Can I post embed object like flashvideo/youtube in a html email letter?

Question

I tried to include the code below in a newsletter using a service called Campaign monitor but when I try to send the campaign nothing happens.

<object width="416" height="258"><param name="movie" value="http://svt.se/embededflash/1575475/play.swf"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://svt.se/embededflash/1575475/play.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="416" height="258"></embed></object>

Is this because of my email client can't handle this embeded code or do you think it is my service provider who can't sent email whit this content in. or is it two different problems?

Answer 1

Campaign Monitor has a blog post specifically about using Flash in an e-mail. Their tests show that flash is not supported by any of the major e-mail clients besides older versions of Outlook (and even then it causes a security warning prompt).

Their verdict is: "don't do it".

Answer 2

Well, to solve this problem you would limit the amount of variables. Right now you have two: either the service provider is not allowing you to send the <object> tag or your email client isn't showing it. What I recommend you should do is find an email provider that lets you send HTML email and send it one of your accounts. Make sure to include the <object> tag in the email. Now use whatever email client you want and make sure you have a way to view the source of the original email (gmail has an easy way to do this). View the source of the email and make sure the <object> tag exists. Now see if the flash appears in any of your favorite email clients. If it doesn't show up, it means it's your email client that is blocking it.

To see if it's the service that sends the email that gets rid of the <object> tag, simply send a test email to your gmail account and view the source.

My guess is that the email client isn't showing the object tag, but you would need to test it out yourself.