I think it comes down to your priorities of the individual email/video. The argument for hosting it on a landing page outside of the email is mainly for insight into metrics. The argument for embedding a video in email is more to enhance the experience of the email for the user.
If you have an audience who are largely on Apple Mail/iOS (where most of video is supported), I would definitely test video in email. I believe the biggest problem is that most aren't innovating or testing enough to find out. We're currently testing out embedding videos in our monthly newsletters here at Litmus right now to find out similar metrics ourselves.
That being said, I firmly believe not many have really innovated with email in video. I think there's a lot left to be explored in designing emails specifically around the experience of video, sharing the video directly from within email, etc. I think we'll have to see better support from certain clients before this becomes more well adopted, unfortunately.
Update: Here's a writeup I did of using HTML5 video background in email - was a fun experiment and turned out to be a really successful email for us.
Their chart is correct, but note a crucial distinction there, though, between Outlook.com (a webmail client; formerly Hotmail), Outlook for Mac and Outlook (PCs). They are all very different email platforms.
The webmail Outlook.com will indeed render HTML5 video. Outlook, the desktop client for PCs, will not.
I would avoid it unless you're absolutely sure the majority of your subscriber base will be able to view it. I guess, if it's important, make sure there's a clickable image backup.
I would avoid it for one reason. Android. You're pretty much limited to IOS, and if you have a fallback image/link to the video you're good. But, I've found that Android will try and play the video, but I can't ever get it to play, so the result is that you don't see the video, and you don't get the fallback image so the user can click to watch the video on a landing page, YouTube, download it, etc.
It's interesting to reflect on this article 3 years on with the advent of HTML5 and the stance taken by IOs. The net result is that it is now possible to reach 95% of recipients with native video playing on opening of the mail, the 5% which cannot be reached are Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016 for Windows users. On the point of how much video to include within the email, here at Playable we have found a 10 second snippet to be the optimum duration, taking into account recipients attention spans, bandwidths, connection types and devices. These snippets are delivering some significant response uplifts when tested vs the screenshot alternative, with click rates lifting by between 30 and 300% (the lower range being where the video is part of a newsletter and the upper end of the range being where we are sending the video solus). In an attempt to bring us all up to date on how to embed video in email we have published a how to article here: https://playable.video/blog/guide-to-video-email-marketing/ from where you can also send yourself a sample campaign.... as we say seeing is believing.
I would be nervous about embedding videos directly in emails due to the fact it creates a dead-end as stated in the article and requires a separate CTA which is not great for user experience.
I tried using animated Gifs for video links in a recent email. There is decent support (not Outlook of course) across email clients and they provide a short preview of the video content behind the link. They also retain the benefits highlighted in the article around SEO and click through traffic to the website. The fact they are eye-catching also helped drive increased click throughs to our training videos and had good fit with the subject matter.
I think it comes down to your priorities of the individual email/video. The argument for hosting it on a landing page outside of the email is mainly for insight into metrics. The argument for embedding a video in email is more to enhance the experience of the email for the user.
If you have an audience who are largely on Apple Mail/iOS (where most of video is supported), I would definitely test video in email. I believe the biggest problem is that most aren't innovating or testing enough to find out. We're currently testing out embedding videos in our monthly newsletters here at Litmus right now to find out similar metrics ourselves.
That being said, I firmly believe not many have really innovated with email in video. I think there's a lot left to be explored in designing emails specifically around the experience of video, sharing the video directly from within email, etc. I think we'll have to see better support from certain clients before this becomes more well adopted, unfortunately.
Update: Here's a writeup I did of using HTML5 video background in email - was a fun experiment and turned out to be a really successful email for us.
What do you think of Video Email by Live Clicker?
http://www.videoemail.com/supported-mail-clients/
They say that they can get video and sound to play in 61.4% of email clients - including Outlook. Does anyone know if this is confirmed?
Thanks!
VW
Their chart is correct, but note a crucial distinction there, though, between Outlook.com (a webmail client; formerly Hotmail), Outlook for Mac and Outlook (PCs). They are all very different email platforms.
The webmail Outlook.com will indeed render HTML5 video. Outlook, the desktop client for PCs, will not.
Here's a full guide to the differences between those 3 iterations of Outlook: https://litmus.com/blog/a-guide-to-rendering-differences-in-microsoft-outlook-clients
Hope that helps!
I would avoid it unless you're absolutely sure the majority of your subscriber base will be able to view it. I guess, if it's important, make sure there's a clickable image backup.
I would avoid it for one reason. Android. You're pretty much limited to IOS, and if you have a fallback image/link to the video you're good. But, I've found that Android will try and play the video, but I can't ever get it to play, so the result is that you don't see the video, and you don't get the fallback image so the user can click to watch the video on a landing page, YouTube, download it, etc.
Really well written and made solid arguments why you should drive them back to your site rather than delivering the content in the email client.
It's interesting to reflect on this article 3 years on with the advent of HTML5 and the stance taken by IOs. The net result is that it is now possible to reach 95% of recipients with native video playing on opening of the mail, the 5% which cannot be reached are Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016 for Windows users. On the point of how much video to include within the email, here at Playable we have found a 10 second snippet to be the optimum duration, taking into account recipients attention spans, bandwidths, connection types and devices. These snippets are delivering some significant response uplifts when tested vs the screenshot alternative, with click rates lifting by between 30 and 300% (the lower range being where the video is part of a newsletter and the upper end of the range being where we are sending the video solus). In an attempt to bring us all up to date on how to embed video in email we have published a how to article here: https://playable.video/blog/guide-to-video-email-marketing/ from where you can also send yourself a sample campaign.... as we say seeing is believing.
I would be nervous about embedding videos directly in emails due to the fact it creates a dead-end as stated in the article and requires a separate CTA which is not great for user experience.
I tried using animated Gifs for video links in a recent email. There is decent support (not Outlook of course) across email clients and they provide a short preview of the video content behind the link. They also retain the benefits highlighted in the article around SEO and click through traffic to the website. The fact they are eye-catching also helped drive increased click throughs to our training videos and had good fit with the subject matter.