The dynamics of e-commerce are evolving. According to Forrester, global retail e-commerce sales are projected to increase from $4.4 trillion to $6.8 trillion by 2028. This highlights the urgent need to enhance the digital shopping experience, enabling buyers to move quickly with minimal friction.
Organizations can achieve this by leveraging the capabilities of Digital Asset Management (DAM) and Product Information Management (PIM) systems. Integrating DAM and PIM centralizes all technical product data, marketing content, and digital assets into a single platform. This streamlines the process for launching and optimizing successful omnichannel campaigns.
Acquia DAM, formerly known as Widen, is a digital asset management solution designed to efficiently store, manage, and distribute digital content. It serves as a central repository for an organization's digital assets, including photos, videos, graphics, PDFs, and templates.
Acquia DAM significantly improves how businesses organize, distribute, collaborate on, and securely store their digital files. A few key features of the platform include:
[The DAM system] is the backbone of our marketing apparatus. It’s where we store all of our assets - photos, videos, brochures, logos - and how we serve them up.
DJ Lein | American Woodmark/Timberlake Cabinetry
Acquia DAM functions as a central control center, allowing approved users to upload media files, which are then tagged with metadata for easy searching and retrieval. Security features control access to assets, ensuring only authorized users can download or share content.
Automated workflows, AI-powered auto-tagging, and robust analytics enhance functionality, making it easier to transform and reuse content while maintaining control over brand consistency and digital rights management.
Hootsuite faced significant challenges in managing their brand and marketing content due to the absence of a central repository, resulting in inefficiencies and inconsistent brand messaging. Their teams struggled to locate approved files quickly, as content was scattered across Google Drive, hard drives, and flash drives.
Recognizing the need for robust permissions and self-serve access to eliminate workflow bottlenecks, Hootsuite implemented Acquia DAM into their existing systems.
With Acquia DAM, Hootsuite organized their creative content in a single location, streamlined access through Portals, and enabled easy retrieval of brand assets. Administrative controls allowed them to adjust permissions and manage assets efficiently.
Over the past year, Hootsuite saw remarkable results, including 287,933 asset views on their blog, 14,239 downloads from the brand portal, and 575,758 embed views. Acquia DAM enabled Hootsuite to maintain brand consistency, improve creative agility, enhance collaboration across global teams, and utilize data insights for better decision-making.
It’s (Acquia DAM) just a great platform. I enjoy using it, and people have taken the system that we’ve created and used it to make something beautiful and on-brand, and I think that’s one of the best measures of success of this system.
Curtis Foreman | Hootsuite’s Senior Editor
Product Information Management (PIM) involves collecting, managing, and distributing all necessary product information from a central location.
Acquia PIM centralizes this information, ensuring consistency across channels. It helps protect and improve the quality of product information, making it easily accessible and searchable for internal and external collaborators, systems, and partners.
Acquia PIM comes with key features like:
Acquia PIM streamlines internal processes to deliver accurate and high-quality product information. It collects data associated with a product, organizes it into a master profile, and allows designated users to import and enrich product data with marketing copy and digital assets.
The system also facilitates collaboration on product workflows and ensures updated product information is transmitted to e-commerce partners, print publishers, and other channels. Using taxonomies, PIM software structures product information, making it efficient to find and update data within the system and customize exports for various platforms.
PRADCO Outdoor Brands, a division of EBSCO Industries, faced significant challenges in managing their extensive content across product lines. With over 5,000 SKUs, the company struggled with inefficient workflows due to a lack of centralized storage for product data and marketing copy.
Previously, PRADCO relied on siloed spreadsheets and disjointed storage tools, which led to time-consuming processes and inaccuracies. The implementation of Acquia DAM (Widen) and Acquia PIM transformed their approach by consolidating all digital assets, product data, and marketing copy into a single, accessible system.
This integration streamlined content management, improved speed, and ensured accuracy across teams. The adoption of Acquia PIM has significantly enhanced PRADCO’s ability to manage diverse product attributes and tailor content for specific channels.
The integration has also enhanced the quality and coordination of PRADCO's digital content, ensuring exceptional customer experiences.
With Acquia DAM and Acquia PIM, everything just got a lot faster. Self-serve access to content has brought agility and speed to workflows, enabling us to focus more on strategic work rather than manual tasks.
Martin Hill | PRADCO’s Director of Digital Sales
Expanding Acquia DAM's capabilities with Acquia PIM enhances the management of both digital assets and product information, providing a comprehensive solution for e-commerce teams. By integrating DAM and PIM, organizations can create, manage, and distribute digital assets and product data more effectively, leading to:
Integrating Acquia DAM with Acquia PIM can be approached in primarily three ways.
Organizations often prefer using separate but integrated systems for Digital Asset Management (DAM) and Product Information Management (PIM), leveraging the unique strengths of each. This approach maintains flexibility and allows teams to use specialized tools tailored to their needs.
For example, Sargento Foods, a leading cheese producer, integrates Acquia DAM with Salsify, a popular PIM tool. In this setup, Acquia DAM is used to manage and store digital assets such as images and videos, while Salsify handles product information and e-commerce content.
The integration is achieved through APIs that synchronize data between the two systems. Completed assets in Acquia DAM are automatically pushed to Salsify, where they are enriched with product details for various e-commerce platforms. This ensures that all product content is consistent and up-to-date across channels.
A combined solution, such as Acquia’s integrated DAM and PIM, offers a unified platform for managing both digital assets and product information. This approach simplifies workflows, making it easier to coordinate creative processes and enrich product data with assets in a single system.
For example, PRADCO Outdoor Brands utilizes Acquia’s integrated DAM and PIM to manage their extensive product catalog. With over 5,000 SKUs, the combined system provides a central location for storing and organizing product data and creative assets. This unified approach streamlines product hierarchies, ensures consistency across different distribution channels, and simplifies the management of marketing and e-commerce content.
In a hybrid approach, Acquia DAM serves as the master repository for all product content, while specialized third-party PIM tools handle specific needs related to commerce and distribution. This method allows businesses to centralize product assets and leverage additional PIM functionalities for detailed product information management.
For example, McCormick, a global leader in spices, uses Acquia DAM to manage a comprehensive view of their product content. Acquia DAM is integrated with their PIM system to facilitate the seamless transition of product data and assets. This hybrid approach allows McCormick to maintain a central repository of digital assets in Acquia DAM while using their PIM system to manage detailed product attributes and e-commerce requirements.
By choosing the appropriate integration approach, organizations can enhance their ability to manage and distribute digital content and product information effectively, leading to improved operational efficiency and better alignment across teams.
Selecting the right Acquia DAM and PIM integration approach for your digital experience platform relies on understanding your organization's specific needs and existing workflows.
A best-of-breed integration, where Acquia DAM and a separate PIM tool work together via APIs, is ideal for organizations seeking specialized functionalities in each system. This method offers flexibility and allows for tailored solutions that can address complex requirements, such as those seen with Sargento Foods, where DAM and PIM systems handle distinct aspects of content management and ecommerce.
On the other hand, a combined DAM and PIM approach, where Acquia’s integrated solution serves both functions, simplifies management by centralizing digital assets and product information in one platform. This unified system can streamline processes and enhance data consistency.
Alternatively, a hybrid approach can be effective for organizations that require both centralized asset management and specialized PIM features. By integrating Acquia DAM with a third-party PIM system, such as McCormick & Company’s setup, businesses can benefit from comprehensive asset management while addressing specific ecommerce and product data needs.
Each approach offers unique advantages, and the choice should be guided by your organization’s operational requirements and long-term goals.
Axelerant led a digital transformation for a global manufacturer of composite decking and cladding products. The client, known for their blend of British craftsmanship and cutting-edge innovation, faced challenges in managing multiple domains and delivering a consistent user experience across regions.
Axelerant and their partner Bernadette developed a Composable Digital Experience Platform (DXP) leveraging Drupal, HubSpot, and Acquia’s suite of tools, including DAM and PIM. The solution integrated Acquia DAM for efficient digital asset management and Acquia PIM to centralize product information.
This allowed the client's teams to quickly access approved photos, videos, and creative assets, significantly reducing time spent on file requests. The revamped website, with improved navigation and language detection features, provided a seamless and personalized user experience, boosting user satisfaction and conversion rates.
Have more questions about integrating Acquia DAM and PIM?
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