Video is one of the most effective ways to engage your message recipients. Including a link to a video is one of the most reliable ways to ensure that engagement.
The Template and Message Designers in Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Professional (Thrive Marketing Professional) include a story type that you can use in order to insert links to YouTube videos in your templates and messages.
The YouTube Video story type makes it easy for you to add links to YouTube-hosted videos and to then customize the link with your own image.
Add a YouTube video story
To add a video story to a template or message:
- In Template Designer, drag the YouTube story element into the template.
In Message Designer, click the Add Content button and then select the YouTube Video story.
- On the Content tab complete the required fields and any optional fields, as described in the table below.
NOTE: The width limit for an image is 650 pixels. You will be alerted if your image is wider than this, along with a recommendation to edit the image.
| Options | Descriptions |
|---|---|
 |
Name - Specify a name for the story. |
| Include Story in Online Version - Check the box to ensure that this video link displays in the online version. | |
| A/B Test this story - Click to include this story in message-comparison testing. | |
| YouTube Video URL - Specify or paste the URL of the video. The default (red and white) YouTube "play" button image displays in the Thumbnail field. | |
| Chose another image - Click to select an image from your Asset Manager to replace the default image. NOTE: If you add a custom image, it will preview here but it will not display the "play" button. You can add your own "play" button to your custom images. |
|
| Dimensions - The image dimensions display when a custom image is inserted. | |
| Alt Text - You can use this optional field for Alternative text in your messages. | |
| add image caption - Check the box to display a text field; enter text to display below the image. |
Alternative text in your messages
Alternative text is a "supporting feature" of web-based images and a basic tenet of good accessible web design.
When you use alternative text in your messages, the text that you specify:
- displays in place of the image (if the inserted image fails to load and for recipients who have images turned off) and
- is read by screen-reading tools to describe the image to the visually impaired.
Because your image is actually a decorative link to a video, make sure that it's alternative text clearly describes its purpose.
EXAMPLE: For this video-link image:
"Rider leaning motorcycle around turn with fans in background"
accurately describes the image but is not helpful as alternative text. Whereas:
"Link to motorcycle racing highlights video"
is a much better indicator of the image's purpose: it links to a video about motorcycle racing.