Embedding video in your email campaigns

Submitted by Jen Brannstrom on Sat, 2009-10-31 14:42

Email marketer Anna Yeaman recently created a very successful email campaign for Dressed-Up.com. She created two similar emails and tested the response rate. One had moving image, one didn't. The results:

  1. 250% open-rate increase
  2. 26% increase in click-through-rate.

Video in email is, as yet, not really possible because of spam filters.

The only way you can include a moving image is by using a GIF image. This gets past the spam filters and is what Anna used in her successful email marketing campaign. It's not really video, but it's close enough. The recipinet gets ses a moving image and you have caught their attention. Now it's up to you to deliver a message compelling enough to get them to click through.

See which one you prefer : version A or version B?

 A/B animated gif test

A/B animated gif test

 

Another example is an email by American Apparel

 American Apparel animted video

american apparel gif  american apparel gif

 

Compatibility chart for email and embedded video

Email client

 Flash Quicktime Windows Media Animated GIF Java Applet Emb MPEG Emb Animated GIF

Desktop
AOL Desktop 10.1 No No No Yes No No Yes
Apple Mail Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes
Entourage 2008 No No No Yes No No Yes
Lotus Notes 6.5 No No No Yes Yes No Yes
Lotus Notes 7 No No No Yes Yes No Yes
Lotus Notes 8 No No No Yes No No Yes
Outlook 2003 No No No Yes No Yes Yes
Outlook 2007 No No No Yes No No Yes
Thunderbird No No No Yes No No Yes
Windows Mail No No No Yes No No Yes

Web-based email
AOL Web No No No Yes No No Yes
Gmail No No No Yes No No Yes
MobileMe No No No Yes No No No
Windows Live Hotmail No No No Yes No No Yes
Yahoo! Mail No No No Yes No No Yes

Mobile
BlackBerry Bold No No No Yes No No Yes
iPhone 2.2 No No No Yes No No Yes
Windows Mobile 5 No No No No No No No
Windows Mobile 6 No No No Yes No No Yes

Grid courtesy of Campaign Monitor.

HTML coding specifications for GIFs in email