Daily Emails: How to create links to scheduled YouTube videos?

[DannyC831]

I send out a Daily Word email that includes a link to a Wordpress Post with a YouTube video that changes daily. Currently, my link is to a Wordpress Post. The problem with this approach is that if my email recipients do not check the Daily Word video on that same day, it will change and the email will no longer match the daily video.

My YouTube videos are initially Private. I schedule these YouTube videos to be made Public at 12:00am. However, when I create the scheduled email within Constant Contact and include a YouTube video link that is Private at that time, it will not work.

Any suggestions on how to approach this problem?  I definitely would like to keep the scheduling workflow in place to help streamline the workflow.

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can offer.

Best Regards,

Danny Ciamarra

[John_M]

Hello @DannyC831 

Unfortunately in order for the video to display within our email editor it has to be listed publicly. Private videos do not work in product currently. By chance is there a way that you could place the video someplace else that could be listed publicly but have a login or passcode for them to gain access to? However, anything along this line would be happening outside of Constant Contact and there for would not be anything that our Support Staff would be able to assist with.

Also is there a specific reason the videos are private initially then changed to be made public? Does the email list have early access to the videos before the general public?

I have also submitted your feedback to our engineers to allow private videos to play within campaigns. Sorry for any inconvenience that this causes you currently.

[DannyC831]

Thank you for your response. I'm not surprised that Private videos do not work with Constant Contacts email. This is not the average request

Yes, I guess I can add the videos to an Unlisted Playlist so they are not available to the general public until their release date. The reason the videos are Private is that we pre-load several videos in advance and make one available each day. The email list has access to the email list on the same day the video is made Public. If the email is scheduled for a time after the YouTube video is made Public, it would be nice if the link within the Constant Contact email would recognize that.

Thanks for submitting my feedback to your engineers. Hopefully, they will incorporate this functionality.  I'm sure others are scheduling the sequence of the YouTube videos going Public, Wordpress Blog Posts scheduled, and emails sent on the same day.

Thanks for your help!

Danny C

[DannyC831]

Here's where I'm struggling, since I have the ability to pre-schedule emails within Constant Contact, if the YouTube video goes Public before the email is sent (e.g. 12:00am) and the email goes out at 3:00am, logically, shouldn't the video be available via the link at that time? Maybe I'm oversimplifying this, but logically the sequence makes sense to me.

Here's a similar analogy, if the daily YouTube video is schedule for 12:00am (i.e. goes from Private to Public at this time) and I include this video in my Wordpress Blog Post that is scheduled for 3:00am, the video would be available. I would think this same logic should work for Constant Contact - Right?

Truly appreciate your help with this.

Danny C

[DannyC831 · Accepted solution]

UPDATE: I came up with a workaround that I wanted to share.

1. Start a new email campaign.
2. Copy YouTube video URL that I want to include in my email.
3. Add a thumbnail for the topic to the email and include the video link.
4. I also include a "Watch Now" button and add the same video link.  This appears to be working for now.

My desired goal, would be to add a video to my email and add the link there so people can see the play button. Less steps and a more familiar experience for my email recipients.  Hope this helps others and I hope the engineers will address this in the very near future. Thank you.