An Underutilized MarTech Power Pairing: Why Brands Should Use a DXP and DAM Together

As part of Solutions Review’s Contributed Content Series—a collection of articles written by industry thought leaders in maturing software categories—Jeff Olsen, the Head of Product at Image Relay, explains why brands should consider using DXP and DAM solutions together.

With ever-more-picky (er, ‘discerning’) customers, brands are under ever more pressure to deliver content and experiences that turn heads, spur engagement, and foster loyalty. For most marketers, digital experience platforms (DXPs) and digital asset management (DAM) solutions have been part of the modern martech equation to achieve those goals and stave off competitors. But more purposely pairing DXP and DAM capabilities together is still a vastly underutilized strategy. It shouldn’t be. 

Here’s what to know and how to plan a ‘better together’ synergy between DXPs and DAMs. 

A Quick Primer

A DXP is a sophisticated suite of tools designed to generate, manage, and optimize digital interactions across various touchpoints. It helps brands deliver personalized, seamless experiences to their customers regardless of the channel those customers choose to engage with the brand. On the other hand, DAM is a centralized hub for storing, organizing, and retrieving a brand’s digital assets. Deployed effectively, a DAM strategy enables efficient and consistent content use across teams and projects.

Why Bring Them Together? 

The connection between your DXP and DAM becomes apparent when you consider the complexities of the modern digital landscape. Customers now interact with businesses across myriad channels, from email to TikTok, and consistent and current messaging and branding are more important than ever.

This is where the DXP-DAM duo shines. DAM acts as the engine that fuels a DXP with the exact content it needs, exactly when it needs it. It ensures that all of a brand’s digital assets—images, documents, audio files, or videos—are readily available, up-to-date, and optimized for distribution. Put another way: by pairing a DXP with a DAM, marketing teams can streamline the creation and delivery of personalized, multichannel experiences that accurately represent their brand and resonate more cleanly with their target audience. 

Consolidating digital assets also means that teams can quickly find the exact content they need, reducing the time spent searching (or asking others) for assets and ensuring brand consistency across all channels. In short, there are almost immediate time and cost savings to a DXP-DAM pairing. 

Additionally (and as most marketers are aware), the analytical capabilities of a DXP can provide valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences. But when combined with a DAM’s ability to manage, update, and optimize content, these insights can empower brands to fine-tune their digital experiences in near real-time, adding to customer engagement and satisfaction.

The Pair in Action

Take an example of a retailer that runs both e-commerce and brick-and-motor operations. They need to be ready to provide a seamless, personalized experience to their customers regardless of engagement channel. They’ve used a DXP to create, manage, and deliver content across their website, mobile app, and social channels. They’ve also used a DAM to store, organize, and manage their product images, branding materials, and video content for ad campaigns. 

However, the retailer has struggled to ensure consistency across different channels, struggled to adapt to fast-moving product trends, and worked to meet customer demand for personalized experiences. By turning to a DXP and DAM integration, the retailer can create a single, unified source of truth for all digital content and directly map that to (personalized) digital experiences. The DAM can feed its DXP so that every customer touchpoint has the content to make those experiences shine. 

Moreover, pairing the two enables the retailer to (confidently) become more agile and responsive. DXP-generated analytics support the marketing team in monitoring user behavior across channels, who can then quickly deliver assets (product images, promotional materials, etc.) via the DAM as part of campaign rollouts through the DXP. This responsiveness meets customers’ expectations and capitalizes on emerging trends—providing a competitive edge. 

Lastly, the personalization capabilities of the DXP, now fueled by the DAM, better enable the retailer to offer personalized experiences at scale. For instance, they can tailor the product recommendations, promotional messages, and content each customer sees based on their past purchases, browsing history, and preferences—with those digital assets ready to go. This faster personalization helps the retailer increase customer engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty. 

What to Watch Out For 

While the benefits of this martech strategy are now clear, successfully integrating a DXP with a DAM does require careful planning and execution. Brands and their marketing teams must ensure that their DAM can seamlessly connect with the DXP for content transfer and synchronization. Having clearly defined workflows and user roles is crucial to manage and utilize digital assets across both platforms effectively. 

Moreover, just as no two brands are the same, no two DXPs or DAMs are identical. Teams must carefully evaluate potential deployment strategies here—considering scalability, integration capabilities, and user-friendliness—to find the best combination. 

Embracing the DXP-DAM duo may also necessitate a cultural shift within some brands. Teams need to break down silos and collaborate effectively to leverage the full potential of these integrated systems. In this case, that likely involves IT, sales, and other departments. 

A Competitive Martech Edge There for the Taking 

Bringing together a DXP and a DAM is more than just a technological decision; it’s a strategic move that can significantly enhance a brand’s digital prowess. By providing seamless content creation, management, and delivery workflow, this duo can help brands navigate the increasingly complex digital landscape, consistently deliver exceptional customer experiences, and, ultimately, drive sales and repeat business.