What is digital asset management (DAM)?

Digital asset management (DAM) is software that helps you store, organise, find and share digital content all in one place. That includes product photos, marketing graphics, brand videos, packaging files, and more. It gives your team a central, searchable library so they’re not hunting through messy shared drive folders or digging through email threads.

In this guide, we’ll explain exactly what a DAM system does, how it works, and whether your ecommerce brand actually needs one.

TLDR: What is DAM and why it matters for your brand?

Here’s a summary of what we’re going to cover in this article, and why you should consider digital asset management: 

• DAM  means ‘digital asset management’
• It’s a tool for organising your digital files like images, videos, and documents.
• Good ones save you from the content chaos of storing thousands of creative assets on Drive or Dropbox
• It helps teams collaborate faster and stay on-brand.
• Saves hours of manual work, especially for ecommerce and DTC brands.

What does DAM stand for?

In marketing, DAM stands for digital asset management.

A digital asset is the content your team uses to promote your products. Think product photos, lifestyle images, logos, videos, packaging files, social media content, and more. Basically we’re talking about any file that lives digitally and has value to your brand, especially when it comes to marketing and sales.

For ecommerce and DTC brands, this typically includes:

• Product images: pack shots, flat lays, lifestyle shots, UGC
• Videos: tutorials, ads, social reels, unboxings
• Logos and brand guidelines: these come in various formats for internal and external use
• Marketing collateral: brochures, lookbooks, social graphics, email banners
• Documents: pitch decks, sell sheets, press kits, product info
• Audio files: jingles, podcast intros, or sound effects
• Packaging files: dielines, artwork files, barcodes

As your brand grows, keeping those assets organised becomes tricky, especially if you're working with freelancers, agencies, or remote teammates. That's where digital asset management comes in.

There are several variations of DAM software like brand asset management and video asset management. But no matter the type of digital asset management system you use, it’ll help you manage, share and deploy your digital files from one central source.

What is a cloud digital asset management system?

A cloud digital asset management system is a DAM hosted online rather than on your own servers, so your team and external partners can access it from anywhere with an internet connection. Almost all modern DAMs (including Dash) are cloud-based and run on a subscription (SaaS) model, where the provider builds, hosts, secures and updates the platform for you.

The alternative, an on-premise DAM, lives on your own in-house servers and is maintained by your IT team. It gives you more control over customisation and security, but costs more to set up and maintain, and is harder to access remotely. Unless you have specific reasons to host assets on a dedicated physical server, a cloud DAM is the simpler, more affordable and more flexible choice for a growing brand.

Why Google Drive and Dropbox aren't built for managing visual content

Most brands start out keeping their images and videos in Google Drive or Dropbox. For documents and general file sharing, they do the job. But they're file storage tools, not systems for managing visual content, and as your library grows into the thousands, the cracks show.

The core problem is findability. Cloud storage relies on folders and exact file names, so unless someone remembers a file is called IMG_3287_FINALv3.jpg, it's lost. There's no AI tagging, no way to search by what's actually in an image, and no visual previews to browse. It’s just long lists and nested folders. 

They also lack the tools that make visual content usable: no built-in cropping or resizing for different channels, no version control to stop outdated assets going out, no usage rights or expiry dates, and no self-serve portals for sharing with retailers or press. So teams end up downloading, renaming and re-uploading — and whoever knows where everything lives becomes a bottleneck.

That's the gap a DAM fills. If you're outgrowing cloud storage, see our deeper guides on DAM vs Dropbox, Google Drive alternatives and Dropbox vs Google Drive.

Why use a digital asset management system? 

A great digital asset management tool should be built with your needs in mind. Every feature, function and integration should be designed to make your life easier. It’s as simple as that. Here’s an overview of digital asset management benefits. 

Save time and money 

A digital asset management system is basically a search engine for your visual content. Think of it like a digital asset library that you can search in seconds. The less time you spend looking for assets, the more time you can spend on content creation, planning campaigns and all the things you’ve actually been hired to do. 

A good digital asset management platform, like Dash, has features that are specifically designed to save you time. For instance, AI can identify objects within your images so you can type in a keyword and get relevant search results in seconds. You can also use custom tags and fields to help filter your search. 

As Kim from RevAir told us:

“ [Dash] made perfect sense, and I was ready to show our finance team how much productivity and time we would save, which would translate into cost savings…I truly believe Dash has saved us at least ten times its cost.”

If you need to show your boss how much money Dash could save you, take a look at our article that helps you calculate the ROI of your DAM. 🤑

Get your visual content in front of customers, faster

If you’re a growing business - which many of our customers are - digital asset management software will give you that extra speed when pushing out digital content to your channels. For example, if you’re an ecommerce brand, you’ll want to get your new content for product launches ready ASAP. The quicker you can get your products listed, the faster you’ll see those conversions coming in, right? 😉

Here just a handful of ways you can visual content out quickly with Dash:

• Get product images into Shopify: You can connect Dash to Shopify to seamlessly drop images into your product pages. You’ll also be able to set up custom crop sizes in Dash, so that anyone adding images to Shopify will use the correct dimensions and file format. 
• Share content with resellers and marketplaces: Set up public portals (with or without a passcode) and share it with your resellers. They can browse, search and download content just like they would in a regular Dash account. The only difference is that you get to choose what images and videos files they can see. 
• Deploy visuals to your social channels: Dash has preset crop sizes for Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Twitter. That means whenever you’re downloading an image for social you can make sure it's in the correct dimensions. Dash also integrates with Hootsuite so you can easily drop images from Dash into your scheduled posts. 

Protect your brand 

Many DAM providers talk about ‘brand integrity’ which is part of your brand management. It’s about keeping better tabs on your content going out into the world (so you can stop any mistakes before it’s too late). Features such as permissions will ensure that only certain people can access digital assets. Expiry dates will notify your team when something is no longer available to use on the web. And version control will ensure your teams only have access to the most up-to-date digital marketing assets.

What’s more, making sure you have the right, high-quality visuals will mean a better experience for your customers. Just think about the times you’ve landed on a website that has pixelated images on its homepage. Or a brand’s social account filled with confusing off-brand content. This is not a good customer experience. With DAM software, you’ll ensure that you and your team always have access to quality, on-brand visuals whenever they need them.

Collaborate with agencies, freelancers and creators 

Many growing brands partner up with external teams to help design creative assets, run campaigns and create content. Getting outside expertise can do wonders to the growth of your business. But if you’re relying on Dropbox and WeTransfer to send assets back and forth, you’ll get slowed down. Trawling through multiple design iterations and trying to gather feedback is no easy job. 

Dash will speed up your approval workflows because you can do it all within the app. For example, you can ask your freelance designer to upload their creatives into Dash for approval. If they’re not quite hitting the mark, you can add comments to their designs and ask them to upload a new version. If you’re working on videos, you can also use time stamps to specify which point in the video you’d like changed. 

This approval process is also ideal if you’re working with influencers or curating user-generated content. ✨

Check out our article all about the benefits of a digital asset management platform for a more detailed look at DAM and the features that will help your brand grow. 

How does a digital asset management system work?

A digital asset management system works by taking your visual content through five stages: files go into your DAM (either by you and your team, or from external teams like photographers and creators), the DAM organises and tags them, you control who can access them, your team shares and deploys them to your channels, and you track how they perform. Here's each stage in a bit more detail.

1. Getting content into DAM 

First, you bring your content into the digital asset management system. That might mean uploading files directly, or importing everything you've already got stored in Google Drive, Dropbox or SharePoint. Good DAMs let you bring assets in in bulk, and can pull in any existing metadata (like the information already embedded in a photo) so you're not starting from scratch. You can also collect content from outside your team. A DAM like Dash lets photographers, freelancers and creators submit files through a guest upload link, without needing an account.

2. Organise and tag

Once your assets are in, the DAM makes them findable. This is where it earns its keep over a shared drive. Assets are tagged so you can search by what's actually in them, rather than relying on file names like IMG_2531_final_v3. Most modern DAMs, including Dash, use AI to auto-tag images on upload. It scans each file and adds descriptive tags for the objects it recognises. On top of that, you add your own custom fields (SKU, product range, colour, campaign, season) so you can filter your library the way your brand actually works. Some DAMs also offer natural-language search, so you can find an asset even if no one remembered to tag it.

3. Manage and control

Next, DAM helps you keep control of your content as it grows. Permissions decide who can see, edit or download each asset, so different teams and external partners only get what's relevant to them. Version control makes sure everyone's using the latest file, and notifies your team when an asset is updated. You can also add usage rights and expiry dates, so an asset automatically drops out of view once you no longer have the licence to use it.

4. Share and deploy

With everything organised and controlled, your team can get content where it needs to go. You can share assets by link or email, or set up a self-serve portal that retail partners, resellers and press can browse and download from without logging in. A good ecommerce DAM also connects to the tools you publish through. For example, Dash integrates with Shopify and WooCommerce so you push product shots straight into listings, and offers preset crop sizes so assets go out at the right dimensions for each channel without a designer.

5. Analyse and improve

Finally, the best DAMs help you understand what's working. You can see which assets are being downloaded and used, and tag content by how it performed, so you can repeat your winners and make the case for the content that earns its keep. Over time, this turns your asset library from a store cupboard into something that actively informs what you create next.

Which teams will use your DAM system? 

If you purchase a DAM, you’ll want to make sure everyone in your company is making the most of it. Generally, marketing and design teams will be the ones using your digital asset management software the most. From our experience, these are the folk that usually introduce the tool to the rest of the business.  But that doesn’t mean it’s wasted on everybody else. In fact, a DAM that’s accessible will be welcomed by people from across your business. Let’s take a look at some examples: 

Marketing teams

As we’ve mentioned, the marketing team will be using your DAM software day-to-day. You can keep your marketing materials here including campaign graphics, product pics, content guidelines (oh yes, Dash lets you store documents, too), and any creative files you need to market your products. 

🤓 Read about the specific DAM use case for marketers.

Sales teams

Your sales team are the ones talking to customers every day. Whether they’re talking to resellers or consumers, they’ll need to see what your upcoming product lines look like. Sending customers the latest product catalogue is much easier when your sales team can do it from your DAM. They can simply send them a link via URL or email, or set up a portal and let resellers browse products themselves. 

🤓 The H&H Group use Dash to send product brochures to customers around the world. 

Brand teams 

Brand managers know it's essential to maintain brand consistency. It’s what impacts the integrity of your business and will, ultimately, affect the bottom line. So when an outdated asset goes out on your social media platforms or a fuzzy graphic is slapped up on your website, you risk confusing your audience and losing trust. A DAM will ensure approved brand assets are available to your teams. You can also keep your brand guidelines here too, so new hires can quickly get up to speed. 

🤓 Learn about brand asset management and why it’s important for your business.

Design teams 

Your designers are the ones producing creative for your marketing and brand teams. By keeping approved and ready-to-go designs in your DAM, creative teams no longer get hassled for the latest ad graphics or transparent brand logo for the 15th time. 😅 Plus, Dash integrates Adobe Creative Cloud so they won’t need to go back and forth between different tools to access their design files. This’ll be a huge improvement for their creative workflows.

🤓 Discover why DAM for designers can be so beneficial.

PR and communication teams 

Even if you don’t have an internal PR and comms team, a DAM will help you get your product and brand visuals over to the press. The media industry is fast-moving, so you need to get content to your press enquiries quickly if you want to get featured in news stories. 

How much does a digital asset management system cost?

Digital asset management software offers loads of features and benefits, so it's understandable to think it’ll set your business back a lot of money. And you wouldn’t be wrong: historically, DAMs have been built for enterprise companies and priced accordingly. Although many vendors don’t show their pricing, you'll be looking at a minimum of $450 per month for some of the most well-known enterprise DAM solutions like Bynder. 

But if you want a DAM for your growing business, you don’t have to settle for these expensive solutions. They’re aimed at enterprise brands for a reason. Instead, consider Dash. 😇

Dash has been built for small brands in mind, so our features are focused on your needs - not those of massive corporations who have complex requirements. Dash costs just £79/$109 per month and you get all features along with unlimited users. You’ll only pay extra if you increase your download limit or the number of assets you keep in your Dash. 

[fs-toc-omit] Is there a free DAM option?

Some DAM tools offer free trials or freemium plans, but lock useful features behind a paywall. If you’re serious about staying organised and scaling your marketing, it’s worth investing in a paid plan that fits your workflow. You can try Dash for free, then pick a plan that matches the needs of your team (starting from £79/$109 per month).

6 digital asset management solutions for your brand

If you’ve decided that a digital asset management (DAM) system is the way to go, the next step is choosing the right platform. There are plenty of options out there, but they’re not all built the same—and some are better suited to certain businesses than others.

Here’s a quick rundown of six DAM solutions to consider, from enterprise tools to platforms designed for fast-moving ecommerce teams.

[fs-toc-omit] 1. Dash: for growing ecommerce brands

Dash (that’s us!) is built for small and mid-sized ecommerce businesses that want an affordable, intuitive DAM without the enterprise bloat. It’s super simple to use, with features designed to help you launch campaigns quickly and keep your store and marketing channels up to date. You can search using AI-powered tags, crop images for social, and share content with retailers using Portals. Plus, we integrate with Shopify, Canva, Klaviyo and more. Pricing starts at just £79/$109 per month, and you’ll get unlimited users on every plan.

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[fs-toc-omit] 2. Air: for creative operations

Air likes to position itself as a creative operations tool that blurs the line between DAM and project management. It offers visual workspaces, Kanban boards, and the ability to comment on assets with time-stamped feedback. However, it’s light on deployment features—so you may find yourself downloading and re-uploading content to your ecommerce or marketing platforms. And its pricing can quickly ramp up and become expensive.

Learn more about Air digital asset management.

[fs-toc-omit] 3. Brandfolder: for large enterprise teams

Brandfolder is an enterprise-grade DAM used by big names like Mastercard and Zoom. It offers robust features like detailed asset analytics, templating, web-to-print, and an extensive integration list. It’s built for large teams that need to control complex asset workflows, but all those features come at a price—Brandfolder typically costs upwards of $1,600 per month, which are usually overkill for growing, more agile brands.

Learn more about Brandfolder and its alternatives. 

[fs-toc-omit] 4. Bynder: for global organisations

Bynder is another long-established DAM solution aimed at enterprise-level businesses. It offers brand portals, creative workflows, and global distribution tools for managing digital content across multiple teams and regions. It’s good for big companies with complex approval processes, but the interface can be overwhelming if you’re a smaller team just looking to organise and share assets quickly.

Read up on Bynder pricing and digital asset management alternatives.

[fs-toc-omit] 5. Canto: for mid-sized businesses

Canto is a popular DAM for mid-market brands, offering a mix of features including AI tagging, branding tools, and collaboration options. Some users report finding the interface clunky, but it’s a solid middle-ground solution if you need more functionality than a basic tool but don’t want to go full-enterprise. Pricing starts at around $600 per month, which can be a stretch for smaller teams. 

Discover more about Canto for digital asset management.

[fs-toc-omit] 6. Frontify: for brand management

Frontify is more of a brand management platform than a traditional DAM. It’s ideal for brand managers looking to build interactive guidelines and manage templates in one place. It does offer some DAM functionality, but the asset management tools can feel secondary to its core focus. If your main priority is deploying content to ecommerce channels, and you want your whole business to find value in your DAM, you’ll most likely be limited by Frontify.

Find some great Frontify alternatives for your brand. 

4 brands using Dash as their DAM tool

 Wondering how other companies are using DAM? What better way to show you than with our very own clients! Here’s a look at some Dash customers. ✨

COAT uses Dash to generate marketing ideas quickly  

Luxury paint brand, COAT, uses Dash to plan their marketing campaigns. With Dash’s search feature, Abi, COAT’s Brand Manager, is able to spark new ideas in a few clicks. 

“The searchability in Dash has been a game changer for us. It’s my favourite feature. It helps spark new ideas—especially since we have so much content, it’s easy to forget what’s available. Being able to dive into these little rabbit holes and discover things we didn’t even know we had is incredibly useful.”

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Haws use Dash to sell to their 100 + retailers 

Haws is one of the oldest watering can brands in the world. They have relationships with 100+ brick and mortar retailers globally. Each stockist has access to a Haw’s Dash portal where they can find and download a mix of product images, lifestyle photos and marketing content which are updated in real-time. Here’s what a reseller sees when they open up a Haws portal. 

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Josh, the Purchasing Manager says this is the best way to set their partners up for success: 

“Some of our partners don’t have the budget to spend on beautiful lifestyle images or product photography. By providing that for them, we help them on their journey to sell more Haws. And it’s a win for us, because the more of our products they sell, the more they’ll buy from us.”

Beavertown use Dash to improve their creative workflows 

Beavertown is one of the UK’s leading independent breweries. Before Dash, they relied on Dropbox to manage and deploy their unique illustration and design assets. There was no approval process, so it meant people were able to grab any asset (whether it has been approved or not 😬). 

Now, with Dash, Lily - the brand’s Senior Digital Creative - is able to use approval workflows to gatekeep their extensive asset library. She particularly loves the approval feature which means anything that’s uploaded needs to be given the go ahead by her first. 

“I really like this feature because it gives me visibility on what people are doing. If people want to upload stuff, it only takes me a few seconds to approve things. That also means that if one of the teams signs with an agency, they’re able to send them a link to a folder and everyone will know that all the assets in that folder have been approved first.”

Gozney use Dash to shorten their content pipeline

Gozney makes it easy to craft top-quality pizza in the comfort of your own home. Not only are their pizza ovens used in the world’s leading kitchens, they’re also found in gardens and patios across the globe.

The team has a solid content and social media strategy. They want customers to make the most of their products so they create cooking tutorials, how-tos and recipe videos. They use Dash to shorten the time it takes to get this content to the teams that need it. The faster they can do this, the quicker they can get content in front of customers. Here’s a look at how they organise their Dash homepage: 

Gozney’s Senior Content Creator,Przemyslaw, says: 

“It’s just a matter of creating the content, uploading it to Dash, and either distributing it internally (and most of our teams have their own Dash accounts so they’d have access to it instantly) or adding it to the portals for our external partners. We've significantly shortened the time we spend uploading and preparing the content for use.”

How to pick a DAM that’s right for you 

If you feel it’s time to purchase a DAM, you might want a little guidance around the types of solutions out there. Take a look at G2 and Capterra to get an idea of the types of features to expect, along with the various pricing models available. There’s loads of DAMs out there and it can get overwhelming, which is why we’ve compared some well-known DAMs for you. Take a look at our articles that explore the pros and cons of Bynder and Canto. 

Alternatively, take a look at our DAM comparison worksheet to help you compare features, pricing and onboarding processes. 

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We recommend filling out this worksheet as you do your research. Here are some things to consider:

Your budget

How big (or small) is your budget? Digital asset managers have a reputation for being expensive. Totally fine if you’re in a huge enterprise, but not so great if you’re in a bootstrapped growing DTC brand. If you’re worried about cost, be wary of DAMs who don’t have a transparent pricing page on their site and make you book a call with them to get information on costs. That’s often a red flag. Consider DAMs who make their pricing upfront and clear (like, ahem, us).

Getting started

How easy is it to get started? If you’re picking a DAM to save you time, you don’t want to be drawn into a lengthy and exhausting set-up process. Instead, look for DAMs that offer help moving your assets over from their old location. Check out Lea’s post on the four steps to migrating your assets to Dash which includes a free worksheet. 

Essential features

What features are essential? Sit down with your team and make a list of what features you’d consider essential, and what features are just ‘nice to have’. If you need to get buy-in from your senior manager, you don’t want to end up justifying the cost of an expensive DAM full of features you don’t need. Sitting down with your team also helps you get aligned and makes sure you’re finding a DAM that’s right for everybody.

Cancelling your DAM

How easy is it to cancel? Who knows where you’ll be in a year or two? If you need some flexibility, be wary of digital asset managers who lock you into lengthy contracts. With Dash, we’ll only need a month’s notice if you ever want to bid farewell.  

If you’re looking for digital asset management software that’s affordable and designed to suit the needs for your growing brand, you can’t go wrong with Dash. Pricing starts at £79/$109 a month. You’ll get all features as well as unlimited users right away. You’ll only pay more if you upload more assets or want to increase your download limit. 

Want to give it a try? Sign up for a free, 14-day trial below. We won’t ask you for credit card information yet and you can cancel at any time. ✨

Digital asset management FAQs

What does DAM stand for? 

DAM stands for digital asset management. It's software that gives your team one central, searchable home for digital files like product photos, videos, logos and marketing graphics. 

How does digital asset management work? 

A DAM works in five stages: you import your files (including from Drive or Dropbox), it tags and organises them so they're searchable, you set permissions and version control to manage access, your team shares and deploys assets to channels like Shopify and social, and you track how each asset performs.

What's the difference between a DAM and cloud storage like Dropbox or Google Drive?

 Cloud storage holds files; a DAM manages them. Tools like Dropbox and Google Drive rely on folders and file names, with no AI tagging, no content-based search and no brand controls. A DAM adds tagging, smart search, version control, permissions and portals for sharing with external partners. 

What's the difference between a DAM and a CMS?

 A DAM stores and organises your visual assets and a content management system (CMS) builds and runs your website or store. They do different jobs and work well together.You keep your master assets in the DAM and push the right ones into your CMS, like Shopify or WordPress, when you publish.

What's the difference between a DAM and a PIM? 

A PIM (product information management) system manages structured product data. That includes names, SKUs, descriptions, specs and pricing. A DAM manages your visual content. That includes product photos, video, logos and UGC. Use a PIM for a large product catalogue and a DAM for a searchable home for your visuals; some brands use both together.

What's the difference between DAM and MAM? 

Digital asset management (DAM) handles all types of creative content as a brand's single source of truth. Media asset management (MAM) is a specialised system for companies working with large audio and video files, with extra tools for video editing and the media lifecycle. Most brands need a DAM; MAM suits film, news and broadcast.

Is cloud DAM better than on-premise DAM? 

For most growing brands, yes. A cloud DAM is hosted and maintained by the provider, accessible from anywhere, updates automatically and costs less to run. On-premise DAM offers more control over customisation and security but needs your own servers and IT resource.

Is there a free DAM option? 

Some DAMs offer free trials or freemium plans, but they often lock the useful features behind a paywall. If you're serious about staying organised as you scale, a paid plan that fits your workflow is usually worth it. You can try Dash free for 14 days, then pick a plan from £79 / $109 per month.

How much does a DAM cost? 

It ranges widely. Enterprise DAMs are typically quote-based and can run from around $450 per month (Bynder) to $1,600+ (Brandfolder), with some far higher. Purpose-built ecommerce DAMs like Dash publish transparent pricing, starting at £79 / $109 per month with all features and unlimited users.

Who uses a DAM? 

Marketing and design teams tend to use a DAM most, but it's valuable across a business: sales teams share product catalogues, brand teams keep everyone on-brand, and PR teams get visuals to press quickly. In ecommerce and DTC brands, it's the shared home for all product and marketing content.