Vidyard

Overview

Vidyard is a video hosting and sales intelligence platform founded in 2011 and headquartered in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. It is purpose-built for B2B sales and marketing teams, offering video hosting, personalised video messaging, and detailed viewer analytics with CRM integration. Unlike general video platforms, Vidyard's primary value proposition is identifying individual viewers by name and linking their watch behaviour to CRM records — enabling sales representatives to see exactly who watched a video, for how long, and what actions they took after viewing. Vidyard is integrated with Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Eloqua, and Outreach.

What This Script Does

The Vidyard embed script loads from embed.vidyard.com and renders an HTML5 video player on the host page. The player fetches video assets from Vidyard's CDN and establishes tracking for the viewing session.

Cookies and identifiers set:

• VidyardGUID — Primary viewer identifier; third-party cookie set in the vidyard.com iframe context; expiry 1 year. This is the key identifier used to link anonymous viewing sessions and, when a viewer is identified, to merge their watch history with their CRM contact record.
• VidyardSession — Session-scoped companion tracking the current viewing session; expires at session end.
• vy_vvd — View deduplication cookie preventing a single viewing session from being counted multiple times; expiry 30 minutes.
• First-party cookies may also be set on the host domain when Vidyard's first-party data mode is configured.

Script filenames and CDN: player.js loaded from embed.vidyard.com. Video assets served from cdn.vidyard.com and Fastly-backed delivery endpoints. Analytics events stream to play.vidyard.com/analytics/.

Per-viewer data collected:

• Play initiated, pause, seek, and replay events with precise timestamp offsets
• Watch percentage checkpoints (every 5% of total duration)
• Total watch time and replay frequency
• Viewer drop-off point and last frame watched
• Call-to-action interactions within the video (in-video forms, CTA buttons, gated content gates)
• Device type, browser, operating system, and screen resolution
• IP address (used for geolocation enrichment)
• Referrer URL and page context

CRM integration and viewer identification: When a visitor's email address is known (through a previous Vidyard form gate, Marketo form, or HubSpot cookie match), Vidyard merges the VidyardGUID with the CRM contact record. Sales reps receive real-time notifications when a known contact watches a video, and the full viewing history appears in the CRM timeline. This "known viewer" identification is the core marketing use case.

Consent & Compliance

Vidyard is classified under marketing and functional categories. Video playback is functional, but Vidyard's per-viewer tracking, persistent VidyardGUID identifier, and CRM integration are marketing activities that process personal data under GDPR. Under GDPR Article 6(1)(a) and the ePrivacy Directive, the VidyardGUID tracking cookie and viewer identification require explicit prior consent when used for marketing analytics and sales outreach. IAB TCF Purpose 1 (Store/access device) and Purpose 7 (Measure content performance) are relevant. Under CCPA/CPRA, the linking of viewing behaviour to named CRM contacts constitutes personal information processing for commercial purposes. Vidyard as a Canadian company is subject to PIPEDA and additionally provides GDPR-compliant data processing agreements and SCCs for EU data transfers.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Conditional. Basic video playback is functional, but Vidyard's persistent viewer identifier and CRM integration are marketing activities. If you can separate playback from tracking (using Vidyard's consent-aware mode), block the tracking layer until marketing consent is granted. Otherwise, gate the entire player behind marketing consent.