Should You Embed a Video into an Email?

MarketingSherpa released a new case study today about a web video email marketing campaign. As a web video marketer, I’m interested in anything that provides useful insight into how to conduct benefits web video marketing campaigns.

In the MarketingSherpa case study, about a web video marketing campaign done in the UK, an entertainment company saw a 50% increase in email conversions by launching an email campaign that contained an embedded video in the email. While video can definitely increase audience engagement, embedding a video directly into an email message is a dubious proposition. Let me explain.

Video content can definitely increase audience engagement. However, embedding a video directly into an email message is likely to cause the email to render poorly, or get blocked altogether. The fact is, the majority of email clients will block video from playing within an email, just like they block images. According to a recent survey by the Email Experience Council (eec), “more than 50% of images in promotional emails are routinely blocked by email and webmail programs.” That figure is likely much higher for video embedded into an email. Why is video blocked? Part of the reasons is that email clients do not want to deal with ramifications of porn playing in your email message. That could present a host of problems for the major email clients.

At FLIMP, we realized long ago that the best way to include video in email marketing is to quickly push email viewers to a flash microsite or landing page. How is that done? Just take a look at video email messages that you receive from YouTube. The recipient is sent a link with clear instructions on how to watch the video. We provide a very clear explanation to the email recipient, that they have received a video message. We can’t fully take credit for this – just look at how links render when they are delivered by one of your friends off the YouTube site.

What are your thoughts about delivering video in email?

Originally posted by Jenn on June 18th, 2008