• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, 61 minutes ago

For some time, marketers have been able to embed video into their emails. Sound is another matter. 

Email has never supported embedded audio playback. Consumers have to click through to YouTube or another platform, and at that point the brand loses control—92% never return after landing on YouTube.  

Playable, a digital video firm, says it has a solution: It now  allows HD video to autoplay the moment an email is opened, giving recipients user-controlled sound and playback, without redirecting them to YouTube or other external platforms.

The goal is to “give subscribers a sound-enabled video experience without asking them to leave the message,” says Paul Bunn, COO of Playable. 

According to Playable, only WebKit-based clients —i.e., Apple Mail and Thunderbird — can render HTML that lets consumers to play video with sound inside the message. But clients like Gmail and Outlook have required marketers to choose between silent autoplay or a click-to-watch experience, it adds. 

Even if the subscriber finishes the video, the platform's algorithm is already queuing up the next piece of content, often that of a competitor, Playable says. 

How does Playable handle that risk? Its architecture serves video assets that it says are easily integrated into the email html message on any ESP platform. 

Playable detects the client and automatically serves the right video experience, it adds. And customers can play additional videos from the email. 

This keeps the subscriber’s attention exactly where marketers want it: "on their brand, and on the next step to drive a specific outcome,” Bunn says.

Playable also provides a Leakage Calculator that estimates how much revenue can leak from a campaign when subscribers are sent outside the email to experience a video.  

The Playable compliance framework is built to support enterprise procurement, IT security review and to comply with the needs of regulated industries, the company adds. 

The new tool, Inline AutoPlay with Sound, is now available to Playable’s enterprise clients. It is compatible with campaigns built for Braze, Salesforce, Klaviyo, Constant Contact, Customer.io, Benchmark Email, Mailchimp and 30 other partners.  

According to Playable, the benefits include:

• One-click connectors with major ESPs 
• Lifecycle video 
• Video lock & compliance 
• AI video editing 
• Message authoring & templates