How to Embed a Video in an Email

Video is a powerful way to connect to your audience, and is dominating traffic on the web. With your brand stepping into video advertising, it makes sense to include video in your email, doesn't it?  

Surprisingly, the answer is no.  The best strategy is to embed the video on your site and drive users to the site by linking a screenshot or teaser image to the video.  

Getting users to your site is preferred for several reasons:

1. Email clients treat hosted videos differently.  
   Problems include: video does not display, playback not supported, video is forced to open in browser, video is forced to open in a pop-up, video is forced to open in a separate app.  We do not know of any embedded format that works consistently across email clients.
   
   
   
   
2. There's no user tracking if they watch the video within your email.  You won't get a recorded click, and we won't get any information about which customers watched.
   
   
3. Your store isn't in an email, and it isn't on YouTube.  Getting users to your site puts them one step closer to a purchase.  If they're already on-site, it much easier for them to click over and start browsing products.  

If you would still like to embed a video into your email, use the Video block within the Drag and Drop Email Builder (see image below), an HTML block within the Drag and Drop Email Builder, or use a custom html template. 

Additional Resources:

How to embed a video in the HTML for an email