So you’ve rolled out a new digital asset management (DAM) system and you’ve finally got all your files in one place. But somehow, your team is still spending hours looking for what they need.
Chances are, the problem is not the DAM software, but the metadata management strategy—or lack thereof.
Without a clear DAM taxonomy, a growing digital library gets out of hand faster than you can say, “launch deadline.”
So, if you’ve recently integrated an asset management system in your business—or been using one for some time with only limited success—your next step should be mastering your DAM metadata.
This expert guide will help you do just that. And to add even more value, we we’ve gathered insights from leading metadata professionals: Yonah Levenson, metadata and taxonomy strategist and co-founder of the Rutgers DAM Certificate Program, and David Riecks, founder of ControlledVocabulary.com and lead of the IPTC Photo Metadata Working Group.
Let’s dive in.
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Metadata: Buzzword or An Unsung Hero of Your DAM Workflow?
Implementing metadata management can be a game-changer for your business. A well-considered digital asset management taxonomy saves time and money, improves collaboration and compliance, and simplifies decision-making.
If you’re still not convinced you need to spend time and energy developing a DAM metadata strategy, consider these questions:
- ⚠️ How much time do you waste looking for assets you know exist somewhere in your DAM?
- ⚠️ Do you frequently need to spend money recreating assets because no one can find the original?
- ⚠️ Do you often reuse assets across different campaigns, platforms, or clients?
- ⚠️ Do you have any licensing, usage restrictions, or expiration dates tied to assets?
- ⚠️ If a key team member left tomorrow, would others still be able to find and understand the assets?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, read on to find out how a strong metadata management strategy could benefit your business.
But first, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page about this important concept.
What IS Metadata? Let’s Break It Down
Metadata simply refers to all the information that describes your files.
It provides details and context, and explains where an asset fits into the larger structure of your DAM, making it simple to navigate through the system. This means you can more easily search for, use, and manage your digital assets—which makes them infinitely more valuable.
Metadata Types
DAM metadata can include a range of details about an asset. Some of the most common types of metadata include:
| Type | Definition | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Descriptive | Explains what the asset is. | • Title: Spring Campaign Banner 2025 • Description: Banner for spring marketing campaign, intended for web and social media • Tags: spring, marketing, flowers |
| Technical | Describes the file’s technical details. | • Format: JPG, PDF, MP4 • Size: 500KB, 120MB • Resolution: 72 PPI, 300 DPI |
| Administrative | Covers ownership and permissions. | • Creation Date: 5 August 2025 • Author: John Smith • Version: Draft v1, v2 or final |
💡 Pro Tip: You can also add specialized metadata like copyrights information, workflow status, reviewers, or approval dates to make your files more searchable. Find out more in our article.
Key Metadata Management Benefits That Make a Real Difference
Now that you’ve got that foundation, let’s focus on the upside: the practical advantages your team can expect once metadata management becomes part of your everyday DAM workflow:
1. Make Your Assets Instantly Searchable
When all your digital assets are logically organized and correctly classified, you can quickly and easily search for and retrieve them—in seconds, not hours.
In real terms, that means your designer no longer needs to scroll through 600 photos to find “a 3D rendering created by Anne Crystals in 2019” because it’s properly tagged and can be called up with just a few keystrokes. This saves time and frustration, and frees up your team to focus on higher-impact work.
2. Stop Duplicating What Already Exists
When everyone knows where to find the original, you don’t end up with multiple versions of the same thing cluttering up your storage. You also don’t need to waste time or money recreating that slide deck or brochure you know is somewhere on your system.
Instead, you can effortlessly access your assets and then move right along to income-generating activities, like pitching to your next client, launching a new product, or fine-tuning your plan for an event.
Even if you do end up with duplicated files, some DAM systems like Daminion allow you to quickly detect and remove them.
3. Establish Consistency Across Teams
Without standardized metadata, every department invents its own system, or worse, has none at all. We spoke to Yonah Levenson, a metadata and taxonomy thought leader, to find out her take on metadata management. From her extensive experience across media and entertainment, publishing, advertising, and ID registry, she explained it best:
“Sometimes I describe metadata management as “herding cats,” as each team is likely “managing” their “own” metadata and taxonomies in their own silo”.
Yonah Levenson
Metadata and taxonomy thought leader and strategy consultant.
This silo effect can create chaos and confusion between different areas of the business, for example:
- ⚠️ Inconsistent keywords (should I search for “Product Shot” or “Product Image,” “2025 Marketing Campaign” or “2025 Q1_Spring Launch”?)
- ⚠️ Unclear data formats (is 06.10.2024 referring to June 10th or October 6th?)
- ⚠️ Erratic taxonomies (should I save this photo under Client > Event name > Year or Events > Year > Clients?)
- ⚠️ Ambiguous categories (what’s the difference between “internal”, “confidential”, and “restricted”?)
Establishing a consistent approach — and sharing that with every department — saves a whole lot of time (and by extension, money).
4. Less Rework, More Reuse—and a Higher ROI
With well-tagged assets, you can get the most from your digital library by reusing files again and again. This reduces production cycles because you can build on what you’ve already spent time and energy creating, rather than starting from scratch each time.
For example, a product video clip from last quarter’s launch can be quickly repurposed for a social media post or internal presentation—because it’s properly tagged by campaign name, content, and usage rights. Your team knows it’s approved for use and can trust it’s the final, edited version.
Clearly labelled assets also allow for stronger content governance, which protects brand reputation and ensures you don’t find yourself on the wrong side of copyright or licensing law.
Building an Efficient Metadata Strategy: The Basics
A DAM metadata strategy is a comprehensive plan that clearly outlines how your organization will consistently organize and manage metadata to ensure your digital assets are discoverable, usable, and compliant.
Let’s take a look at some essential elements you need to consider to define it:
1. Understand the Lifecycle of Your Assets
Consider what each stage of an asset lifecycle looks like. For example:
- Where does it come from? Is it created within your business or imported from an external source?
- How is it used? What tools is it used with? Is it only used internally, or do external stakeholders also need access? Is version control an issue?
- Where does it end up? At what point does it become outdated? Is it then deleted or archived to keep your DAM clean and uncluttered?
2. Define What Information Matters
Consider which details your team needs to find and use assets. For example, they might need to know the project name, the date the asset was created or approved, who features in a photo or video, the predominant colors in an image, usage rights, etc. This information should flow through into the DAM taxonomy and metadata fields you set up.
When defining these details, think beyond the basics. As David Riecks, experienced photographer, IPTC Photo Metadata Working Group lead, and founder of ControlledVocabulary.com, advises:
“Description for this block. Use this space for describing your block. Any text will do. Description for this block. You can use this space for describing your block.”
David Riecks
Leading expert on photo metadata and founder of ControlledVocabulary.com.
3. Keep your Terms Consistent
Create a clear naming convention that is always followed by everyone. This can include using standard naming conventions for files to ensure consistency across platforms or departments, e.g., a structure like [ProjectName]_[AssetType]_[Version].[Extension]. It also means creating a shared (controlled) vocabulary, so everyone uses the same words for the same things, because even small differences can affect long-term searchability.
Metadata expert Yonah Levenson explains it this way:
“Using ‘gray’ instead of ‘grey’ might not seem like a big deal—until someone tries to find that file and comes up empty. Small inconsistencies add up…”
Yonah Levenson
Metadata and taxonomy thought leader and strategy consultant.
4. Assign Clear Roles and Responsibilities
To maintain the integrity of your data, it’s a good idea to control who can do what in your DAM. Most DAMs allow you to set up roles and permissions so that only certain people have access. Decide who will manage your controlled vocabulary, who can add, edit, or review your metadata, and who can only view it (and what they can view). Access requirements might also vary across departments or business units.
💡 Pro Tip: To ensure it stays relevant and useful, audit and update your metadata regularly based on user feedback, business needs, and changes in industry standards. When you do this, make sure you also update your team on any changes.
Choosing DAM Software That Handles Metadata Right
When you’re searching for the right DAM for your business, it’s important to consider the quality of the metadata features offered.
Your DAM should support digital asset management metadata and controlled vocabularies, and also allow for AI tagging to automate workflow. This increases efficiency and enhances consistency. It conserves resources too, which can then be more effectively allocated elsewhere.
As David Riecks points out:
Description for this block. Use this space for describing your block. Any text will do. Description for this block. You can use this space for describing your block.
David Riecks
Leading expert on photo metadata and founder of ControlledVocabulary.com.
Also, make sure that the features offered fit your team’s needs. Many providers have fairly generic features that might not work for you.
For example:
- Some DAM vendors fail to offer a seamless integration with Adobe Lightroom, which has a different hierarchical tag structure.
- Some smart metadata features, like facial recognition, are limited to cloud solutions, which can compromise data security.
You’re looking for a secure DAM that can do as much as possible for you, so you don’t have to waste time doing it manually.
One provider that ticks all the DAM metadata boxes—and offers a robust on-prem version for local teams—is Daminion.
Why Daminion Is the Smart Choice for Metadata-First Teams
Daminion is the go-to choice for metadata-savvy teams across industries, providing an optimized and efficient metadata management workflow.
These are just some of the many ways Daminion can support your metadata management strategy.
1. Keep Everyone Aligned with Controlled Vocabulary
Daminion offers a reliable and standardized search tool that includes synonym support. This allows you to set up your own customized list of synonyms so your DAM can find what you’re looking for, even if you use a variation on a term.
For example, if you set up “plan,” “blueprint,” and “layout” as synonyms, or “advertisement,” “commercial,” and “promo,” the system will find the file you need, no matter which of those terms you type in.
2. Tailor Your Metadata with Custom Tags
In line with metadata management best practices, Daminion provides a wide range of predefined tags—but doesn’t stop there. We also make it easy to create your own custom tags, tailored to your specific industry or department.
For example, for a production company, you might set up tags like “In progress,” “Approved for brochure,” or “Internal use only.”
3. Save Time with AI-Powered Auto-Tagging
Daminion’s auto-tagging feature does it all for you. When you’re working with large numbers of digital assets, this saves your team huge amounts of time and frees them up to focus on other things.
For example, the system can tag colors, faces, locations, image sizes, file type, video length, frequently viewed assets, files uploaded by a particular person, and so much more.
4. Organize Smarter with Hierarchical Tagging
When you have a large library of assets, it’s critical to know exactly where to find what you need. Daminion allows you to create logical, nested categories that make browsing intuitive.
For example, if you’re looking for photos of the leadership team from a client’s event last year to use as publicity for this year’s event, you might navigate through folders like this:
Client events > Client name > Year > Event name > Photos
5. Manage Growing Libraries with Bulk Metadata Tools
This feature is ideal when you need to apply or edit DAM metadata for hundreds or thousands of DAM digital assets.
For example, say a face in a series of photographs has been incorrectly tagged and needs to be corrected across all of them. Or perhaps you need to update client names across a whole range of assets or archive a particular group of files that is now outdated. Daminion’s batch tools allow you to do them all at once—no endless manual clicking required.
6. Continuous Metadata Management Support
The Daminion team also offers hands-on support to help you develop DAM metadata guidelines that support library management. For example:
- Personalized Onboarding Workshop: As part of the onboarding process, you’ll receive support with technical planning and DAM taxonomy, tailored to your industry and use case, at no extra cost.
- Migration Support: Our team helps develop a plan of action depending on whether you’re migrating from another DAM system, importing existing tags from a document (usually an Excel spreadsheet), or using existing metadata from files, e.g., EXIF, IPTC.
- Ongoing Library Management Support: Even after onboarding, the Daminion team provides ongoing support and client-specific training sessions. You’ll continue to receive recommendations for governance and metadata management best practices to keep your DAM efficient over time.
Conclusion: Metadata Strategy Matters
To ensure the long-term longevity of your digital assets, it’s essential to manage your metadata according to a well-defined DAM metadata strategy. This will save your business time and money, make collaboration a breeze, and ensure you’re always on top of critical information like licenses and usage rights.
For a smart and intuitive tool to help you do this, look no further than Daminion. You’ll get a digital asset management solution that offers you speed, privacy, and a choice of local or cloud versions, plus all the DAM metadata features your business could need.
To find out more, schedule a free call with our experts today. Your team (and your bottom line) will thank you.
Discover How Daminion Can Work for You
Get a free walkthrough of the features
that matter most to your team.
