Ask anyone who runs a production company which message they send most, and “did you get a chance to look?” will be near the top.
The cut went out on Monday. By Wednesday the account manager wants to know whether to chase, the editor wants to know whether it’s safe to start the color, and nobody can say if the client has even opened the link.
Asking has a small cost every time. The client feels chased, and “not yet, but this week for sure” doesn’t tell you much.
It’s better to know the answer before you ask, and the review link can give you a good part of it, as long as you’re clear about what a view means.
In short
- A link anyone can open can count views, but it can’t put a name on them.
- Knowing who watched means asking for a name and an email, or sending a code by email for a cut that can’t leak.
- An open only means the review page loaded, and it never stands in for an approval.
- Use the list to pick your message, starting with whether the person who decides has seen the cut.
- Tell the client the link asks who they are, and don’t read the log back to them.
What an open link knows
A link that anyone can open can count views, but it can’t put a name on them.
- An unlisted YouTube video gives you a view count and nothing about who is behind it.
- A transfer service may email you when the file is downloaded, and from then on the video plays on the client’s laptop, where nothing reports back.
- A shared folder often tells you nothing at all.
Even the count is hard to read. Three views could be the client watching three times, or the client, their agency and you testing the link before you sent it.
Knowing who watched means asking for a name
A view only has a name on it if the person said who they are, by typing a name and an email before the video plays or by signing in.
Making clients create an account is the costly way to do it, and plenty of busy people will put the review off rather than sign up for one more tool. A name and an email take one screen, and the client would have typed their name on their comments anyway.
A typed name proves very little, since anyone can write “Ana, marketing” in a form. For most jobs that’s fine, because nobody fakes a name to watch a rough cut.
For a cut that can’t leak, such as an unannounced product or an internal announcement, use a sign-in that sends a code to the person’s email, so the name on the list belongs to someone who can open that inbox.
What a view does and doesn’t tell you
An open means the review page loaded. The client may have watched the whole thing twice, or opened it on their phone between meetings, seen it ran four minutes and closed it. A reload counts as another open.
Whether someone watched to the end is something only a tool that measures playback can tell you. Video hosts built for marketing measure how much of each video people watch, because that’s what marketing teams pay for. Review tools mostly don’t.
In a review, the best evidence of attention is a comment, and a note at 1:32 means someone got at least that far.
A view never stands in for an approval, either. A client who opened v2 three times and wrote nothing hasn’t signed off. They may be waiting for someone, or they may not know where to start.
If you want silence after a deadline to count as approval, that belongs in the contract, and the post on clients who take too long to approve covers that clause along with how to follow up.
How to use what you see
The list is there to help you pick the message, so keep it out of the message itself.
If nobody has opened the link two days after you sent it, the trouble is probably the link itself, which went to spam or got buried in a thread. “Did the link come through?” is the right question then.
If the client opened it and wrote nothing, ask about something specific: “Does the new ending work for you, or should we try the shorter one?”
Check whether the person who decides has seen it. Of everything a list of names tells you, this is the most useful.
The coordinator opened the cut four times and the marketing director, who signs off, hasn’t opened it once, so another reminder to the coordinator won’t move anything. Offer to send the link straight to the director, or to walk them both through it on a ten-minute call.
Look out for names you didn’t send it to. Someone from legal or the CEO’s office opening the cut usually means a new set of notes is on the way, and you’d rather know before it lands.
If the cut is confidential, though, a link moving around beyond the people you sent it to is a reason to add a password and generate a new link.
The version matters too. If the client last opened v2 and you sent v3 yesterday, the notes that arrive tomorrow may be about the old cut.
And skip your own team when you read the list. The editor checking the export and you testing the link show up like anyone else.
Tell the client the link asks who they are
Clients rarely mind identifying themselves on a review link. What bothers people is finding out later that someone was keeping track. So say it when you send the link.
The message in how to share a video with clients for review only needs one more line: “It asks for your name and email the first time, so your comments come in under your name.”
Don’t read the log back to the client. “I saw you opened it four times last night” sounds like surveillance even when you mean it as a joke. If you mention it at all, keep it vague and about their team: “Looks like it’s been going around on your side. Any first reactions?”
Other people may be able to see the list too. Some review tools show everyone on the link the names of who already opened it.
That helps when the director sees the coordinator has watched, but check how your tool handles it before you send a cut to a group that includes people who’d rather not be seen.
Data protection laws such as the GDPR also expect people to be told, when they hand over their details, what those details are for and who will see them, and a line under the form covers that.
How this works in RecReview
In RecReview, the review link asks for a name and an email before the video plays. “Require identification” is on by default in the share settings, and there’s no account to create.
The form tells the visitor that their name and email will be visible to the team that shared the video, and the browser stays identified for 30 days. If the client’s portal uses verified sign-in, the link asks for a code sent to their email instead.
The share window has a Recent activity tab with the latest people to open the link, showing each one’s name, email, when they last opened it and how many times.
Below the comments, a “Viewed by” bar shows the first names of who opened that version, and clicking it opens the full access history. Clients can see those names too, but never the emails. Whoever uploaded the video gets a notification when someone identifies on the link.
In the version list, each version shows how many people opened it, and your team also sees a line such as “Client viewed 2 hours ago”.
In the client’s settings, the People tab lists each contact with how much they’ve viewed, commented on and approved, and when they were last seen. Open a contact to see their history, with what they viewed, commented on, approved and downloaded, and when.
RecReview records who opened the review page, when and how many times. It doesn’t record whether they pressed play or how much of the video they watched.
If you’d rather nobody saw who viewed, a workspace setting turns off “Viewed by” and the link’s activity list, for your team as well. The security page has more on passwords, link expiry and the access log.
