4 Effective ways to embed video in email

In this day and age, you have the attention of a consumer for a few seconds with any marketing attempt. You want to grab that attention and convert them. Having a video in email helps get the message across faster.

What does the research say?

Wordstream research shows marketing campaigns that use videos in marketing emails grow revenue 49% faster than those which don’t. Also 88% of people say that they have been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand video and 73% say they would prefer to learn about a product by watching a short video rather than reading about it. Apart from the obvious deduction that embedding a video is engaging and entertaining, stats shown above are compelling reasons why someone would like to include video in email.

Real world scenarios – constraints and considerations:

That’s great, you will say. Let’s embed videos in most of our marketing emails. But should you? Let’s try to answer this question considering the audience that we are targeting, and the technology at our disposal. Also let’s go over some caveats and best practices.

As digital marketers, you are ultimately targeting a specific audience for the product or services being marketed. You should consider if a video in email makes sense for the target audience. For example, if you are targeting a young audience for jewelry or sporting goods or clothes, you are highly likely targeting someone who will open emails on their personal device, during their private time. They will be interested in looking and even listening to the video in email. However, if you are targeting a school system for marketing a curriculum or a hospital system for a UV disinfecting solution, the users are most likely opening emails in busy offices and may not like video and audio playing on its own. They might be more interested in basic information with links to further information. Having a video in email may cause more harm than good in such situations. So, it is a good idea to consider your audience before deciding to embed videos in emails.

Next, let us take a look at the technical challenges.

Staggered approach with graceful degradation:

Even though it is true that an embedded video has more support now within an email than what it used to in the past, it still does not have universal support.

So, what should you do? The answer is: you have to plan for a series of fallbacks. It can go something like this:

• The best scenario is that embedded video plays in the email client.
• Otherwise, if supported, you want the user to see an animated GIF preview of the video.
• If that does not work, you want the email recipient to see a still thumbnail of the video and they can then click on it to watch the video online.
• In the worst case, if the system blocks all images and GIFs, you want the user to see a link with the anchor text “watch video” and click to watch the full video.

Directly playing video in email client:

This is generally achieved using HTML5’s support for <video> tag. This looks really impressive.

Source: https://unlayer.com/

However research shows that only a handful of clients support embedded videos in email.

Source: https://litmus.com

If the email opens in a client which does not support embedded videos, you will have to fall back using an animated GIF to show a preview of the video.

Using animated GIF in place of a video:

Using an animated GIF is a great middle ground between having video in email and just showing a static image. It shows some movement and grabs attention. Also embedding a GIF has much wider support than directly embedding a video.

Source: https://www.mailerlite.com

Thumbnail or static image with play button:

This low tech approach is very easy to implement and has much wider support. You have to create a thumbnail or a static image with an overlay of a “play” button. This will create an illusion of a video in email.

Source: https://pinpointe.com/

Upon clicking, you can direct the user to a video content site or your landing page with the embedded video.

Using anchor text / CTA:

As a last resort, if the email client does not support any videos or images, you can always show an anchor text with a “Click here to see video” message. This use case is only required for a highly restricted environments where most of the external contents are blocked.

As you can see implementing these series of fallbacks will allow you to handle failures gracefully, but it comes at a cost. The implementation becomes challenging and requires much more effort and you must factor in this level of effort.

Video in email considerations:

Size of embedded videos and GIFs: You definitely do not want users to wait longer (and lose interest) for video or GIFs to load. Research shows that it is advisable to keep embedded video size to less than 1 MB and GIFs to less than 250 KB for optimal experience.

Autoplay options: It is always advisable to give users control of playing the video and it is better to start videos muted or start with a music that gradually increases.

Video location: If possible, it is always advisable to link videos to a landing page rather than an external video hosting site. Apart from conversion, it helps with technical glitches which you can handle with more control.

Video length: More than half of the users normally spend 10 seconds or less per email glancing over content so embedding a video that takes more than a minute will most likely turn their attention away. It is better to keep videos less than 60 seconds to convey the main message.

Email subject line: It is a good idea to let users know that there is a video in email. What better way to do that than letting users know in the subject line? Adding word such as “media” or “video” can greatly enhance that messaging.

Test, test and more test: It is also advisable to test with as many different clients as possible to see videos show up, play well, and the alternatives work as planned.

Wrapping it up

To recap, you have to plan for a series of fallbacks while embedding video in email. Whether you choose to use HTML5, or an animated GIF, or link a video thumbnail to a hosted video, the power of video in an email will help with better engagement. If you have any more questions for embedding videos in emails or need assistance with your projects, contact us today!

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