How To Use Video in Email Marketing: Best Practices for 2026

Email is one of the most important channels in any marketing strategy, and there’s a lot you can do to unlock its full potential. If you’re ready to take your email marketing campaigns to the next level, consider incorporating a powerful tool: video.

Uniting video and email content can help reinforce your brand identity, get the attention of your target audience, boost email engagement, and more. Learn the basics of adding video content to your email marketing campaigns, including why it works, when to use it, and best practices to follow.

What does it mean to use video in email marketing?

Including video in an email marketing strategy means linking or embedding video directly into your emails. One way to do this is by adding an eye-catching thumbnail image that links to a landing page or video URL, often with a call-to-action (CTA) button or Play button graphic inviting the user to click through and watch. You can also add an embedded video that auto-plays within the email itself when opened, but not all email clients support this and will sometimes filter such emails as spam. 

Many different types of video content can fit into an email campaign—such as live-action advertisements, animated GIFs, professionally produced brand videos, and user-generated content (UGC). No matter your style, using video in email marketing campaigns can engage your target audience in a new way, helping boost your conversion rate.

Why use video in email marketing?

• Increase engagement
• Drive conversions
• Forge relationships with consumers
• Increase brand visibility
• Reinforce your brand identity

Video email marketing can deliver real results for your business. Here are several reasons to consider adding videos to your email marketing campaigns: 

Increase engagement

Dynamic emails are more engaging and immersive than text alone. Adding visual variety and offering subscribers different ways to consume your marketing content can get more eyes on your emails. In a 2023 case study by SuperOffice, a customer relationship management platform, simply using the word “video” in the email subject line increased open rates by 6%. 

According to the 2025 State of Video Report from the video marketing platform Wistia, how-to videos had the highest average engagement rate of any video category, with webinars, educational videos, and product videos also performing well. This data suggests that, if you’re looking for a place to start, customer education topics may be smart choices for your first videos.

Drive conversions

Once your potential customers open your message, they may also be more likely to buy something. A study by video technology platform JWP Connatix reported that three out of four survey respondents made at least one purchase after viewing a video ad in the previous year. 

Additionally, a late 2024 survey from video production company Wyzowl found that 93% of surveyed marketers felt video marketing produced a good return on investment (ROI) for their company, indicating video marketing can be a cost-effective strategy.

Forge relationships with consumers

A video can transmit more information than a static image—take advantage of this by creating videos that express your brand values or educate customers about topics integral to your mission. You can also create video content around the news and subjects your existing customers care about. Weave these videos into your email campaigns to engage customers and help strengthen their emotional connections to your brand. 

Whether you include a teaser for something new you’re working on, a behind-the-scenes video of your team, or a deeper dive into one of your specific offerings, an occasional video email is a way to elicit an emotional response and encourage an affinity for your brand. 

Increase brand visibility

Video is the most “shareable” form of online content, with 51% of people more likely to share video than any other type of content, including text-based emails. You can even leverage video to gather information: A 2025 Wistia report found that including an interactive form within a video, such as a field for entering an email address, achieved a conversion rate of roughly 24%.

Email can also be one of many channels in a larger video strategy designed to help you connect with different audience segments. For example, you can embed your YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok videos to reach email subscribers who might not otherwise encounter the content on social media. 

Reinforce your brand identity

Video content not only infuses your emails with robust brand visuals but also reinforces your brand personality and sets you apart from your competitors. When creating content, the colors, imagery, fonts, music, voice, and tone you choose for your video messaging should align with your broader brand identity. Include your logo and tagline so that if people share your video across multiple channels, such as on social media platforms, viewers will associate the content with your company.

If you choose to embed a video created by a third party, consider carefully beforehand whether the content is on brand for you and valuable to your target audience. This helps ensure you are strengthening, rather than weakening, your relationship with customers.

When to use a video in email marketing

• Newsletters
• Launches and announcements
• Sales and promotions
• Customer education
• Customer testimonials

Video won’t be a good fit for every email you send. Purchase confirmations or shipping updates, for example, are more about substance than style. But you can enhance many kinds of marketing-related emails with a video strategy. Here are some examples of when they work: 

Newsletters

Including video in your newsletter can be a great way to encourage people to get to know your brand better, and it can provide compelling context for your product or service. 

This newsletter installment from food tour operator Culinary Backstreets takes a deeper look at Mexico City with a spotlight on the city’s lucha libre wrestling scene. The email includes both cultural context and video of roaring audiences and wrestlers in action, promoting not only the company’s range of Mexico City itineraries—including some that offer behind-the-scenes access at a lucha libre match—but also its point of view and focus on unique, immersive travel experiences.

Launches and announcements 

When you’re advertising a new product, feature, experience, or event, video can be an effective way to provide a sneak peek and get people excited.

David Zwirner art gallery announced artist Josh Smith’s first Los Angeles solo show with a short video clip of the artist cycling past one of his pieces. This was a memorable way to promote his exhibition, since many of Smith’s paintings contain bicycles. A Play button overlaid on the video’s thumbnail drives traffic to the gallery’s website, directing users to the full video on the exhibition’s landing page.

Sales and promotions

When advertising a sale, discount, or special offer, you can use video in your email to boost engagement, increase the email’s click-through rate (CTR), and, ideally, drive sales. 

Movie theater company Alamo Drafthouse included an animated GIF of dangling Christmas ornaments to promote its online store’s holiday sale. The two-dimensional look of the video illustration feels coherent with the static images elsewhere in the email, and the quirky, vintage-inspired illustrations align with the brand’s overall visual identity. 

Customer education

Video is a great way to transmit information quickly and demonstrate how to use a product effectively, making it a natural part of customer education or customer success strategies.

This post-delivery email from bidet company Tushy includes a video tutorial for installing one of its models, which requires light tinkering with your household plumbing. The thumbnail features a real person demonstrating the setup, and a CTA button prompts readers to watch the brand’s video on YouTube.

Customer testimonials

Augmenting text-based customer testimonials with video can strengthen the message by adding a personal touch. Research has shown that customer trust in user-generated content is high and capable of significantly influencing purchasing decisions.

This email from BionicGym includes a GIF of an actual customer using the company’s electrical muscle stimulation device. The CTA, “Explore BionicGym,” directs readers to an information page with a variety of video testimonials from a wide range of users. 

Best practices for using video in email marketing

If you’re ready to see what video can do for your email strategy and business, here are a few rules of thumb to get you started:

• Use an email marketing platform that supports video. Use software that offers templates or tools for incorporating video. With Shopify Messaging, for example, you can easily add a video content block that directs to a video file on an outside hosting platform. It’s also compatible with most email providers. 

• Make your video easy to find. Place a video early in an email to catch the reader’s attention quickly. 

• Include a call to action. When embedding a video thumbnail that links to a video hosted elsewhere, use a CTA, such as “Watch here” or “Learn more,” to create urgency.

• Keep viewer experience in mind.More than 40% of email views are via mobile devices, so ensure both your email and video are optimized for mobile. Also be mindful of lags and load times so users don’t lose interest. Add captions or descriptive text for increased accessibility for those who are visually impaired.

• Track the impact. As with any marketing strategy, it’s important to monitor the impact of a video on email performance and engagement. Analyze key email metrics—such as open rates, click-throughs, forwards, shares, and unsubscribes—before and after a campaign to understand what works and to help inform your marketing efforts in the future.