With video becoming a highly sought after internet currency, the questions around video and email are becoming more prevelant. How do I do it? What are best practices? Can I embed the video into my email directly?
Can you do it? Yes. Would I suggest it? No.
How would you even embed video in email?
HTML5 has added a <video> tag that allows advanced browsers to automatically recognize and play a video file without the use of a custom Flash, Quicktime, or WMV player resource. While there are some browsers that already support HTML5, email clients are another story!
Because email clients often use the HTML engines of browsers to render HTML emails there is an assumption that this video tag will allow you to embed your video directly into your emails allowing the enduser to view your video there. Think again! A study conducted by CampaignMonitor shows the real story.
In the image below you can take a look at the different email clients and which (1) actually allowed the different types of video files to be rendered:
I'm pretty sure that the number of red (X's) tells you right away to stay away from embedding video directly into email!
So how do you email your videos out?
There are three approaches to this that we have taken here at Cantaloupe. You can either embed a link to your video, a thumbnail from the video with a link included on the image, or an animated .gif that mimics the look of video in your email. With these methods the enduser would click on the image or link and would be directed back to your website where you have embedded your video.
There are multiple advantages to this approach. One, when the enduser is taken back to your website they are being surrounded by your brand and other call-to-actions. I realize that most email campaigns are heavily branded, but the amount of messaging and call-to-actions that can be included in an email do not equal that of your website.
Secondly, by bringing the enduser back to your website to view the video in your video content management system you are able to track the time of view and other interactions that the user may take on the video. If you are letting the user view the video directly in the email you would lose this tracking.
If you are not currently getting tracking on your video content find out how you can start using Cantaloupe's Backlight video management system.
What's the future?
I would say that in the next few years the ability to embed video directly into email will become more advanced, and once the email clients begin to allow this content to be rendered, there will quickly be solutions that allow you to track video within emails. Until then, your best bet is to use images and links.
Can you do it? Yes. Would I suggest it? No.
How would you even embed video in email?
HTML5 has added a <video> tag that allows advanced browsers to automatically recognize and play a video file without the use of a custom Flash, Quicktime, or WMV player resource. While there are some browsers that already support HTML5, email clients are another story!
Because email clients often use the HTML engines of browsers to render HTML emails there is an assumption that this video tag will allow you to embed your video directly into your emails allowing the enduser to view your video there. Think again! A study conducted by CampaignMonitor shows the real story.
In the image below you can take a look at the different email clients and which (1) actually allowed the different types of video files to be rendered:
*image created by CampaignMonitor
I'm pretty sure that the number of red (X's) tells you right away to stay away from embedding video directly into email!
So how do you email your videos out?
There are three approaches to this that we have taken here at Cantaloupe. You can either embed a link to your video, a thumbnail from the video with a link included on the image, or an animated .gif that mimics the look of video in your email. With these methods the enduser would click on the image or link and would be directed back to your website where you have embedded your video.
There are multiple advantages to this approach. One, when the enduser is taken back to your website they are being surrounded by your brand and other call-to-actions. I realize that most email campaigns are heavily branded, but the amount of messaging and call-to-actions that can be included in an email do not equal that of your website.
Secondly, by bringing the enduser back to your website to view the video in your video content management system you are able to track the time of view and other interactions that the user may take on the video. If you are letting the user view the video directly in the email you would lose this tracking.
If you are not currently getting tracking on your video content find out how you can start using Cantaloupe's Backlight video management system.
What's the future?
I would say that in the next few years the ability to embed video directly into email will become more advanced, and once the email clients begin to allow this content to be rendered, there will quickly be solutions that allow you to track video within emails. Until then, your best bet is to use images and links.
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