formats are supported by your DAM system?
  3. How does the DAM handle sharing & distributing digital assets? E.g. Are you able to share assets in real time?
  4. Are there any built-in analytics or reporting tools to track asset usage and performance?
  5. How user-friendly is the interface, especially for non-technical users?
  6. How does your DAM leverage AI to make my team’s life easier?
  7. Can the system handle rights management to protect copyright and usage compliance?
  8. What measures are in place to ensure the long-term viability of assets within the system?
  9. Do you have any case studies or references from current clients that use your DAM?
  10. What is the onboarding process like and what kind of training do you provide?

DAM System Examples 

If you’re looking for a digital asset management tool, you’ve probably come across names like Adobe Experience Manager, Canto, and PhotoShelter, of course. 

You are probably also familiar with consumer solutions, such as Flickr and Dropbox, which make more sense for personal use. Complex data tools and integrations probably aren’t necessary for keeping track of your family vacation photos. And popular consumer options won’t meet the needs of growing businesses. 

Here’s a look at DAM platforms that support growing companies managing their digital assets. 

Adobe Experience Manager

Adobe Experience Manager is a powerful platform that functions as a CMS and DAM system. The platform has integrations with many common martech tools. While Adobe offers a number of resources, prices rise rather quickly due to the cost of licenses, resources, implementation, upgrades, and ongoing maintenance. This is why Adobe Experience Manager is often double the price of comparable solutions.

Brandfolder

Brandfolder is another DAM platform that helps marketers and creatives manage assets and assess their performance. The platform offers numerous integrations and helpful AI tools. On the other hand, editing and deleting users on the platform can be counterintuitive. If your organization has a large repository of digital files, it can be difficult to find your documents.

Bynder

Bynder is a DAM platform that focuses on branding, including templating and brand guidelines. This enterprise DAM solution offers numerous tools to help you manage your digital assets, including AI automated tagging. 

A popular choice for larger companies, Bynder does have its drawbacks. Costs can skyrocket if you have hundreds of users, organizations are limited to 3 user levels, the UI is not always the most intuitive, and the workflows might not meet the needs of businesses in highly regulated industries.

Canto

Canto is a DAM system that is a good option for small businesses that are not looking to grow substantially or reach enterprise scale. This solution offers the cheapest base package DAM in the industry, but prices can rise dramatically if you’re looking to customize, add new seats or additional storage. 

Given that Canto is a more affordable option, it also lacks certain functionalities, such as limited user roles and no tools to manage product content. Canto has some neat capabilities, such as Amazon Rekognition for facial recognition to tag photos more quickly. But overall, the platform’s AI and machine learning capabilities are limited. 

Dropbox

While Dropbox is a great option for consumers and very early stage startups, the solution isn’t ideal for businesses that are looking to scale up. The upload and download bandwidth is slower than many top DAM solutions on the market today. Also, Dropbox charges per user, which means that prices will skyrocket for teams looking to reach enterprise scale. 

Google Drive

Similar to Dropbox, Google Drive is a top choice for consumers and workers alike. The platform, however, is rather limited in terms of editing and sharing images, videos, and other creative files. The upload and download bandwidth is slower than most DAM solutions on the market, which makes it far from ideal for marketing and creative teams that regularly upload large files.

Greenfly

Greenfly markets itself as a DAM for short-form content, focused on photos and videos. Their target audience is sports and entertainment organizations. If you’re looking for a platform that helps you engage with fans 24/7, manage content from live broadcasts, or collect media from live content creators, then Greenfly may be the right choice for you. 

Why PhotoShelter Is Your #1 Digital Asset Management Solution

PhotoShelter offers high-speed uploads, flexible file storage, and a lightning-fast network. Our AI-powered suite enables you to streamline workflows, automatically tag images, create accessible subtitles for videos, and demonstrate your ROI. 

“We have a tremendous amount of assets. With the old server, people would either get frustrated and couldn’t find what they needed, or they would start using old assets. PhotoShelter has made it easier to keep what we want to be used at the forefront. The search feature is life-changing.” – Caitlyn Hernandez, Project Coordinator at Baptist Health

With PhotoShelter, you receive a sleek branded portal, advanced permissions that integrate with your brand’s existing tech stack, custom design templates, social media integrations, and real-time collaboration in Workspaces. 

“Photoshelter is our bread and butter. It’s what keeps us in business. It’s my lifeline to my people, my services here, my job. It’s how I push content out and show my results. It’s how we transfer our assets to our 5,000+ people.” – Sam Craft, Assistant Director of Visuals and Multimedia, Texas A&M AgriLife 

We know that you have spent a lot of time, money and effort building your tech stack, which is why PhotoShelter integrates with the tools you know and love. Connect PhotoShelter with Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Photo Mechanic, WordPress, Drupal, Canva, Hootsuite, Slack, and other popular apps. Migrate files from other solutions, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, Lightroom, and Photo Mechanic.

With the acquisition of Socialie, PhotoShelter is able to help brands activate the social channels of all their stakeholders via automated content distribution and better understand how social content is performing across partner channels to exponentially expand their reach and drive more engagement.

By choosing PhotoShelter, you also receive the benefits of highly customizable metadata schema, unlimited internal and external users, flexible user permissions, and a dedicated account manager to support with onboarding, ongoing training, and everything else. Trusted by thousands of brands like Tripadvisor, Delta Air Lines, and the New York Jets, PhotoShelter is the digital asset management platform to power your brand growth.