Email servers typically are not fond of video and many servers tend to block videos that have been embedded in the content of a mailing. In addition to the dip in overall delivery rates because of this, embedding video in your email makes it nearly impossible to track who has watched it. To address this, we created the Video block as an easy way to share video content in your email campaigns. It does not embed the actual video in the email campaign but rather links to it in a smart way.
This article is for the Video block found in the new drag and drop editor. For information about the legacy* Video block, please refer to this article.
How to use the Video block
- Navigate to your Campaigns tab.
- Open a saved drag and drop draft or click on the Create new campaign button to create a new campaign from scratch.
- Click on the Video block in the right panel and drag it to the desired location in your mailing.
- Click on the block to open the Content properties panel.
- In the URL field, enter the link to the desired YouTube or Vimeo video.
- Adjust the Title and play button settings, as desired.
You can still include links to videos that aren’t hosted on YouTube or Vimeo in your mailings, but you won’t use the Video block to do so. Instead, you would need to upload the video file to your document library and then link to it in your mailing. For more information about the file types accepted by the document library, please refer to this article.
Video settings
It’s important to note that, although Vimeo videos can be set to unlisted, as long as the embed settings are set to embed “anywhere”, the video can still be added to the Video block. However, if the video’s embed settings are instead set to “nowhere”, you will not be able to add it to the Video block. Some settings are only available to those with paid Vimeo accounts. For questions about your Vimeo account and video embed settings, please reach out to Vimeo.
Share settings | Embed settings | Works in the Video block? |
Public | Anywhere | Yes |
Unlisted | Anywhere | Yes |
Unlisted | Nowhere | No |
Password | N/A | No |
Hide from Vimeo | N/A | No |
Private | NA | No |
Thumbnail and play button
Thumbnail
The thumbnail that’s featured in the video block is generated from the information that YouTube and Vimeo send us. As a result, there isn’t a way to determine what the thumbnail should be without logging into the YouTube or Vimeo account that owns the video and selecting a different image from there.
However, if you’d like to use something different, you can add an image of your video by playing the video, taking a screenshot of the still image that you’d like to display, inserting that screenshot into your campaign as an image, and adding a link to the video behind that image.
Play button
You can customize the play button type, color, and size from the Content properties panel.
Content properties
Here are the Video block settings that are found in the Content properties panel.
Setting | Function / how to use |
URL | Controls the URL behind the video. |
Title | Controls the title of the link behind the video. |
Play icon type | Click on the dropdown to change the play button’s style. |
Play icon color | Click on the dropdown menu to switch between a light and dark play button. |
Play icon size | Click on the dropdown menu to choose a size for the play button. |
Block padding | Controls the amount of space around the whole block. Use the plus and minus signs to adjust the padding to your liking or click on the More options toggle to adjust the padding for each side individually. |
Hide on | Click on the desktop icon to hide the block on desktop devices. Click on the smartphone icon to hide the block on mobile devices. |
* In April 2022, our legacy editor was replaced with a new drag and drop editor. Accounts that existed prior to this change still have access to the legacy editor through their previously saved templates and campaigns, however new, from-scratch campaigns can only be created in the new drag and drop editor. Accounts that were created after this change only have access to the new drag and drop editor. Please refer to our new editor FAQ article for more information.