When organisations start looking at Digital Asset Management (DAM), the conversation often goes straight to features.
Search. AI. Integrations. Video support.
Governance and metadata tend to come later — if they come up at all. Understanding how to choose a DAM in Australia means looking beyond features and focusing on how assets will be managed, approved, and reused in practice.
Governance and metadata are what determine whether a DAM actually works. They’re the difference between a system people trust and one they quietly avoid.
This article explains what DAM governance and metadata really mean, why they matter, and how to approach them in a practical, realistic way.
DAM governance is about rules, ownership, and accountability.
It defines:
In other words, governance answers the question:
“How do we manage digital assets safely, consistently, and at scale?”
Without governance, a DAM quickly becomes just another shared drive — only more expensive.
One of the biggest misconceptions about DAM is that it’s mainly a creative tool.
In reality, a large portion of DAM activity is administrative rather than creative:
That doesn’t mean DAM is bureaucratic. It means DAM supports the unseen work that allows content to be reused confidently.
Many organisations only realise this after launch, when they discover that unclear rules create friction and risk.
Governance becomes more important as:
More people create content
More teams reuse assets
More external partners get access
More content is published publicly
What works informally for a small team often breaks down at scale.
Without governance:
People don’t know which version is approved
Assets are reused outside their licence
Old content stays live longer than it should
Trust in the DAM erodes
Governance isn’t about control for its own sake. It’s about reducing uncertainty. As organisations grow, governance stops being implicit and needs to be designed intentionally — a theme we expand on in our 2026 DAM selection guide.
Before selecting or configuring a DAM, it helps to be clear on a few core questions:
Who owns the DAM day to day?
Who is responsible for metadata standards?
Who approves assets before they’re published?
Can external agencies upload or download content?
How are rights, consent, and expiry managed?
What happens when someone leaves the organisation?
When should assets be archived or deleted?
You don’t need perfect answers upfront, but you do need shared agreement.
If governance defines the rules, metadata is how those rules are applied.
Metadata is the structured information that describes an asset:
In a DAM, metadata is what makes assets:
Without metadata, even the best DAM search struggles.
Metadata often gets reduced to “tags”, but that undersells its role.
Good DAM metadata usually includes a mix of:
The goal isn’t to tag everything exhaustively. It’s to capture just enough structure to support how people actually work.
Metadata is hardest to fix after launch.
If metadata is inconsistent from the start:
That’s why metadata design should happen before large volumes of content are uploaded.
It’s also why metadata decisions shouldn’t sit with one person alone. The best metadata models balance:
AI is now part of most DAM conversations, especially around:
AI can be genuinely useful, but it’s not a shortcut around metadata.
In practice:
When metadata is poorly designed, AI tends to surface the problem faster rather than solve it.
A realistic approach is to treat AI as an assistant, not a replacement for governance or metadata planning.
In sectors like local government, education, health, and not-for-profit, governance and metadata carry extra weight.
There may be requirements around:
In these environments, DAM is often as much about risk management as efficiency.
Clear metadata and governance rules make it easier to:
You don’t need a 50-page policy document to get started.
Some practical steps that work well:
Governance should evolve with the organisation, not be frozen at launch.
Well-designed governance actually makes DAM easier to use.
When users:
They’re far more likely to adopt the system.
Poor governance, on the other hand, pushes people back to desktops, shared drives, and personal folders.
When evaluating DAM platforms, it’s worth asking:
Features matter — but governance and metadata determine whether those features deliver value.
This article focuses on governance and metadata because they’re often underestimated during DAM selection.
If you’re currently evaluating DAM, or planning to in the near future, our 2026 DAM selection guide goes deeper into:
It’s designed to help teams make confident decisions before procurement begins.