Companies often struggle to organize and manage all their digital files and brand assets. Files become scattered across different tools, workspaces, and locations, and this gets even worse in distributed or multi-location businesses.
With AI disrupting many workflows and helping teams produce brand content quicker than ever, the headaches caused by disorganized digital assets will only grow. So businesses need tools and products to help manage and store their digital assets.
Finding and implementing the right tools can make a huge difference, eliminating digital clutter and chaos, and streamlining the process of storing, organizing, finding, and using brand materials. Two common tools are digital asset management (DAM) and content management systems (CMS). Here’s why you might need one, the other, or both to manage your company’s brand assets more effectively.
DAM vs CMS: What’s the actual difference?
A DAM and CMS are two different types of tools that help companies store, manage, and access their branded digital assets.
A DAM is a comprehensive solution to manage all your company’s brand assets. It’s used to organize, find, and share digital content such as images, videos, audio files, and other brand materials, in a single, centralized online location. It can be used by anyone in the company — from sales teams to product managers.
A CMS is primarily used to manage the assets on your website. It’s used to publish and update website content, and is used to manage all your text and website content. A CMS is most often used by web designers, developers, and marketing teams. It’s where you make changes and publish to the website, so companies typically don’t want everyone to have access.
The two tools are used for different purposes, but can also be used together to streamline asset creation and use across the business. For example, your designers create new product imagery to be used in the latest marketing campaigns — including on your website. These images get added to your DAM so the marketing team can use them as needed. Then your website manager uploads them from your DAM to your CMS and adds them to the relevant pages on your website.
Key features and use cases of a digital asset management system
DAM software is a commonly-used tool to help with comprehensive asset management. It allows companies to access and organize their digital content and creative assets. Here are some of the most important features of DAM software:
- Cloud-based, centralized platform to organize content in one place
- User-friendly interface for storing and managing brand assets — from product photos to sales enablement material
- Supports different file formats, from JPG to PDF
- Organize digital assets into libraries — for example, by department, file format, campaign, or product
- Enrich digital assets with tags or custom metadata
- Version control and change tracking for digital assets
- Locate media files using advanced search and filters
- Ability to resize or reformat media assets
- Integrations with other apps to create a connected ecosystem for finding and using brand content
- Customizable permissions for internal and external users to control who can access specific libraries or even individual assets
- Analytics to understand how the assets get used and how the different teams engage with the brand
Companies often use DAM platforms when they have a lot of digital assets to manage. For example, Bosch uses the Frontify DAM to store and organize more than 170,000 brand assets. DAM solutions are also helpful if companies have many people — in the company and externally, like agencies or other partners — who need access to those assets.
Here are some common use cases for DAM:
- Centralizing a large volume of digital assets: If you’ve got a lot of digital assets, it can be hard to keep track of them. Between 2022 and 2024, the number of assets stored on Frontify grew by a massive 458%. A DAM like Frontify provides a central repository for your assets and becomes the single source of truth for accessing your files.
- Managing a global and distributed organization: The average brand on Frontify is being accessed from 10.7 countries. A DAM helps everyone — no matter their location — access the right assets. For example, you can set user permissions so users in one location can access only brand assets relevant to their location or language.
- Tracking asset usage: Many DAMs offer analytics and usage data so you can track how employees are using different brand assets. This helps you understand the most valuable assets to your organization.
- Strengthening content governance and access control: If many internal team members and external partners — like investors, agencies, or freelancers — need to use your brand assets, a DAM makes it easy to give, change, and revoke access as needed.
Key features and use cases of a content management system
Companies use content management systems to manage the content on their websites. It helps them create and organize their web content and related assets. Here are some of the most important features of a CMS:
- Ability to upload, publish, and edit website content
- Templates or builders for web pages
- Media library to store videos, images, documents, and audio to use on your website
- Ability to stage content to test changes before publishing
- Version controls and backups for previous versions
- Basic analytics to monitor website performance
- Publishing or user permissions to control who can add or change content on your site
Companies use a CMS to manage their website. Here are some of the most common use cases for such a solution:
- Add and publish website content: You can use a CMS to publish web and blog content. This includes text, audio, video, and other visual content.
- Manage and organize visual assets on your website: Companies upload rich media assets to their CMS to publish on their website. They can then organize these assets into folders within the media library to make them easier to find.
- Make changes to your website: Companies use a CMS to update their website. This could include adding pages, updating product listings, or publishing blog posts.
DAM vs. CMS: When to use DAM, CMS, or both
As we’ve seen, a DAM and CMS are different tools with different use cases. Having one doesn’t mean you won’t benefit from using the other. In fact, they’re complimentary and often work well together as part of your wider tool stack.
When to use a DAM
A DAM is best for companies with large amounts of digital or branded assets that need a better way to produce, store, organize, and collaborate on that content. Here’s an overview of when you would use a digital asset management solution:
- Storing and organizing all your brand’s digital assets — not just content for your website
- Having complete control over access, editing, and approvals for brand assets
- Collaborating on creating and reviewing brand materials
- Rolling out a company rebrand and replacing outdated brand assets with new ones
- Organizing access to brand assets across multiple locations or for external and internal collaborators
- Managing content for multiple brands or companies
When to use a CMS
A CMS is best for managing your website content, especially if you only have a small amount of digital or branded content to go on the site. Here’s an overview of when to use a content management system:
- Managing the content on your company’s website, including uploading, editing, and publishing
- Organizing the visual assets for your website, such as product images, logos, and icons
- Enabling web developers, designers, and marketers to make changes to the website via an easy-to-use interface
When to use a DAM and CMS together
Many companies use DAM and CMS solutions as part of an integrated technology stack. Here are some examples of when you would integrate a DAM with a CMS to use them both together:
- Ensuring developers and designers have instant access to brand materials for the website — directly within the CMS
- Improving brand consistency across your website and all other digital content
- Searching and filtering for the right content to use on your website
- Streamlining the publishing process on your website, knowing all assets in your DAM are approved or finalized
- Repurposing brand content from multiple content channels onto your website
Why you likely need both: The benefits of integrating DAM and CMS
It can be hard to know if the best system for you is a DAM, a CMS, or both together. Start by asking yourself the following questions to find out which is the best option:
- How much content do I need to manage? For large volumes of content a DAM will be your best option. For small volumes of website content a CMS is a good choice.
- Where is my brand content being used? If you’re only managing website content a CMS will work fine. If you need to manage content for other channels, or to organize content for the whole organization, a DAM is your best option. If you need to manage content for multiple channels including your website, you’ll need a DAM and a CMS together.
- Who’s going to use it? If it’s just for your web developers, a CMS will be OK. But if lots of teams need to be able to create and use brand assets, a DAM may be a better choice, or you may need both tools.
- Do we also need a way to manage content reviews and approvals? In a DAM you can create streamlined workflows to manage the content creation, review, and publication process — something that’s not possible in a CMS.
- How fast is our company growing? As companies grow, content production accelerates. One of a DAM’s key benefits is its scalability — it’ll grow with your business and help you keep large volumes of assets organized.
If your company has a lot of digital content and you have a website to manage, using a DAM and a CMS together will likely be your best option. Integrating a DAM with a CMS offers two core benefits:
- It helps improve brand consistency across your website
- It makes it easy to get approved branded content onto your site without constantly switching between tools.
If you want to integrate a DAM and CMS, you’ll need to look into the integration options in your DAM solution. For example, the Frontify DAM integrates with many common CMS solutions, including WordPress, Contentful, Sitefinity, and Drupal. Your developers may also want to build custom integrations, but a purpose-built integration is an easy way to get started.
Frontify is the preferred DAM system of brands like Uber and Bosch
When you’re comparing different solutions, or trying to pick between a DAM and a CMS, focus on the big goals you’re working toward here. Consider the wider needs of the organization to choose the right system for your current and future needs.
While a CMS may be fine for your current needs, it’s unlikely to work for your business long-term. Don’t compromise or limit your team’s capabilities by trying to manage with just a CMS. Support your team and business with the right tools to scale your asset management, and add a DAM to your tech stack.
Frontify’s DAM helps companies like Bosch and Uber manage their brand and creative assets. Learn more about our DAM and how it integrates with many popular CMS platforms — perfect when you need both systems to best manage your brand.
