ONTRAmail: Use Image for Video Links in Email

About Using an Image for Video Links

Applies to: All ONTRAPORT accounts.

Most email clients do not support embedding video into the email itself. The usual way of handling video content is to host the video an ONTRApage or your website and use an image that represents the video in the email. The image is linked to the ONTRApage and typically includes a "play" icon.

Several ONTRAmail templates have a video or image placeholder. Create an image to use for your video and link the image to your ONTRApage or website page with the video embedded.

Creating an Image with a Play Icon

You can use any image you like as the linked image. Using a free screen capture tool like Jing you can pause the video and capture a single frame and save it to disk. Or create a title slide in Powerpoint or Google Slides and use Jing to capture an image of it.

Use your image editing program to add a play icon with a transparent background such as this one. Make sure the icon is free for commercial use, or purchase one you can legally use.

In the ONTRAmail editor, open a template that has an image block you want to use. Edit the image and click the Change Image icon and upload your new image. Use the Link icon to link to the video on an ONTRApage or your website.

Using a Wistia Embed Link

Wistia is a video hosting service that provides embed code that will work in ONTRAmail with some modification. Under Video Actions choose Embed Code, then click on the Link in Email Campaign tab. Select None in the Email Provider drop down. Copy the Email Merge Tag code and paste it into a text file for modifying.

Your Wistia embed code will look something like this:

<a href="https://sendpepper.wistia.com/medias/kfc67dquxj?wtime=0"><img src="https://embed-ssl.wistia.com/deliveries/7afcff6d905f9aead26b09314350f2320de52c6a.jpg?image_crop_resized=500x280&image_play_button=true&image_play_button_size=2x&image_play_button_color=54bbffe0" alt="ONTRAPORT: Organize - Powerful CRM" width="250" height="140" /></a>

Extract two parts of the code:

Image URL: 

https://embed-ssl.wistia.com/deliveries/7afcff6d905f9aead26b09314350f2320de52c6a.jpg?image_crop_resized=500x280&image_play_button=true&image_play_button_size=2x&image_play_button_color=54bbffe0

Page Link: 

https://sendpepper.wistia.com/medias/kfc67dquxj?wtime=0

Choose an ONTRAmail template with an image the right size for your video title image from Wistia.

Edit the image in ONTRAmail following these steps:

1. Click the edit image icon (1) and click the Upload Image button.
2. Paste the image URL into the Enter URL box (2) and click Get File.
   
   
3. You are returned to the images library. Hover over the Wistia image and click Insert to load the Wistia image into the email.
4. Click the link icon (3) and enter the Wistia video page URL in the Enter URL box (4).
   
   
5. Click OKAY to save your options and save the ONTRAmail.

Embedding an Image for a YouTube Video

Using a screen capture tool like Jing capture and save the image of the YouTube video embedded on your ONTRApage or website.

In the ONTRAmail editor, open a template that has an image block you want to use. Edit the image and click the Change Image icon and upload your new image.

Use the Link icon to link to the video on an ONTRApage or your website. Or, use the link from YouTube if you want your customer to view it on your YouTube channel.

Articles in this section

• ONTRAmail
• Sending Emails
• ONTRAmail: Use Image for Video Links in Email
• Stop a Scheduled Email Broadcast
• Automatic Email Tracking
• Transactional Emails
• HTML Email
• Using IMAP Settings
• Scheduling Emails or Postcards for Birthdays and Holidays
• How to Properly Use Hyperlinks

See more