How doTERRA turned content chaos into global success for 350,000+ advocates

Katie Morgan, doTERRA’s Digital Asset Management Program Owner, has heard plenty of feedback about the resources independent wellness advocates — the company’s distributors — rely on. But the conversations that stick with her most are when they share how much time Canto has saved them.”I’ve had people crying, giving me hugs,” Katie recalls. “‘They tell me, ‘This saves me hundreds of hours. Now I can spend more time with my family.”

These moments reflect the company’s massive transformation from scattered content workflows to a streamlined global platform, empowering over 350,000 advocates across 171 countries. Along the way, two pivotal moments made it clear that teams needed a more reliable, scalable system for managing and distributing content.

The challenge: Two breaking points, one core problem

Although the pain points surfaced years apart, they stemmed from the same underlying gap in how content was organized and accessed.

The 2019 external challenge: No content, no control

doTERRA’s wellness advocates were essentially flying blind when it came to marketing materials — often taking their own product photos or saving low-quality website images. “I would’ve actually lost my mind if I were an advocate,” Katie shares. “Taking pictures of all these products just to post on social media would’ve been so frustrating.”

This lack of centralized content led to serious brand inconsistency and extra work, putting the burden on advocates to create materials from scratch and internal teams to field constant requests.

The 2024 internal challenge: The wrong platform

While the external rollout of Canto in 2019 brought relief for advocates, internal teams still relied on a separate DAM vendor whose promised features never materialized.

“There were issues that made it harder for everybody,” Katie explains. In contrast, wellness advocates were praising Canto for its ease of use and fast search capabilities. The gap between a clunky system and Canto’s user-friendly platform made going all-in an easy choice.

The solution: A scalable, advocate-first approach with Canto

Katie’s phased rollout of Canto reflects both a deep understanding of their business model and a responsiveness to global user needs.

Strategic phased implementation

Since 2019, Katie and her team have used Canto Portals to support wellness advocates, expanding into a global system of 9 internal and 9 external market-specific portals.

Each market has dedicated folders linked to external portals for real-time updates, serving as curated libraries embedded directly into doTERRA’s website and product pages. Built for self-service, trained teams can upload and manage assets independently without constant gatekeeping.

By 2024, all internal teams migrated to Canto, creating one unified source of truth.

Smart organizational structure

Katie’s team designed the structure of their Canto library to scale as they grew with intentional structure and thoughtful governance. Assets are organized by market and campaign, with a consistent naming system that includes type, campaign, format, and version. Each team manages its own assets within clearly defined user permissions, minimizing risk while empowering independence.

To make content easy to find, the team combines structured metadata with AI Visual Search. Users can filter by options like category, region, or language, or search visually with natural language prompts. For example, they can pull up Spanish-language educational materials for Latin America, or instantly find lifestyle photos of families sitting at a dinner table.

Katie also reimagined Canto’s Style Guides as campaign hubs, linking how-to resources, images, and templates in one place. “I don’t even know if I’m using style guides the ‘right’ way,” she laughs, “but I made them work for what we need.”

The impact: Time saved, costs reduced, lives changed

doTERRA’s systematic approach has delivered results that go far beyond typical DAM success metrics.

15x faster access, 2M+ downloads

Katie says, “With Canto, finding assets is at least 15x faster — we’ve gone from waiting weeks to having what we need in minutes.” Where requests once took 1 to 2 weeks, teams now get instant access, eliminating bottlenecks and keeping projects moving.

With nearly half a million users worldwide and over 2 million downloads, adoption accelerates each quarter. “Even in the last six months, usage has jumped,” Katie says. “We’re always reminding people: ‘It’s already there for you.’”

Canto has also eliminated advocates’ reliance on expensive third-party tools while providing professional-quality assets they couldn’t create themselves, freeing up valuable time for high-impact work.

Brand consistency at scale

With Style Guides and approved assets built in, everyone accesses the most up-to-date, on-brand content — reducing off-brand usage and simplifying version control. Katie’s creative repurposing of Style Guides into campaign hubs has transformed launches from scattered asset hunts into organized experiences.

Global growth without complexity

Each region has its own tailored space within Canto, enabling frictionless expansion into new markets. A phased training program for 40+ global power users maintains quality: they first learn naming and metadata standards, then gain upload permissions, giving markets control while maintaining scalable governance.

Looking forward: Integration and expansion

The team isn’t resting on their success. Right now, they’re focused on implementing a CMS integration for web asset management and expanding access to creative tools. The design team already leverages Canto’s Adobe Creative Cloud Connector, and plans are underway to implement SSO, which will enable advocates to access Canto’s Canva integration.

Additional market expansions are also underway, and the team is confident that the system can support both localized content and compliance considerations.

The bottom line

The company’s digital transformation proves that DAM success isn’t just about technology — it’s about understanding your users, building sustainable processes, and never losing sight of the human impact. As Katie puts it: “It validates my job every time someone says, ‘This changed my life.’ They’re grateful, they’re succeeding, and they’re finally able to focus on their families.”

From scattered assets to global empowerment, Katie used Canto to create a system that balances scalability with structure, proving that the right DAM can become the foundation for global success. The advocates’ genuine gratitude shows that when technology is deployed to truly serve people’s needs, the results go far beyond operational efficiency gains; they create meaningful improvements in daily work and life.