How to Add Vidyard Videos to HubSpot Emails [Tutorial]

For many years, having video in your marketing emails was just a dream. However, the dream has become more of a reality in recent years thanks to Vidyard.

According to Forbes, 90% of customers say video helps them make buying decisions and 64% of customers say that seeing a video makes them more likely to buy.

From using videos to addressing the most common questions about a product or service to building trust and putting your face and voice behind your message with a personalized video, there are many ways to use video in email.

Plus, merely mentioning the word "video" in an email subject line increased the click-through rate by 13%.

I try to use video as much as possible when sending emails, especially to members of IMPACT Elite. So, one of the most common questions I am asked is, “How do I put a Vidyard video into a HubSpot email?”

I always laugh a little because there are just so many possible answers.

The specific answer depends on what type of video you’re using (Vidyard, GoVideo, HubSpot Video by Vidyard) and the type of HubSpot email (marketing, sales, template) to which you’re adding it.

The process of adding a video uploaded to Vidyard to a HubSpot marketing email is completely different than the process to add a GoVideo to a sales email template.

Fortunately for you, however, I have mastered all of the ways to add all of the types of videos to emails using Vidyard and HubSpot.

No matter what you’re trying to accomplish with HubSpot and Vidyard, I’ve got you covered.

A Note on Embedding Videos in Emails

Embedded videos, AKA videos that actually play within an email, are NOT supported in most major email clients.

Most email providers will not display embedded videos properly or will mark them as spam.

What you’ll actually be doing in most cases is adding a thumbnail image or animated GIF thumbnail of your video and linking it to a page where it will actually play.

Sure, that sounds simple enough, but there are some things to know when using Vidyard and HubSpot that will make this even faster and easier for you.

Adding Videos to HubSpot Marketing Emails

First, let’s talk marketing emails.

Whether you’re creating an automated email or an email that will just be sent once, you’ll use the same process for adding videos.

The same goes for highly styled versus more plain email templates — the video piece works the same.

What really affects how you add videos to HubSpot marketing emails is where the video is coming from.

In this article/tutorial, I will walk you through how to add videos to HubSpot marketing emails using HubSpot Video, Vidyard paid, and Vidyard free.

If reading isn’t your jam, you can check out this video (how meta) tutorial:

(note: this video tutorial has not been updated to Vidyard's most recent product updates but the steps written below were updated in December of 2020.)

Adding Videos from HubSpot Video to Marketing Emails

Let’s start with adding videos to marketing emails using HubSpot Video.

HubSpot Video is a series of native video features available to HubSpot Pro and Enterprise customers which allows users to implement video at all stages of the customer journey all directly within HubSpot.

In my honest review of HubSpot Video, I talk about how HubSpot Video is not easily accessible in email yet.

Knowing this, Vidyard recommends that you create a landing page and insert your video there using HubSpot Video and then link to it from a thumbnail in your email.

Once your video is on a landing page, take a screenshot of the video with the play button showing. Insert this thumbnail into your marketing email and link it to the landing page with your video added via HubSpot Video. It will look like this:

Video thumbnail added to a HubSpot marketing email.

Adding Videos from Vidyard's Free Chrome Extension to Marketing Emails

This is a super easy way to add video to your marketing emails from the free version of Vidyard. 

You might recognize this method from my Elite update emails which look like this:

Elite update email with an animated thumbnail and link added.

To create an animated thumbnail for your GoVideo video, click on “thumbnail” at the lower left corner of your video and choose the animated option.

Animating a thumbnail in Vidyard.

Once you have your animated thumbnail I recommend downloading a free tool called GIPHY Capture. Use this to capture your animated thumbnail which you can use as a linked image in your email.

Some people would tell you to inspect the webpage and download the GIF from Vidyard but you won't get the play button that way. Using the limited embed code shares is also not great because it doesn't play nicely with HubSpot and you're limited to 5 embeds. 

Here's a video walkthrough on how to do it:

Adding Videos from Vidyard to Marketing Emails

If you’re lucky enough to be a paid user of Vidyard, you have a ready-to-go option available for adding videos to HubSpot marketing emails.

Before we jump into how to do that, let’s take a minute to make sure you’ve animated your video’s thumbnail.

While this is not required by any means, it definitely catches people’s eye and makes it more interesting in the email.

Creating an Animated Thumbnail in Vidyard

If you want to animate the thumbnail of a video you’ve uploaded to Vidyard, you need to navigate to the video itself (not the player) and set the thumbnail.

This means you’ll want to go into your player and find the video you want to use. Click on “edit” and then “thumbnails.”

Editing a video thumbnail in Vidyard.

There are three options on this page.

You’ll want the middle one: capture GIF.

Once you choose this option, you’ll see a slider at the bottom of your video. Drag the slider to capture the selection you want for your thumbnail and then click “add to library” in the lower right corner.

Capture GIF option in Vidyard video thumbnail editing section.

Once you do this, it will render an animated GIF that will be listed first in your library below the video. Select this one so the space under “current” has your animated clip.

Next, choose “back” to get back to your player and click on “thumbnail” from the top row.

Select the animated clip from the options on the left and de-select any static image thumbnails so you only have your animated clip selected.

Then you’re ready to go!

Animating a thumbnail for a video uploaded to Vidyard. 

Adding a Vidyard Video to a HubSpot Marketing Email

Now that you have your thumbnail, navigate to your video in Vidyard and click on the “share” option. You'll see it in purple in the upper right corner.

Once you click "share" you'll see these options pop up. Click on "embed video."

After choosing "embed video" you'll be brought to this final set of options where you can choose the tab for "email campaign." Make sure it's linking where you want and then click the "copy code" button at the bottom. 

Once you’ve copied this code, navigate to your HubSpot marketing email. If you're using the classic editor, type something about your video so you’ll be able to find your place in the source code. 

Then, click into the source code and find where you added your text.

Place your cursor after this and paste the code you copied. This will insert the video into your source code. Click save to return to your email.

From here, you’ll be able to edit the thumbnail with the in-email options just as you would an image.

If you're using a drag and drop email, you'll add an HTML box to your template. 

Here’s a quick walkthrough of how to do this:

*Quick Pro Tip for Tracking Video Views*

If you don't have integration between HubSpot and Vidyard set up, you can still identify viewers and associate video view data with an email address.

Plus, even if you do have data integration set up, some anonymous views can slip through the cracks.

By adding an email query string and a mail merge tag to the email campaign code that you copied from Vidyard you can associate video data with a known email address every time.

The merge tag acts as a placeholder, allowing your marketing automation platform, CRM, or email distribution tool to populate the tag with the email address of the recipients on your contact list.

The proper query string for HubSpot users to add to linked Vidyard videos.

It’s really easy to add this extra tracking safety net to your video URL.

For users of HubSpot, make sure there is a question mark at the end of your video URL and then add this after it: vyemail=

I recommend adding this into the URL of your video thumbnail as well as anywhere else where you link to your video with anchor text.

Adding Video to HubSpot Sales Emails

Much like with marketing emails, you have a lot of options when adding videos to sales emails in HubSpot, however, the process by which you add a video depends on the type of email you’re creating and where your video lives.

I will walk you through how to add videos from HubSpot Video, GoVideo (paid and free), and Vidyard to HubSpot sales emails in templates and sequences as well as on the contact record.

But first...

Adding Videos to Sales Emails on the Contact Record

Before we get started, let’s look at adding a video to an email on a contact record in HubSpot. When we think of sending an email, we typically think of being in the marketing email section of HubSpot or in our inboxes, be it Gmail or Outlook.

However, sometimes you'll want to send an email right from a contact record in HubSpot.

No matter where your video lives, this is really simple. When you’re in a contact record, all you have to do is click the little video icon in the bottom toolbar and choose the video you want to add.

Here’s a video tutorial of how to do this:

The options available to you here depend on if you’re using HubSpot video; free or paid GoVideo, or Vidyard’s full suite of video tools.

However, inserting a video works the same regardless of which plan you have.  

Adding Videos from HubSpot Video to Sales Emails

From this point on, when I say “sales emails” I am referencing email templates in HubSpot which can be saved and sent via the contact record, inserted into Gmail, or sent via a HubSpot sequence.

This does not include 1:1 emails created on the contact record, which I covered above.

If you want to add a video from HubSpot Video to a sales email template, you’ll need to follow the process for adding HubSpot Video to a marketing email.

First, you’ll need to create a landing page and insert your video on the landing page using HubSpot Video.

Once your video is on a landing page, take a screenshot of the video with the play button showing. Then, insert this thumbnail into your sales email and link it to the landing page with your video added via HubSpot Video.

Adding Videos from GoVideo to Sales Emails

If you’re looking to add a video to a sales email that was created using GoVideo (free or paid), it’s not quite as simple as with a marketing email.

In a marketing email, you can simply copy and paste the link and thumbnail from GoVideo. However, in a sales email it will end up looking like this:

Videos from GoVideo pasted into a sales email in HubSpot will paste incorrectly.

To solve this, you’ll need to link a thumbnail image to your GoVideo sharing page URL instead.

You can simply add a static image thumbnail (preferably a screenshot showing the play button) that recipients can click to open your video.

To link this thumbnail image choose the “copy link” option from your GoVideo page instead of the “copy link and thumbnail” option. This way you get a clean and simple URL.

Don’t forget to add that query string and mail merge tag to associate video data with a known email address every time.

If you want to go beyond simply adding a still image for your thumbnail, you can create an animated GIF file by grabbing a screen recording of your video in GoVideo.

Here is a video tutorial on how to do this:

How to Easily Create Animated Thumbnail Images

Still image thumbnails will not catch the attention of your reader the way an animated thumbnail will. Plus, creating an animated thumbnail is super easy.

I used to use a tool called GIPHY Capture for this.

Once you download and install the tool, you can open up the video you want to create a thumbnail for and set the video to play with an animated thumbnail. Then, use GIPHY Capture to record the animated thumbnail and save the file. Gif files are quite large so I recommend saving with a low frame rate and 480px. 

Adding Videos from Vidyard to Sales Emails

Last but certainly not least is how to add videos from a paid (starter, plus, or enterprise) Vidyard account to a sales email in HubSpot.

Fortunately, this is really quick and easy.

Find the video you want to use in Vidyard and click on share to get to your share options. Once again, copy the code from the email campaign option and go back to your email template.

Place your cursor where you want the video to go and then paste!

You’ll have a perfectly formatted thumbnail which will link out to your video.

Here’s a video tutorial on how to do this:

So Many Options for Videos in Email, So Little Time?

Luckily, as you can see, adding videos to your emails in HubSpot is quick and easy.

Now that you have six different options for adding Vidyard videos to HubSpot emails, you are ready to tackle any video + email situation that might arise.

Did I miss one? Be sure to let me know in IMPACT Elite and I will add it to this article right away!

If you're looking for inspiration on using video in email, I recommend checking out these four ways to use video in your email marketing and these five ways to use personalized video in your sales process. I'm also a fan of these four ways to differentiate yourself using video in your sales process.