A video popup that plays your YouTube, Vimeo or MP4 clip

Video is the quickest way to answer 'what is this and why would I want it'. A video popup lets you offer that answer at the moment the question comes up, without sending the visitor to another page or to YouTube, where your competitors' videos are one tap away.

• Product demos: a 'Watch it in use' button on the product page that opens a 40-second clip.
• Brand story on the home page: a welcome mat across the top of the page with one short film and two buttons under it.
• How-to and sizing help: a clip that opens from the size guide link and saves a support message.
• Gated content: a webinar replay or tutorial that plays after the visitor leaves an email.

It is the wrong tool for a long video. If the clip runs ten minutes, give it its own page. And do not open a video on every visitor the moment they land; video is heavy, and most people did not ask for it.

The video block has one address field. What you paste decides how it plays.

• YouTube: a YouTube video popup takes a normal watch link, a youtu.be short link, an embed link or a Shorts link. The player loads from YouTube's youtube-nocookie.com address and is set to play inside the popup on phones.
• Vimeo: paste the video's Vimeo link. The player is requested with Vimeo's 'do not track' option.
• MP4: paste a direct link to an .mp4 file. It plays in the browser's own player with controls.

One limit to know before you start: Tafsee Popup does not host video. The uploader in the editor is for images, so an MP4 has to live somewhere you control and be reachable by a direct link. If you do not have that, YouTube or Vimeo is the simpler route.

Any other kind of address will not show a video. If the block appears empty, check that the link is one of these three types.

YouTube and Vimeo are third-party services and may set their own cookies or collect data when the player loads. Whether that needs consent from your visitors depends on where you sell, and that decision is yours to make.

Autoplay is off by default. With it off, the visitor sees the player and presses play, and the video starts with sound. For most stores this is the right setting, because the visitor has chosen to watch.

Switch autoplay on and the video starts by itself, muted, until the visitor taps it. An MP4 on autoplay also loops. There is no setting for autoplay with sound, because browsers only allow a video to start by itself when it is muted. That is a browser rule, not a Tafsee one.

So if your clip depends on a voice-over, either leave autoplay off or add captions to the video itself. A muted clip of someone talking tells the visitor nothing. Product footage, on the other hand, works well muted.

1. Design: start from the 'Video welcome mat' template, a full-width welcome mat that pushes the page down, with a headline, a video and two buttons, or add the Video block to any other campaign. Paste the address, then set the height and the corner radius.
2. Show when: for a 'watch video' button, use the click on element trigger and point it at the button on your page. Otherwise use scroll depth or time on page so the video is offered to visitors who have shown some interest, and add a frequency cap.
3. Publish: if the popup has a form, choose where leads go, send a test lead, and go live.

It runs from the same single script as every Tafsee campaign, on any site where you can add code. There is no plugin to install: you paste one snippet or add it through Google Tag Manager, and the app has install guides for platforms such as Shopify, Salla and Zid.

To collect an email before the video, put the form on the first view and make the thank-you page a video page. That is the setup behind a gated replay or tutorial; see lead generation popups for what makes a good exchange.

• Keep it under a minute. The editor says the same thing next to the block. A popup is an interruption, and a short clip respects that.
• Say what it is and how long. 'Sixty seconds on how we roast' gets more plays than 'Watch our video'.
• Put one action under it. Shop the product, get the code, or leave an email. Two buttons at most.
• Let the visitor ask for it. A video that opens from a click is welcome. One that opens unprompted needs a good reason and a clear close link.
• Check it on a phone. Portrait or square footage fills a phone screen better than a wide clip in a small player.

If you are unsure whether the video helps, compare it with a plain image version of the same popup. On the Growth plan and above you can run that as an A/B test; this guide explains when a winner is real.