Are you trying to send a marketing video via email but having a tough time of it? To be honest emailing videos is tricky, and while technically you could just attach it to your email as you would any other file – there are often issues with doing so.

If you absolutely must send a marketing video via email, there are several options that you could consider:

Send the Video as an Email Attachment

Although this may seem like the most obvious way to insert and send marketing videos via email – it is the most difficult to pull off. Most email servers impose attachment file size limitations, and because videos tend to have rather large file sizes they often run smack into these limits.

The exact attachment file size limitation will vary from platform to platform, but on Gmail it is 25 MB, whereas on Outlook.com it is 34 MB. No email platform currently has a attachment file size limit of over 50 MB.

Considering your video file is probably larger than that, sending it as a direct attachment may not be possible.

In fact assuming that is the case, your only option to still attach the video is to compress it. To do that you would want to first convert the video to a format with good compression rates, and subsequently reduce the bitrate if it is still too large.

Keep in mind that as you reduce the bitrate the video quality will deteriorate, and to get it small enough to fit into an email the quality may end up extremely poor. For example if you’re trying to compress a 1 GB video down to 25 MB – it will look truly awful by the time you’re done.

Because of these issues, you may find that it is better to look at other options to send your marketing videos via email.

Upload the video to YouTube and send a link

Arguably the easiest way to send marketing videos via email is to upload them on YouTube and then send the recipient the link in an email. The recipient will then be able to click and watch the video as it streams from YouTube.

If you don’t want anyone other than the recipient to be able to find the video on YouTube you can opt for it to be ‘Unlisted’. An ‘Unlisted’ video can only be viewed by someone who already has the link to it – though admittedly the videos aren’t fully protected from prying eyes.

Another alternative is to set the video as ‘Private’, but if you do you’ll have to invite the recipient to watch the video and they will need to have a valid Google or YouTube account.

It is worth noting that if you’re using Gmail (and the recipient is as well) then the YouTube link will appear as an embedded player when the email is received so it can be viewed without leaving Gmail.

Send attachments via cloud storage services

Another similar option is to upload your video to cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive – and send the link. By default Gmail will use this method for attachments above 25 MB with Google Drive, and Outlook.com will do the same for attachments above 34 MB with OneDrive.

The upside to this option as opposed to using YouTube is it provides recipients with the option to download the video. On top of that you can use it in conjunction with any cloud storage service that you may already be utilizing.

On the other hand you should be aware that cloud storage services often have limitations of their own in terms of the maximum file size – though it is normally fairly large (i.e. ~2 GB).

Conclusion

That should cover the main options that you have when it comes to inserting and sending marketing videos via email. As you can see none of them is ‘perfect’, but they will all get the job done in one way or another.

If you do decide that you want to try to compress and send the video as an attachment, you will need to use a video converter. Preferably you should choose one that supports newer formats, as they tend to provide better compression rates. For example you could try Movavi Video Converter and instead of converting from AVI to MP4 with H.264 you could try MKV with H.265 to reduce the file size further.

In any case it is now up to you to figure out which option is most suitable – and then try it out for yourself.