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Writing Templates3 min read

Insert images and video thumbnails

Add hosted images or clickable YouTube/Vimeo thumbnails to your campaigns directly from the CMass editor.

CMass lets you insert images and video thumbnails directly into your email body. The media toolbar appears above each body text area in the Template tab and in every follow-up stage.

Inserting an image

Click '🖼 Image' in the toolbar. You have two options:

Option 1: Paste a URL

If your image is already hosted somewhere (Imgur, a CDN, Google Drive public link, your own server), paste the URL in the field and click Insert. The image is added to your email body as an HTML img tag pointing to that URL.

Option 2: Upload from your device

Click 'Upload from device' and choose a file. CMass uploads the image to imgbb (a free image hosting service) and inserts the hosted URL automatically. Image files must be under 5 MB.

💡 Images in emails are loaded from their remote URL when the recipient opens the email — this is also how open tracking works. CMass uses this standard behavior.

Inserting a video thumbnail

Email clients don't support embedded video. The industry-standard workaround is to insert a clickable thumbnail image that links to the video. CMass handles this automatically for YouTube and Vimeo:

  1. 1Click '🎬 Video' in the media toolbar
  2. 2Paste a YouTube or Vimeo URL
  3. 3CMass fetches the video thumbnail and shows a preview with a play button overlay
  4. 4Click Insert — the thumbnail is added to your email with a link to the video

When a recipient clicks the thumbnail in the email, they're taken directly to the video on YouTube or Vimeo.

Best practices for email images

  • Keep images under 100 KB for fast loading — compress with TinyPNG or Squoosh before uploading
  • Always include alt text (CMass adds an empty alt attribute; edit the HTML if you need a specific description)
  • Don't make your entire email one big image — most spam filters penalize image-heavy emails with little text
  • Test on mobile — many email clients show images at full width on small screens
⚠️ Some corporate email clients (especially Outlook) block images by default. Recipients will see a broken image icon until they click 'Show images'. This is normal and not something you can prevent — it's why text-based emails often outperform heavily designed ones for cold outreach.

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