The Wistia team ran a series of A/B tests and found that a thumbnail that resembles a video (play button and all) performs better than a pure video screenshot. Start with a screenshot, then use a graphic creation tool like Snappa or Canva to overlay text and build out your thumbnail.Īdd a play button image. There are tons of ways to create a compelling video thumbnail, but here are the quick and dirty best practices. This thumbnail acts as a play button that email recipients can click to play your video. Step 1: Create an impactful thumbnail imageįirst, you need to create a thumbnail for your video. You get all of the benefits of embedded video without any of the drawbacks. This relieves deliverability issues because links usually don’t trigger spam filters. Instead, it is embedded as a clickable link. The image+link method works because your video doesn’t get sent as part of your email. This simple solution gives you the benefits of video without the email deliverability issues. Here’s the good news: there is a way to embed video in your emails without getting penalized by email service providers.
How to embed video in email the right way This could cause video to hurt your email marketing performance more than it helps.
This means there is a chance the embedded videos in your email will get flagged as spam and never reach your inboxes.Īlso, if your video is embedded incorrectly, there is a chance it won’t play at all. Unfortunately, most major email providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo don’t support embedded video.
That strategy won’t get your video nearly as much attention as it deserves. Otherwise, your video ends up looking like any other text with a clickable link.
It’s best to embed your promo video directly into your email. But it’s not all sunshine and virtual roses.