Is There a Workaround to Video in Email
Jul 06 2009
This past week I was on the road again and had the pleasure of watching Lisa Harmon present on some trends she follows in retail email marketing. Quite a few things stood out, but one was her idea of cheating the appearance of video in emails.
We are always reading about how we should try to use video in emails as often times testing it (when it works in the inbox) we see a lift in results/conversions. Everyone has tried it out there, but no one ever has a solution that works 100% of the time. Of email clients out there most of them hamper the delivery and viewing of a video in the inbox. We have seen some best practices of using the video with the play button overlaid as an action that pops the actual playing of the video in a browser window where it works. We have seen people trying to make it work by just sending it to domains/urls where they know it will work and placing another version of it in those they know it does not. But what was suggested on this panel was the use of an animated GIF. Now not quite video but it does a similar job. What she told us was that most inbox clients only allow 10 frames per second in a video in email, where to have true video you need at least 30 frames per second. So by using a simple animated (multi-layered) gif in the email they could simulate the experience of video in almost every email client.
Sure it was jumpy and not quite video, but it did do a good job of showing how a product can be featured in a near video experience in an email. But it is not video. I want to make sure that fact is clear. Now although it is a good idea to test, it might not deliver the exact effect that your subscribers are looking for. I might even suggest to test it and give them a link to see the full video on a landing page if they are interested. You can see it live here.
I am not sure that we will ever see true video work everywhere with email client, especially with Microsoft continuing to force Word as the email engine to display and edit emails, so we will all need to continue to try new ways if we believe that video serves a purpose in our email campaigns.
- Posted by Dylan Boyd
- @dtboyd
- at 8:15 AM
Published in Behavioral Marketing, Best Of Email, E-Mail Marketing, New Marketing Ideas, eMail Marketing Optimization
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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July 7th, 2009 at 8:04 am
There’s this resource:
http://stylecampaign.com/blog/?p=44
With regards to the video in the email above, they should’ve has ‘watch full-size’ button instead of ‘play’, as it is already playing. D’oh! :)
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Can animated .GIFs be turned into video? I think it depends on who you ask. It’s true, in most cases it’s not possible to support 30FPS or even the 23.5FPS for film quality, and lack of audio support is also a limitation that’s difficult to work around.
I’m personally on the fence on this issue, which might be surprising to some folks given that my company has developed technology that basically enables video inclusion in email based on a .GIF method (it is a bit more complicated than simply converting a video to .GIF format, btw). Readers can find out more on this topic here: http://video-commerce.org/2009/are-video-gifs-used-in-email-marketing-campaigns-really-video/
Like any type of creative treatment with email, there are good applications and probably applications that won’t work as well. Regardless, some marketers will adopt the method because, today, it’s the closest we have to ‘universal’ support of video in email. Just remember, there are still strings attached.
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:41 pm
True video email does exist and it’s called EyeMail. Eyemail is capable of sending a 30 second high quality video or audio, instantly playable in the inbox, with no attachments, no downloads, and no viruses.
This is good news, and news spreads fast.
September 9th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Because of spam and delivery restrictions sending videos directly in the email body is not effective. I’ve found that hyperlinking to the video is the only way to do it with success. I use CoVideo Systems http://www.covideo.com
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:46 am
solution is to serve link, embedding video into email will not work as ISP’s strip with out, in fact them strip out over 50% of html
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:34 am
There are two comments here that claim there is no way to embed video directly into an email body. Both of them are incorrect. It is possible, it’s just not common (yet).
October 5th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Ray – love to see them and actually reached out to your team a while back. Can you share some examples with us and let us test it?