How to include video in email: 5 ways to start driving results
Many marketers wonder how to embed video in email campaigns. The answer is, you shouldn’t.
According to CanIEmail, an authority on email client format support, 85% of inbox providers don’t support embedded video. Why? Because major inbox providers like Gmail, Apple Mail, and Outlook tend to view embedded content—surveys, forms, videos, widgets, etc.—as a security threat.
This means your videos won’t autoplay within an email, nor will they play at all inside an email app. If you send emails with embedded video code, two things are likely to happen:
- The email client will strip out the embedded code, and your recipients won’t see the video when they open the email.
- Your email will end up in junk folders, and your overall deliverability will plummet.
This is why reliable marketing automation platforms, like Klaviyo, don’t support embedded videos in emails—because they know how important it is to preserve email deliverability.
You may not be able to embed video in your emails, but there are several ways you can make sure people see them. Here’s a step-by-step guide to making clicking on a video in an email a no-brainer for your subscribers.
1. Find the right platform to host your videos
When you’re looking for a place to upload your video files, consider 3 things:
If email is only a slice of a larger video strategy, YouTube is best for SEO and overall discoverability. That said, if you’re creating videos specifically for social channels like TikTok or Instagram, make sure the videos you use in emails link back to those channels (or any landing pages on which you’re hosting that content) so that you can measure engagement properly there.
If you want to use analytics to build or optimise a larger video strategy, choose a platform that will give you access to metrics on video views, watch time, average view duration, and audience retention. Remember, there are nuances here. Note, for example, that if you upload a video to YouTube and then need to swap it for another version, you lose the URL and all analytics for that video. With Vimeo, you can swap out the video and retain the original video URL with analytics.
If you want to customise your videos’ brand colours or password-protect videos for exclusive access, this is when you may want to consider Vimeo or Wistia over YouTube.
YouTube | Vimeo | Wistia | TikTok | ||
SEO/discoverability | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
Advanced analytics | ✅ | 💰 | 💰 | ❌ | ❌ |
Custom player colours | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
Password protection | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
Call-to-action buttons and cards |