What’s The Deal With Video And Email?

There is no doubt that in 2017 we have some pretty powerful technology at our fingertips to send out email marketing messaging. From marketing automation like HighRoad Marketing Cloud and HubSpot, to user-friendly email marketing platforms like Adestra Message Focus, we get asked often why video and email are incompatible. While the platforms may support inputting a video file, it’s not always the best practice; and here’s why.

There is still no universal way an email will render from mobile to desktop, Safari to Edge, and Outlook poses especially challenging rendering risks and nuances. The code or javascript used to embed the video will often get stripped. Another reason, is to prevent the widespread distribution of viruses. It’s on that same token that a mass email cannot be sent with attachments.

You may have tested out an email campaign with a video file embedded and it may have looked fine in the editor, but that’s usually as far as it goes. Once you send out a test or run a Litmus test across all email providers, desktop, and mobile, it can quickly become evident that it is inconsistent. What renders may only be an empty square where the image should show; and here’s what to do.

Rather than risk having your video stripped out across various email clients and your contacts not getting the greatest experience, mimic sending video in the email instead. This allows a more full-proof, practitioner-proof way to include video without creating a bad experience (and possible opt-outs of your future communications).

1. Take a screenshot of your video playing in the video player.
   
   
2. Resize and edit the image inside an image editing tool such as Photoshop or Microsoft Paint. (An email standard is usually 600 pixels wide.) Optional: overlay a mock play button over the image.
   
   
3. Insert your edited video screenshot into your email editor and hyperlink the image graphic.

All platforms allow you to embed video, but the issue is each email client has different rules for what it strips out and how video would actually be supported and rendered. Since there are no email client standards as oppose to what exists in web browsers, the best practice is to not include embedded video; it is likely to be stripped out. The best practice is to embed an image that looks like your video and link to your video.

One last caveat, Gifs are often stripped away on Outlook and only the first frame of the gif will populate. So it can be expected that there will be some inconsistencies with using a gif file also. The best practice is to avoid sending either a video or gif file and use the workaround we outlined.

For other tips and best practices in email marketing, check out this blog on personalization.