The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:Sears, 12/13 — Say Thank You to a HeroThere’s been lots of buzz and debate about using embedded video in emails and the best practice has been to link to video hosted on your website. However, in this email Sears uses embedded video—a first among the top online retailers that I track. What that means is that the video runs inside the email, without the need to click through to the Sears website. In fact, in this implementation, the 20-second looping video begins to roll the second you open the email. See the email in action
here. The video has no sound and when you click on the “Click to hear audio” link it takes you to the
full-length video on Sears’ site. Embedding the video without sound avoids unexpected and awkward office noise and keeps the size of the email manageable at only 19KB. Sears uses
VHD Technology, which doesn’t promise compatibility with all email clients, to power their embedded video.
Goodmail Systems will also be providing an embedded video service soon. This is bleeding edge to be sure. It will be interesting to see how subscribers respond to embedded video and whether it proves to be worth the extra investment in each campaign.
UPDATE #1: I spoke with Andrew Kordek of Sears and he shared some details about the email. First, when asked if he had plans to use embedded video in other emails, he said, “This was a test to see adoption rates and lift, and I would think that we will be testing into our promotional stream in the future.” He explained that the embedded video worked in the major platforms that comprise 93% of their database, and that if someone could not see the video, the first frame was static in most cases. When asked about the decision to not include sound, he said, “We wanted to encourage the clickthrough and the online experience from the email and not having the sound seemed like the best way to encourage that. The video was ‘shocking’ enough; the lack of sound made you pay attention.” While Sears didn’t A/B test embedded video vs. non-embedded, they did A/B test the creative: one with Sgt. Ryan and the other with Ty Pennington.
NEW UPDATE #2: There’s a bit of confusion out there about exactly how VHD’s technology works. I’m told by Duane Seon, VHD’s CTO, that their technology is indeed streaming video, not a kind of animated gif as is rumored. He said, “An animated gif is limited to 256k colors and we are streaming in the millions and our frame rate is a lot faster than a gif.” Duane did explain that the video file and audio file (if you use one) are separate, and have to be synchronized. He explained that the audio “plays mostly in IE and MS platforms (except 2007), which currently has a approx 60% of the market. It also adds weight to the spam count, so even though it has a huge impact we like our clients not to abuse it.” I assume that we’ll see much more experimentation with embedded video—true or otherwise—in 2009.
SmartBargains, 12/11 — Get an Extra 25% Off Your Entire Order!
SmartBargains gives us what I believe is another first—the first animated call-to-action button. Very clever.

Here’s the animated portion of this email:
RedEnvelope, 12/11 — Save 15% on all orders! Reminder, Sunday is your Last Day to send personalized giftsLate last week about one in 10 retailers notified subscribers about deadlines for personalized gifts, oversized gifts and other specialty items. However, the other reason I’m highlighting this email is because it serves as another reminder to preview your creatives in all the major email clients before sending it out. Many of RedEnvelope’s subscribers saw this eye-bleeding color scheme…

…when RedEnvelope clearly intended for them to see the color scheme used in the web-hosted version of the email:

Tip of the hat to Dylan Murphy of
Football Fanatics for pointing this out to me.
Harry & David, 12/10 — FREE Delivery for a limited time only!
Awesome! Harry & David have brought back Mr. Pear Head for another holiday season. These little guys are cute, unique and totally on brand.
Chadwick’s, 12/13 — Did you get your Christmas bonus?The email seems to be suggesting that the deep discounts featured in the email are your Christmas bonus. I think that will be cold comfort to many subscribers, who indeed didn’t get actual Christmas bonuses this year. This subject line probably just reminded folks that they have less money to spend this year, rather than making them appreciate the discount.
SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
HPshopping, 12/12 — LAST CHANCE to get Customized Notebooks by Dec. 24th!
Crutchfield, 12/11 — Holiday savings; free shipping; last call for large TVs
Walgreens, 12/10 — Hurry - There's Still Time to Order Photo Books & Calendars
Costco, 12/13 — 12 Shopping Days Until Christmas! Skip the crowds, shop costco.com!
Alloy, 12/13 — 3 DAYS LEFT: Free Shipping Over $25 + Get it by Christmas
Omaha Steaks, 12/10 — 3 Reasons to Give Omaha Steaks
Blue Nile, 12/10 — Top Ten Christmas Gifts + Special Offer
TigerDirect, 12/13 — 50 Gifts Under $50...Save Time...Shop Online
Saks Fifth Avenue, 12/10 — 150 Gifts Under $150 + Free Shipping
Backcountry, 12/11 — Free Shipping, No Tax, Price Match on All Orders
Kmart, 12/12 — Subscribers Only - Free Shipping, No Threshold December 12
ShopNBC, 12/10 — No need for wishing, it's time for Free Shipping
Bloomingdale’s, 12/10 — 5.00 Shipping On Beauty Stocking Stuffers & More
Coldwater Creek, 12/10 — LAST DAY for 25% off + Free Shipping (the sleigh leaves tonight!)
Neiman Marcus, 12/10 — So! You need a gift? Look no further + Free gift wrap & Free online shipping at any price
Harry & David, 12/12 — This will sleigh you: FREE Delivery!
J. Jill, 12/10 — Gifts as brilliant & extraordinary as her. Plus, save 20%.
Ralph Lauren, 12/10 — Shopping Is Hard Work. Here's YOUR Reward.
Lands’ End, 12/11 — Fleece Navidad! FREE SHIPPING & 20% off fleece, boots
Avon, 12/10 — CELEBRATE the Season with this Delightful Top-Seller + FREE Shipping_____________________
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