How email marketers are embedding video

Chart of the Day: How is video being embedded into email marketing?

Email has limitations in what can be displayed correctly in email clients. But none more so than video playback.

The safest route would be a static image, meaning that a static image would display for all clients. But as this chart shows, this has become rather old school, as only 2% use this method. A staggering 52% of the clients use fullscreen or inline video embedding. Animation (.gif animation), accounts for 46% of the total of sends.

Before we all suddenly start to add inline video, there are a few points we need to remember:

• Fullscreen interaction only works correctly for iOS
• Inline only works on Apple Mail, Outlook for Mac and Outlook.com (non-preview)
• Gif animation doesn't work for Outlook 2007-2013 and Windows Phone 7

Email clients vary in how they accept videos playing in your inbox. So it comes down to your client base and their email client. Rolling out a major email design change can alter your deliverability and how your client engages with you. If you send a video that they cannot see, it will be almost like you are excluding them. So remember test, test and test again.

• Source: Contextual Email is Changing the Inbox
• Sample Size: Data is based on 1.05 billion email opens among 2,500 email campaigns sent by Liveclicker clients
• Recommended Resource: Email Marketing Guide