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  • How to Effectively Disavow Links & Protect Organic Ranking

    If you’re confused about when, why, and how to disavow links — you aren’t alone.
    We all know that backlinks are critical to your SEO success, but the quality of those backlinks can make all the difference in that success.
    This post will help you understand when and how to submit a Google disavow file, which is important for protecting your domain.
    Let’s dive in — but first, what is the disavow tool?

    What is the disavow tool?
    The disavow tool gives you the opportunity to ask Google to ignore low-quality backlinks to your website.
    When you submit a disavow file to Google, you are asking them to ignore certain links that are pointing to your domain. There is no obligation for them to respect your request, but if they do, those links won’t be used in determining your ranking in search results.
    It’s important to understand, however, that disavowing backlinks doesn’t remove them from your backlink profile.
    Do you actually need to use the disavow tool?
    Google has made it clear that they only want you to use the disavow tool if you need to.
    They recommend using it if you have a manual spam penalty, or if you knowingly took part in link-building practices that might be harming you.
    In 2019, Google Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller talked about the disavow tool during Google Webmaster Central office hours.
    He says, “I think for most websites out there, pretty much the really largest majority of websites, you don’t need to use the disavow tool. That’s why we have the disavow tool so separate from search console so that you don’t get tempted to using the disavow tool because it looks like this normal part of search console that everyone should be using.”

    Mueller says, “[The disavow tool] is really something that you only really need to use in really extreme cases.”

    To decide if you might benefit from filing a disavow, you’ll need to analyze your backlink profile, which you can learn more about below. But if you knowingly participated in what would be considered unethical backlink practices, chances are a disavow would be helpful.
    What is considered a ‘bad’ backlink?
    Before we tell you how to do a disavow, it’s important to understand what makes a backlink a bad one.
    Google considers any link created to manipulate PageRank or a website’s ranking to be a bad link. They want you to work on creating great content that gets linked to naturally!
    If you’ve purposely taken part in any kind of link-building campaign, then chances are you might have bad backlinks.
    This could include:

    Purchased backlinks
    Link schemes
    Product for backlinks
    Link exchanges
    Footer links

    You might look at your backlinks in various tools and see lots of spammy-looking backlinks and think you need to get rid of them — but you don’t need to worry about those.
    Google will understand spammy links to some extent and ignore them.
    As an example, here are some backlinks from a website pulled from Ahrefs. These are all spam, and none of them have DR ratings:

    I wouldn’t bother disavowing these since these are probably backlinks that a lot of websites have, and Google is smart enough to know we didn’t create them to manipulate our backlink profile.
    When should you create a disavow file?
    Google has stated that most websites will not need to disavow links, and only in certain circumstances should it be used.
    Below are some examples of when a disavow might be recommended or needed.
    1. Manual Action: Unnatural Links To Your Site
    This is the one occasion where you will absolutely want to file a disavow. If your website has been hit with a manual penalty due to link building practices, then disavowing links is a must to have that penalty removed.
    If your website is connected with Search Console — and it should be — you will be notified if there is a manual action on your website.
    At this point, you would begin analyzing the backlinks you have in Search Console and trying to find the links that may be seen as violating Google’s guidelines.
    If you find offending backlinks, the first step would be to contact the website owner where the backlink is and ask them to remove it. If that doesn’t work, then you can try using a disavow file.
    Once you have removed or disavowed the links, you can select the “Request Review” button in your Manual actions report to ask them to remove the action.  

    2. Link Schemes
    If you knowingly participated in link schemes, then you may benefit from adding them to your disavow file. These are links you – or someone you may have hired – paid for. These may be private blog network (PBN) links or even guest posts on websites of no relevance to your niche.
    3. Directories
    A long time ago, adding profiles to every directory that existed with a link to your website with your “money keyword” as the anchor text was all the rage. Maybe you are guilty of this, or the SEO you hired is – but these are backlinks that should be removed. If you can manually remove them that would be best, but adding them to the disavow is recommended if you cannot remove the link.
    4. Comments
    Another old tactic was to spam comments on other blogs and add keyword rich anchor text in the comments box or even for the name field.
    If you have any backlinks from comments, directories or editorial links with anchor text like “buy red widgets” or “best tennis shoes” it would be recommended to add them to your disavow file if you cannot get the link removed or changed. Normally for these types of links it would be expected to be your first name or brand name.
    Finding all of Your Backlinks
    To create the most accurate analysis, you will need to retrieve as much backlink data as you can and understand how to analyze that data.
    You can use a variety of tools to review your backlinks, and you can choose to download them all to a spreadsheet to manually review them or do an analysis right from within the tool.
    Here are a few options of tools to use for finding backlinks:
    1. Google Search Console.
    In Google Search Console you can go to the links area and click the export external links button and then the more sample links option to get a full list of the backlinks to your website.
    2. Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, or your preferred tool.
    Export your list of backlinks and merge it with your Google Search Console file or analyze your data in the software.
    3. A Link Audit Tool.
    There are a few tools that can really minimize your time in auditing your backlinks like LinkResearchTools.
    Semrush also has a backlink audit tool that shows all of your backlinks and gives them a toxicity score based on a variety of factors. You can work right from your dashboard to assess the links and determine if they truly are toxic or not.
    If they are, you can then add them to a disavow right from the tool. When you are done reviewing them all you can then download the formatted disavow .txt file and submit it to the tool.
    While this is a useful tool, it does not have all of your backlinks in its database! You should still do a manual review using other tools as well.

    Creating A Disavow File
    Once you are done assessing your links you can create the disavow.txt file that will be uploaded to Google Search Console.
    Creating A Disavow.txt File
    Below are some guidelines from Google on how to create your file.

    The file name must end in .txt
    File size can be no larger than 2MB and 100,000 lines
    Each URL should be on its own line
    If you want to disavow a whole domain you should start the line with domain: 
    If you want to disavow a URL you can just enter the URL

    Below is a sample portion of a disavow file that I recently created as an example.
    By adding a # before text you can add comments, these lines will be ignored by Google.

    If you would like to test your disavow file before uploading it you can use the Disavow File Testing Tool which was created by Fili Wiese, a former Google Engineer.
    Uploading a Disavow File
    Once you have completed your disavow file it can be uploaded to the Disavow Tool in Google Search Console.
    Below are a few easy steps to uploading your disavow.

    Login to Google Search Console
    Go to https://search.google.com/search-console/disavow-links

    Select the property you would like to add a disavow file to
    Click the upload disavow list button and find your .txt file to add

    If you had uploaded a previous disavow.txt file, your new one will override that one. If your file has any issues, you will see error messages and be prompted to upload a corrected version.
    While there is no guarantee that submitting a disavow file will help, there have been reports of success when using it.
    It will take some time for Google to process the information you uploaded, so you will have to have a bit of patience.
    There is no way to really know if the disavow.txt file is doing what you want it to do, but keeping an eye on your rank, organic traffic and impressions could be a good indicator.

  • 7 Games and Activities Designed to Boost Call Center Agent Engagement

    Managing a call center team isn’t easy. Call center agents are customer service providers 24/7, which means they need to deal with customers with varying moods all day.
    Due to the nature of their work, it’s common to see call centers struggle with low agent engagement. And if managers aren’t paying attention, this dynamic can severely impact work performance, customer satisfaction, and other aspects of their operation.
    While there are plenty of ways to engage call center agents, there is one low-cost, fun way to boost motivation and general satisfaction with your employees – games!
    How to Foster Agent Engagement in a Hybrid Contact Center
    Why do games help call center agent engagement?
    Games might seem juvenile at first glance, but gamification is a popular and highly effective way to engage your staff, no matter their age. By mixing a bit of fun with performance incentives at your call center, you might see more sales, more smiles, and more engagement!
    Motivational games can also boost agents’ productivity at work, and there are many different kinds of games to play. Here are a few additional reasons to add games to your call center agent engagement strategy:
    They’re inexpensive.
    Contact centers don’t always have the budget for an employee trip or paid course. Games and activities are usually low cost, and their impact comes from creativity and planning.
    They assist with training and performance.
    The best games are not only fun, but also opportunities for learning. Some games, when executed properly, can help agents absorb and internalize information more effectively while boosting their performance.
    They bring your team together
    Games create a great structure for team bonding. This is especially true for call centers that operate remotely, or for call centers that have become remote due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
    8 great games to boost call center agent engagement.
    So what are you waiting for? Check out our list of games and activities to try with your team of call center agents:
    Contact Center Knockout.
    Contact Center Knockout is a great game to play if you don’t have a lot of time or resources. A dry marker board is all you need!
    Instructions:

    Draw a grid on the dry marker game, with a box for each member of your crew.
    Anytime an agent makes a sale, they can put their initials inside the box. Once all the boxes are filled, agents can “knockout” other agents from their boxes with more sales.
    If an agent makes a significantly large sale, or if they receive excellent feedback from a customer, they can “lock” the box so nobody else can take it.
    The call center manager chooses the winning boxes before the game begins, and whoever has initials in those boxes get a prize. Some centers use cash, gift cards, early sign offs or sleep-ins, and food for prizes.

    This game is a great way to add a bit of fun competition to your agents’ day-to-day, and encourage more sales.
    Zip Code Bingo.
    Call center agents deal with diverse customers from different areas all the time. Zip code Bingo uses that diversity to help drive engagement.
    Instructions:

    Managers give agents bingo cards with zip codes instead of numbers. For example, 101 for Manhattan NY, or 103 for Staten Island, NY.
    Agents cross out those zip codes after speaking to a customer who lives in that area.
    The first agent who gets a line, cross, or “full house” gets a prize.

    This game helps agents become efficient in their calls, as they want to move onto the next customer to cross out another postal code. While this is usually a good thing, it’s important to make sure agents aren’t rushing calls to the detriment of the customer’s experience.
    Call Center Monopoly.
    For call center monopoly, all you need is a pen and paper, and a die.
    Instructions:

    Create a new monopoly board, but with property names relevant to the call center. Keep the “Go to Jail,” “Chance,” and “Community Chest” squares, however.
    Set aside 10-15 minutes each week or each day to play.
    Each participant gets monopoly money before the game begins, and can roll the die once they meet a certain KPI target. For example, reaching a number of sales in one day. Each time they pass go, they collect a certain amount of money.
    Instead of spending Monopoly money on property or hotels, the goal is to keep as much of the money as you can over time.
    After an extended period of time, perhaps a couple of months, players can use their monopoly money on prizes like more breaks, early sign off, lunch with the CEO, or any other treats you feel could work.

    This game is great for coworker communication and interaction, and long-term productivity boosts.
    Snakes & Ladders.
    For this game, you’ll need a large snakes & ladders board to post on a wall, or somewhere else that the team can easily access.

    Agents can roll the dice if they receive positive feedback on the IVR survey
    The survey asks about the customer’s experience – specifically, how much effort the call took, on a scale from 1 to 9.
    If the agent receives a 9, they can roll the dice and move up or down the board.

    This game is a great way to encourage call center agents to ensure customers are satisfied with their calls. It’s also a great way to make use of Fonolo’s Visual Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, which is accessible, multi-lingual, and gives your agents real-time updates on the status of your call-backs.
    What’s a Visual IVR and How Does it Improve CX?
    Mystery Prize.
    Mystery Prize is another cost-effective game that boosts agent engagement.
    Instructions:

    Hide a prize somewhere in your call center. Make sure it’s a prize that won’t easily be found or guessed by your team.
    The agent who performs the best on a decided metric each day gets a clue. Each clue should help the agent get closer and closer to the prize.
    The first person that finds the prize wins.

    This game really helps agents boost their performance using metrics that are timely and relevant to your call center’s needs.
    Quality Scores Baseball.
    Instructions:

    Every month or every year, hold a competition for agents to win “home runs” based on their performance
    The agent with the most home runs at the end of the month or year wins tickets to a baseball game.
    You can alter the theme of this game to suit different sports preferences, like basketball, tennis, or football, depending on what your team enjoys.

    This game helps agents prioritize performance over the long term. While quick wins are always nice, incentivizing a longer-term, strong performance can help keep sales steady
    Agent Target Practice.
    This game is a great way for agents to relax and enjoy themselves without thinking about sales for a moment. It’s important to decompress sometimes too, so this could be a great way to give employees that little break that they need to jump back into making those sales!
    Instructions:

    Separate your agents into teams
    Each team rolls the die to determine how many bean bags or tennis balls they can throw.
    Managers decide the value of points for each target.
    The first team to reach an agreed-upon number of points wins!
    The winning team gets a small prize.

    Get your call center into a festive mood.
    Holidays are great opportunities to get your call center in a festive mood. Managers and employees might share culturally festive foods and treats to share on the days nearing Christmas, Easter, Diwali, Kwanzaa, and more.
    There are also many opportunities throughout the year to play holiday games. You could have a leprechaun relay or St. Paddy’s Day trivia for St. Patrick’s Day. Or, you could try a Halloween Jinx or candy corn game for Halloween.
    Don’t force your call center agents to participate.
    While the benefits of engaging employees through games are clear, it’s important to remember that if anything is forced, it’s not fun. Some agents might not be comfortable with the public competition or exposure brought on by workplace games. Additionally, if a manager forces their agents to play a specific game, it can be seen as patronizing.
    Instead of deciding on one game for everyone to play, allow your agents to choose which game they’d like to play. And, if they don’t want to play any games, ask them about any other ideas they have. Taking your agents’ voices and opinions into account increases their engagement because it helps them feel valued.
    5 Important Strategies for Agent Engagement in 2021
    The bottom line.
    Call center agents learn a lot from their day-to-day work, and the many call centers offer opportunities for learning and growth. However, when it comes to your job, culture is important too. Having quality time with your coworkers and management, enjoying each others’ company, celebrating holidays, and having a little fun once in a while goes a long way with employee engagement.The post Blog first appeared on Fonolo.

  • Over the circumstances

    How do you act when you’re in charge? Or when someone else is in control?

    How do you act when you win? Or when you lose?

    Is there a difference between the times you’ve been given the benefit of the doubt and the times you wish you had?

    The circumstances change, but perhaps the way we’d like to contribute, to be seen and to connect shouldn’t.

    The circumstances are here, no matter what we do. It’s up to us to decide to be under them or over them.

  • 5 Emails for Summer Campaign Inspiration

    Summer is here!  It’s the time of year for taking time off from work and setting up much-needed vacations. Taking advantage of the warmer weather (or traveling to climates with warmer weather) is what summer is all about. And while it all may seem like fun and games, summertime is also synonymous with declining sales.…
    The post 5 Emails for Summer Campaign Inspiration appeared first on Benchmark Email.

  • Getting Back to The Office: An Evening with Dunder Mifflin’s Finest

    According to Michael Scott, “Real business is done on paper.” Considering we help companies send more than 180 billion personalized emails every year, however, we have other opinions.
    Regardless of how you do business, though, the last year has been full of changes. After all, who thought you’d be balancing Wi-Fi priorities between your work and school Zoom calls? Or that you’d forget what wearing pants all day feels like?
    We’ve been away from work for so long that many of us have forgotten our favorite parts about office culture. So, how will things like Casual Friday, coworker gossip, and coffee breaks change as a result of this ‘new normal?’
    The Future of Work?
    The truth is, nobody has all the answers. So, we asked two of our favorite accountants to lead Back to The Office: An Evening with Dunder Mifflin’s Finest. And while Chili’s wasn’t at 100% capacity yet, this virtual experience still brought Kevin, Oscar, and hundreds of marketers together to discuss the future of office life.
    If you weren’t there, you missed out on an intimate, hour-long Q&A session with Brian Baumgartner and Oscar Nunez that covered topics like:

    The art of prop comedy
    What they’ve both been learning and doing at home during the pandemic

    Untold, behind-the-scenes stories from the set of The Office

    Their predictions about the future of office culture

    Fortunately, for the next month you can access our full recording of this experience. Simply click here, enter ‘dundies’ into the password prompt, sit back, and enjoy!
    The post Getting Back to The Office: An Evening with Dunder Mifflin’s Finest appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

  • Salesforce User Experience (UX) Designer Certification Available Now!

    The brand new Salesforce User Experience (UX) Designer Certification is available now! If you navigate to Trailhead credentials, you’ll see there is a new role called “Salesforce Designer” and the new credential “User Experience (UX) Designer”.  “Are you passionate about creating human-centered user experiences? Salesforce… Read More

  • 3 Actions to Take on the Road to Leadership Bravery

    “The best way to learn if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
    – Ernest Hemingway
    Companies that practice what I call “leadership bravery” are choosing to reverse the trend on business practices that have defined their industries. Through leadership guidance and company actions,  they are establishing more balanced relationships, where both sides win.  Both customer and company are better off because they are in each other’s lives.
    What Does Leadership Bravery Look Like?
    Ask how we will and will not grow.
    Three common behaviors are common among these admired companies as they move in this direction. First, leaders are clear about how they will and will not grow.  Leaders diligently take actions to point out exactly what the high road is; creating a path for the company to follow.  For example, by refusing to open their stores on Black Friday, REI’s CEO took a stand to inspire employees and the marketplace by deciding how they would and would not grow.  For REI, Black Friday is a family day, not a commerce day.  Airbnb takes the high road by showing employees how to embrace the coda “belong anywhere:” building its culture of “belonging.”
    Lean into transparency.
    Next, they choose to be transparent in explaining the “why” behind their actions, such as pricing or how and why they build products the way that they do.  By sharing information about their products and pricing, and by openly transferring knowledge to customers they prove they want to do what’s best for them.
    When writing my book, Would You Do That To Your Mother?, I learned a term that describes this approach to fearlessly sharing, that builds bonds with customers: “radical transparency.” In that book, you’ll read about OVO Energy in the UK, who practices this level of transparency with customers by opening up their pricing plans to the public, outlining exactly what the energy costs are to them, so customers feel equity in what they are paying.  As a result, they are earning customer raves and growth.
    Transparency, increasingly, is becoming more important to customers, and more differentiating for brands.  A recent Harvard Business Review article cites a study by researchers at the MIT Sloan School of Management, which found that consumers may be willing to pay 2% to 10% more for products from companies that provide greater supply chain transparency.
    Level the playing field.
    Finally, these admired companies choose to level the playing field, reducing or eliminating practices where in the past, customers might have felt that the company was holding all the cards. They are deliberately resisting or changing industry practices so that customers feel a balanced and equitable partnership, and one based on trust. For example, Luscious Garage brings the technician and customer together as partners making decisions.  As a result, they have eliminated that phone call of waiting for the ‘final’ estimate of the car repair, turning the experience instead into one of collaboration, trust, and even joy.
    Why Take the High Road?
    Some of the high-road actions these admired companies take to grow may sound irrational.  But repeatedly, examples of their bravery in committing to customer relationships have proven otherwise.  They build bonds by the humanity that their acts display.
    The high road is a choice.  And while it’s not always the easiest choice, it’s the one you’ll be happiest about in the rearview mirror. It’s the stuff that clearly makes that mom of yours proud.
    The high road is also the route to success for companies who take this path. Empirical data and anecdotes from customers and employees prove that behaving in this manner grows a business.  Fred Reichheld was one of the first to connect the dots between “golden rule behavior” and business growth.  Further, Danny Meyer’s Hospitality Quotient proves how companies with business practices and employees that deliver values based and human experiences significantly beat the S&P 500. But the key to growing in this manner is leadership.  Leaders must build a company that believes that doing the right thing is the right way to grow.

    Some of the high-road actions companies take to grow may sound irrational. But repeatedly, examples of their bravery in committing to customer relationships have proven otherwise. It can be a route to success.Click To Tweet

    Leadership Bravery Pays Dividends
    As customers, we desire to give our trust to companies who trust us back.  We seek out companies whose employees are given permission to do the right thing, and where we are honored as assets. We breathe a sigh of relief and gratitude when “Gotcha!” moments are flipped to “We’ve got your back” moments. We applaud accountability  because we know that everyone makes mistakes.  And we thank goodness for the companies who level the playing field, and give us information to prosper.
    It takes all of us years of experience to figure out exactly how we, as leaders, will take the high road.  But as we go through the ups and downs of living…it becomes clearer.  Situations provide the choice.  The hard work is having the life lessons to test it out.  Those moments where my dad would say to me, “Jeanne, you can learn from this if you let yourself.”

    This blog post is excerpted and adapted from Would You Do That To Your Mother? 
    Learn more about the book and find out where to order »
    The post 3 Actions to Take on the Road to Leadership Bravery appeared first on Customer Bliss.

  • Getting Back to The Office: An Evening with Dunder Mifflin’s Finest

    According to Michael Scott, “Real business is done on paper.” Considering we help companies send more than 180 billion personalized emails every year, however, we have other opinions.
    Regardless of how you do business, though, the last year has been full of changes. After all, who thought you’d be balancing Wi-Fi priorities between your work and school Zoom calls? Or that you’d forget what wearing pants all day feels like?
    We’ve been away from work for so long that many of us have forgotten our favorite parts about office culture. So, how will things like Casual Friday, coworker gossip, and coffee breaks change as a result of this ‘new normal?’
    The Future of Work?
    The truth is, nobody has all the answers. So, we asked two of our favorite accountants to lead Back to The Office: An Evening with Dunder Mifflin’s Finest. And while Chili’s wasn’t at 100% capacity yet, this virtual experience still brought Kevin, Oscar, and hundreds of marketers together to discuss the future of office life.
    If you weren’t there, you missed out on an intimate, hour-long Q&A session with Brian Baumgartner and Oscar Nunez that covered topics like:

    The art of prop comedy
    What they’ve both been learning and doing at home during the pandemic

    Untold, behind-the-scenes stories from the set of The Office

    Their predictions about the future of office culture

    Fortunately, for the next month you can access our full recording of this experience. Simply click here, enter ‘dundies’ into the password prompt, sit back, and enjoy!
    The post Getting Back to The Office: An Evening with Dunder Mifflin’s Finest appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

  • Customer Onboarding & Project Management for Salesforce [In-Depth Review]

    TaskRay is a Salesforce native, customer onboarding and project management application, designed to make projects organized, repeatable, and scalable. TaskRay enables you to deliver flawless customer service, automate and template repeatable tasks and projects, as well as easily identify and report potential issues. This in-depth… Read More

  • How to Embed Video in Email [Quick Tip]

    Nowadays, video is an undeniably popular channel for marketing purposes.
    In fact, in 2021, 86% of businesses use video as a marketing tactic.
    If you’re an email marketer, I’m willing to bet you’ve considered how you might spruce up your subscription and click-through rates with video. It’s a good idea in theory, with roughly two-thirds of consumers preferring video over text when learning about new products or services.
    In reality, however, it can be tricky. Major email clients including Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook don’t support embedded videos, so your subscribers either won’t be able to watch your video within the email, or worse — they won’t see your email at all, because it’ll end up in their spam folders.
    Fortunately, there’s a creative workaround to help you embed part of your video within your email, and incentivize subscribers to click-through to watch the rest. Here, let’s explore how to do just that.

    Embed YouTube (or Any Other) Video in Email
    There are two options you might consider when embedding a video within your email — you can either embed a GIF of your video with a “click here to watch full video” CTA, or you can embed a still photo of your video, and when subscribers click the “Play” button, they’ll be re-routed to your video’s URL.
    Let’s explore the GIF option, first.

    You can use the following instructions on any video from a video hosting platform of your choosing, including YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, DailyMotion, etc. In the following examples we used a Facebook URL, but a YouTube URL would work just as well. 
    1. Find the URL of the video you want to include, or download and save your video to your computer.
    To create a GIF of a video I wanted to include in my email, I first went to HubSpot’s Facebook page and copied the URL of a recent video the team uploaded to the site — “How a Senior SEO Strategist Sees the World”.

    2. Go to Imgflip.com, a tool that enables you to create GIFs of videos.

    You can upload a URL directly to Imgflip, or you can upload a video you have saved on your computer. For our purposes, I copied and pasted the URL from HubSpot’s Facebook page. Alternatively, you can copy and paste a YouTube URL or website URL. 

    3. Choose a starting point and end point for your GIF.

    Once your video is finished downloading, you’ll see this pop-up. There are two triangles that can help you choose where you’d like to start and stop your GIF — if you move the green one you’re choosing a starting point for your GIF, and if you move the red one you’re choosing an end point.

     

    (It’s important to note, for non-Pro accounts, you can’t create a GIF that lasts longer than 20 seconds on Imgflip.)

    Once you’ve chosen a clip you’d like to use for your GIF, click “Generate GIF”.

    4. Download your GIF. 
    Once your GIF has been generated, you’ll have the option to copy-and-paste the image link or image URL. Instead, click “Download .gif”.
    5. Drag-and-drop your GIF into your email, and add a video CTA linking to the full video. 
    Now comes the fun part! Simply create your email to send to your subscribers, and drag-and-drop your GIF from your desktop into the email itself.
    Below the GIF, create a video CTA, like “Click to view full video here” with a URL to your video (the URL will likely lead to your own website, YouTube, Facebook, or another social platform).

    You can spruce up your email subject line with “Video included” to further incentivize click-through rates.
    Of course, you’ll want to use email marketing best practices when embedding a GIF, and ensure the video you want to include is truly a compelling, interesting piece of content for your email subscribers.
    This is a unique opportunity to further engage with your prospects and customers, so make sure to use it wisely — don’t just send a video advertisement for your products or services.
    Next, let’s explore how you might include a still image of your video with a “Play” button.
    How to Create a Still Image of Your Video With a Play Button
    1. For this example, I’ll use the same video as before. Instead of copying the URL, however, I simply screenshotted a paused section of the video.

    2. When I paused the Facebook video, it automatically included a “Play” button. However, if you screenshot a video while it’s playing, you might not have a “Play” button. To add one to a still image, go to the website Add Play Button to Image, upload your image, choose a play button design, and click “Create Play Button Image”.
    Then, click “Download Image”.

    3. Next, simply click “Insert Photo” in your email to include the image with the Play button. Then, highlight the image and select “Insert Link”. Copy-and-paste the link to the full video (in this case I pasted the Facebook URL, but you can also paste a URL to a website with your video, or YouTube).

    4. And that’s it! Now, when a subscriber clicks on your image, they’ll be redirected to the full video. Ensure the video auto-plays so the subscriber doesn’t have to click “Play” again.

    How to Embed a Video in a HubSpot Email
    1. If you’re a HubSpot email tool user, you’ll see a Video module on the left-side of your screen when you’re creating an email. 
    Simply drag-and-drop the module into the section of the email you’d like to include a video.

    2. Next, you have the option to Embed a video using a URL, or uploading a video to your COS. For our purposes, let’s copy-and-paste a YouTube URL into the text box.
    3. Finally, edit the video to suit your needs. You can modify the video’s width and height, and even create a custom thumbnail.
    4. When you’re ready, click the orange “Review and send” button at the top-right of your screen.
    How to Use HTML5 Code to Embed Video in Email
    Finally, some email clients do support embedded video. If you feel it’s the right strategy for your subscribers, you can embed a video within email using HTML5.
    Here’s an example of an HTML5 code you might use in your email:
    <video width=”300″ height=”200″ controls>
    <source src=”movie.mp4″ type=”video/mp4″>
    <source src=”movie.ogg” type=”video/ogg”>

    </video>
    If the video isn’t supported, your subscriber can see a static image linking to another page, instead.
    If you don’t have experience coding, you might consider asking a developer to help you, or take a look at W3 School’s HTML5 Video article.
    However, it’s important to note — we don’t recommend this strategy, since you risk either ending up in your subscribers’ spam folders, or using code that many of your subscribers’ email clients won’t support. Ultimately, it could be more trouble for many of your subscribers’ than it’s worth.
    To ensure your video can be seen by all your subscribers, I’d recommend one of the strategies listed above, instead.
    If you’re looking for other opportunities to boost email click-through rates and conversions, take a look at HubSpot’s free email marketing tool.