How to embed Video in email using iContact and Playable

Playable is integrated with iContact making it simple, quick and easy to embed Video in your iContact emails

How to embed a video in an iContact email

In this tutorial you will learn how to create, configure and send a Video Email using iContact and Playable, that plays automatically, at the moment of opening the email.

Playable makes it quick and easy to embed video content within your iContact email campaigns, it’s designed for use by marketers with who want to evolve their email campaigns and enjoy significant uplifts in response and engagement.

This tutorial will walk you through the steps of embedding video in your iContact campaigns, by copying and pasting a small piece of HTML into your email template.

1. Create a new Message in iContact

Create a Message within iContact in the normal way. Once logged in select “Create Message” proceed to select your theme or a saved template. When selecting this it’s important to consider where you wish to position your video content within the template.

The video content can easily be added to your template in any position and at any size. Once you have selected your theme select “Start Editing“

2. Decide where to position your Video Content

Using the iContact Editor drag the “<> HTML” content block to the position in the template where you wish your video content to be featured.

We have selected to have our video content at the head of the email, so we have dragged the HTML content block into the template to sit under our headline.

3. Complete your Message set up

To complete your message set up add a Subject line and Internal Message Name.

By clicking on the “Enter HTML” content block which is now positioned in our template a blank pane appears, in the right hand column. This pane is where we will add our video content to the template.

We have now completed the 1st phase of our Message set up and we are going to move on to create our video content.

4. Create your video content

We are now ready to commence creating our Video content which will replace the image noted above in step 2.

If you are new to Playable you can create a new account. All new accounts are offered the opportunity to test drive the platform with 1,000 free plays per month.

Once you are logged in you will see our Welcome page, click “Videos” to continue.

5. Create your Video Content

To create your video clip, click the Add Video button at the head of the page.

6. Video Title and YouTube Video Upload

Enter a Video Title for the Video you are creating, this will help identify the Video later in Reporting.

Check the dimensions of your video, these should be set to ensure your video fits within your template, we are using the width of the template we selected which is 600, so we change this.

You have the option to disable looping, this will see the video play once and then stop on the endframe, we are opting to loop the video, so we don’t check the box.

You have 3 options on how to upload video content to playable, today we will be using option 1:

Copy and paste a URL of the location of your content – Playable accepts content from all the major hosting platforms including You Tube, Vimeo, Brightcove, Wista and Instagram.
File Upload – Upload a file from your computer – all video file formats are accepted including mp4, avi, mov and flv.
Live stream your video content – contact us if this is your preference.

Once you have selected your video click the “Apply” button to upload your video file.

7. Edit your YouTube Video

Your video is now ready for editing. Our editor is designed to enable you to create a 10 second video clip from the full-length YouTube video you uploaded. It is this 10 second video clip that will be published in your video email. In the editor you can crop the video to focus on your key content and select multiple clips to make up the 10 seconds.

As you are creating your video clip the editor will show you the duration of each section and allow you to preview the edit and re-edit until you are happy with your final cut. For a full preview of our editor features visit our Editor Page

To ensure your video fits perfectly into the allocated spot of your email template you can select the width and height that you’d like the final video to be published at. Once you have your final cut click “Continue”.

8. Enhance your Video Email

You are now ready to add any enhancements to your video clip including captions, a watermark, endcard or footer. Simply select the enhancements you wish to add and follow the onscreen prompts to add your chosen enhancements.

You now have completed creating your video clip so click the “Compile” button.

Playable now compiles this video email creating over a hundred versions of the video which will be used to ensure each recipient receives the video file most suitable for their device, bandwidth and connection.

9. Add a Click Action to your Video Clip

Click “Click Action” in the left hand navigation bar. As the video is playing within the recipients email you have the option to include a click action within the video.

This click action can either open a URL or continue to play the video and audio on the device, having selected the option you will then need to add the details to support this and finally click the “Apply” button.

10. Preview and sample your Video email content

Here you can sample your video clip including any enhancements you have added. Before you add your video clip to your the email template you can send a sample of the video to yourself and colleagues, to check all is looking good when it arrives in the inbox.

You can add a message at the head of these emails if you wish, this can be useful when you are circulating for internal feedback. Once you are happy with the sample click “Embed” in the left hand navigation bar.

11. Video Email has been created

Your video email has been successfully compiled so now it’s time to start thinking about embedding this video within your email template.

Select iContact as the email platform that you are using to send your campaign from the drop down options.

11. Copy the Playable HTML snippet

To embed your video clip into your iContact Template you will need to paste the Playable HTML into the iContact HTML content block which we placed in our template earlier.

To do this Click the “Copy to clipboard” button in the top right hand corner of the pane where the HTML code is shown.

12. Paste the Playable HTML into the iContact Template

Return to iContact where we earlier selected our template. Now paste the Playable HTML into the emplty pane in the right hand column of the page.

To preview our video content in the template we select “Preview Changes” We can now see our video content playing within our template.

13. Finalise our Video Email content

Our video content is now embedded in our email template within iContact. Having added the video content as a our new header content we delete the header image which included in the pre set template, by hovering over the image and selecting the trash can icon.

Once you are happy with your templates content select “Prepare to Send“

14. Test and Send your Video Email

To send your video email continue to test and send your campaign in the normal way.

Remember you have 1,000 Free plays included to help you test the video email, once these 1,000 plays have been used the video will be replaced by a static image until further plays have been purchased by visting our Pricing Page.