Not all video emails are created equal. Many factors make one platform more effective than another, but audience engagement is most important.
For this reason, it is crucial to know what different video email platforms offer before making a choice.
There are the following questions you should ask a video email provider:
What Does the Platform Do to Ensure That the Actual Video File is Delivered?
The most common cause of an email not being opened is never delivered. If your video email or links are not getting through, your click-through rate will reduce. Video email providers should at least offer two methods for ensuring delivery internally and externally:
Internal Delivery: Video email providers should track whether emails have been opened and viewed by the recipients.
External Delivery: Video email providers should have the option to use third-party email delivery services, such as Google’s Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook. These services can better track emails than alternative free email providers because they are constantly updated with new rules and regulations regarding open tracking.
What Type of Tracking is Used?
Not all tracking is created equal. If a platform uses open-tracking, it means that the recipient needs to have the option checked for data to be sent back to the sender, meaning that only a subset of your contacts who have not disabled this feature on their email account will be tracked.
On the other hand, closed-tracking means that every recipient is tracked from the moment they open an email. You can use this data to find out the questions like how long your contacts viewed each section of your video, which part of your email marketing funnel they passed through, and what type of products or services they are most interested in.
What Type of Data Does the Platform Track?
All video email platforms should track at least these three types of information:
Video Analytics: What parts of your video do people watch? How long do they watch it for? How many skipped to the next part of your video email? Video engagement data can be used to proxy how much people are enjoying your content, which is useful when developing future campaigns.
Contact Analytics: Who viewed your video email? What is their geographical location? What type of device are they viewing it from – is it a mobile phone, tablet, desktop computer? If you have a funnel to track users through your website, ensure that it is integrated with your email provider so that the total time spent on different pages is automatically captured.
Link Analytics: Which links do people click during the video? How long are they there for? What activities do they undertake after clicking these links – where do they go next? Tracking the path your contacts take through your email, website, and beyond gives you valuable insights into their interests and behavior patterns.
Knowing who is viewing your video email is very useful if you want to retarget these contacts in the future, but you will need to know precisely their source and what they do when they are on your email.
This can be done by combining all of your video and email data and matching it with Google Analytics or Facebook Insights.
What Types of Reporting Does the Platform Offer?
According to reports, 48 percent of consumers want videos to reflect what they are interested in.
The reporting section of a video email platform is essential for measuring the success of your campaigns and preparing future strategies. The reports should offer insight into:
Campaign performance: You need to be able to see how many people have viewed your video, as well as how long they have watched it for and which sections they skipped to.
Contact behavior: Get detailed insight into your contacts’ behavior and how long they spend on each section of your video email.
If you are running a click-through campaign, what links do people click? How long do they spend on each page? Which social media channels are being used from within the video email?