Wistia uses a lot of terms that might not feel intuitive when you’re first getting started. How does a Wistia Form work? Who is my audience? How do I explain this data to my boss? Don’t worry—the glossary’s got you covered.

Account Owner is a user role with the highest permission level in Wistia. Account Owners have full access to resources like billing information, account-wide settings, and API keys. Each Wistia account can have up to three owners; free accounts are limited to one owner.

See Manage Team.

An action refers to any opportunity a viewer or listener has to fill out a Wistia Form, click on an Annotation Link, or complete a Call to Action. These actions are tracked in your video stats.

See Lead Generation Tools.

An admin refers to a Wistia user with full access to a folder or Channel. Admins can access all available folder permissions, including Upload, Download, Share, Stats, and Edit (i.e., they have “Can manage” permissions). Unlike Account Owners and Managers, admin permissions are specific to individual folders and Channels.

See Manage Team.

An Annotation Link is an in-video pop-up text or link. You can configure Annotation Links in the “Customize” panel, and viewer clicks are recorded in your video stats.

See Annotation Links.

An API, or Application Programming Interface, lets developers create custom workflows in Wistia, such as custom stats reports or player controls. Account Owners can access API keys in their account settings to get started.

See APIs and Developer Resources.

The Asset Library lets you upload, edit, and store your brand logos, fonts, colors, and bumpers. You can use assets created in the Asset Library within a brand kit or directly across your account.

See Brand Assets.

Your audience is everyone who has watched or listened to your media. When a viewer is identified (e.g., by filling out a Wistia Form), they appear on the "Audience" page with their contact details and full viewing history.

See Viewer Analytics.

Aurora is Wistia's current player and embed generation. Aurora embed codes use the player.js library and replace the legacy E-v1 embeds.

See All About the Aurora Player.

Autoplay is a video playback setting that plays a video immediately on page load. Autoplaying videos will contribute to your account’s bandwidth usage and may be blocked in certain browsers.

See Updating the Player Controls.

Average engagement is a percentage measure of the time viewers spent watching or listening to a given media. This calculation includes how many times the video was played, its length, and how long your audience actively spent watching or listening. Average engagement is reported on both the account-wide “Trends” page and the individual media analytics.

See Media Analytics Overview.

Bandwidth is data that is passed to your viewers when they load a video or play an audio episode. Account Owners can view their monthly bandwidth usage on the "Account Usage" page of their account settings.

See Account Usage and Bandwidth.

Beta features are Wistia features that aren’t ready to be released to the world just yet. We hope to launch these features in the future, but we need customer feedback first. An Account Owner can enable beta features in Account Settings.

See Account Settings.

The big play button is a lightly transparent overlay on your video thumbnail, indicating to viewers that they should click to play the video. You can customize the big play button in the “Controls” tab of the “Customize” panel.

See Updating the Player Controls.

A billing contact is a designated user who receives all billing-related emails from Wistia, including invoices and receipts. Billing contacts do not need to have a Wistia login.

See Wistia Billing Overview.

A brand kit is a defined set of styling settings you can apply to content across your account. Brand kits can include custom logos, colors, gradients, fonts, and rounded corner settings. Account Owners and Managers can manage brand kits in their account settings.

See Brand Assets.

A Call to Action, or CTA, is a clickable message, image, or HTML script that appears anywhere in your video and lets your viewers know what you want them to do next.

See Call to Action.

Captions allow you to add text to your media to boost SEO and improve the accessibility of your content. Captions is a submenu in the Customize panel. A Wistia user can upload their own SRT file (in any language) or order English captions. Captions are indicated by the _CC_ button at the bottom of the video.

See Transcripts and Captions.

Channels group your video and audio episodes in a single, styled media gallery. You can share Channels via a direct link or embed them on your website, and also use them to host and distribute your podcast.

See Wistia Channels.

Chapters are customizable markers in your media timeline to help viewers navigate to important content. You can configure chapters in the Customize panel for any media.

See Chapters in Your Video.

Comments allow viewers and users in your Wistia account to leave feedback and ask questions on media pages. You can enable team and audience comments on any media page.

See Commenting.

The “Customize” menu in Wistia offers options to make your media unique, including player appearance and controls, password protection, lead capture forms, captions, and more.

See Customize Your Video.

Derivatives are copies of your media within Wistia. When you upload a video, our servers create multiple versions for different environments (e.g., mobile devices) and users with slower internet speeds, ensuring your media plays in every environment.

See Export Settings.

Domain Restrictions is an account-level setting that allows you to embed media in certain domains. Account Owners can configure Domain Restrictions on the "Account" page in their account settings.

See Account Settings.

E-v1 is the Wistia JavaScript library included in every legacy embed code. This is where the magic lives — it’s how we pull in stats, update customizations, and track views.

See All About E-v1.js.

The editor includes tools to trim, split, and stitch videos directly in Wistia. Add transitions, background music, branded captions, and more.

See Editing in Wistia.

Email merge tags let you share your videos in email campaigns. Email merge tags display a thumbnail (with a play button overlay) for the video in an email campaign and link out to a specified page. Most email merge tags also track viewers' email addresses and are tagged as identified viewers on the "Audience" page.

See Email Marketing and Wistia.

An embed code is a snippet of code that you can add to your site to put additional content (like a video!) on your webpage. Wistia offers various types of embed codes, including asynchronous (or standard embed codes), iframe (or fallback embed codes), and oEmbeds.

See Embedding Your Media.

Embed links allow you to create more versatile playlists with your Wistia videos. Embed links can be used with the standard embed and keep all of the customizations added in the Customize panel.

See Embed Links.

The engagement graph provides an aggregate view of your audience’s viewing or listening experience, indicating which parts of the media held their interest and which lost it. The blue part of the graph shows second-by-second average engagement across all viewers and listeners, while the orange section shows rewatches. You can find engagement graphs for individual media in the “Engagement” tab of the “Analytics” page.

See Tracking Average User Engagement.

Episodes refer to any video or audio file in a Wistia Channel. You can customize episodes and track their performance with your audience. Episodes in a Channel can be either published or unpublished. Only published episodes will be visible to your audience.

See Add and Publish Channel Episodes.

Exporting is the process of downloading content from Wistia. Users can export media files, analytics reports, Live registration data, and more.

See Export Settings.

A fallback embed is a type of inline embed code that uses an iframe. Use fallback embed codes only when a standard embed isn't working as expected or when your site builder only accepts iframes.

See Embedding Your Media.

A fixed-size embed has specific dimensions and will fit into any container of the same size, so it works well on all devices. A fixed embed will remain a static size and will not adjust to its environment. It’s a good option if you’re working with a site that isn’t responsive, or if you have special circumstances to need a fixed size.

See Embedding Your Media.

All content in a Wistia account is organized into folders. A folder can contain one or more videos and/or other types of files, and an account can contain multiple folders. Each folder has its own folder-level stats, and several features apply specifically at the folder level.

See Media Management.

Fullscreen is a control in the Wistia player that lets your viewers watch your video in full screen. You can add or remove the fullscreen option from the play bar for any video in the “Controls” tab of the “Customize” panel.

See Customize the Player Controls.

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A hashed ID, also known as a media ID, is the 10-digit string of letters and numbers at the end of a Manage URL. For example, this media's hashed ID is zzm8qym2my: https://supportvideos.wistia.com/medias/zzm8qym2my/manage

The hashed ID identifies your media in an embed code, helps our support team troubleshoot issues, enables API requests, and more.

A heatmap is a visual representation of an individual viewer or listener’s experience that details how much of a given media a viewer watched or skipped, their location, IP address, viewing URL, and more.

See Heatmaps.

HLS, or HTTP Live Streaming, is the video delivery format we use here at Wistia. HLS allows us to deliver the highest-quality video to your viewers without them having to change a thing. HLS uses adaptive streaming, which automatically switches to the highest-quality version of your video based on available internet speeds.

See Export Settings.

An identified viewer is a viewer whose email address (and sometimes name) is known to Wistia, usually because they filled out a Wistia Form or arrived via an email merge tag. Identified viewers appear in the View Stream and on the Audience page with their contact info.

See Viewer Analytics.

An inline embed loads and plays media inline with the other content on your site. Inline embeds are different from popover embeds, which “pop over” the rest of the content on the page. Types of inline embed codes include: standard embed, fallback embed, and the oEmbed. You can also make inline embed codes responsive or fixed size. You can copy inline embed codes from the Embed modal.

See Embed Your Media.

Integrations allow Wistia to pass specific viewing data to third-party platforms. We have a large list of integration partners, including email marketing and marketing automation. Account Owners and Managers can view and connect integrations in their account settings.

See Wistia Integrations.

IP filtering lets you exclude specific IP addresses from your Wistia stats. You can list IPs only as individual numbers, not ranges. Account Owners can configure IP filtering in their account settings.

See Account Settings.

JSON-LD, or JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data, is how we inject SEO metadata into the Wistia embed codes.

See Media SEO.

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A Limited User is a user in Wistia who can access only the folders and Channels they’ve been given access to. You can give Limited Users “Can manage” or “Can view” permissions for specific folders or Channels.

See User Roles.

Load settings is an option in the “Customize” menu that lets you apply player customizations from one video in your Wistia account to another.

See Customize Your Video.

A Manager in a Wistia account is a step below an Account Owner. Managers can create and manage folders, add contacts and manage their permissions, customize videos, access stats, and more.

See User Roles.

A marketing automation platform, or MAP, is a tool that triggers workflows based on lead behavior. All of Wistia’s marketing integrations work a bit differently, so check out our documentation on HubSpot, Marketo, and Pardot.

See Wistia Integrations.

Media is the technical term we use for anything you can upload to a folder or Channel in your Wistia account. There are many different media file types, but the most common are video, audio, doc, and image. Any media that is uploaded to Wistia that isn’t recognizable (can’t be displayed or read) will be available for download.

See Managing Files in Your Wistia Account.

Metadata is the data in your site that describes your site’s content (so Google knows what’s up!). Metadata helps to improve your site’s search engine ranking. At Wistia, we use JSON-LD to inject metadata into the head of your website with our standard embed codes.

See Media SEO.

Move & Copy is an in-app feature that lets you move or copy media between folders in your account. You can also move media to another account on which you are the Account Owner or Manager. Moving media between accounts will reset stats.

See Folder Management.

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An oEmbed is a link that tells a site (most commonly WordPress how to embed content from a third-party platform. This “embed code” type is a URL with specifications appended as a query parameter. You can copy an oEmbed link from the Embed modal.

See Wistia and oEmbed.

Password protection requires viewers to enter a password to watch a video. You can set a password for a video in the "Customize" panel. Passwords can only be added to videos.

See Require Password.

The Wistia player is the interface used to display all video and audio files, including controls like the play and pause buttons, fullscreen option, and volume. Any time you’re viewing or watching Wistia-hosted media, you’re interacting with the player.

player.js is the Wistia JavaScript library included in every Aurora embed code. It includes all the functionality that defines the Wistia player: customizations, tracking, and more.

See All About the Aurora Player.

The play bar is a visual representation of a media file's timeline. It shows where your viewer or listener is at any given point in your content. The play bar also includes a thumbnail preview on hover for videos, so your viewers know what’s coming up next. You can turn it on or off in the Controls menu of the Customize panel.

See Customize the Player Controls.

Play rate measures how often people choose to play your media. This metric is calculated as the number of times the media was loaded divided by the number of times it was played. Play rate is listed on both the account-wide “Trends” page and the individual media stats page.

See Media Analytics Overview.

Wistia player controls include the big play button, small play button, play bar, settings controls (i.e., video quality, playback speed), volume control, fullscreen button, and the Wistia banner. Player controls can be customized in the “Controls” tab of the “Customize” menu.

See Customize the Player Controls.

A podcast directory like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Libsyn is a platform where your audience can access and listen to your podcast.

See Distribute Your Podcast.

Your podcast host is the home base for your podcast, like Wistia! Podcast hosts create an RSS feed so they can distribute their podcast to different podcast directories.

See Create a New Podcast.

A popover embed is a type of Wistia embed that opens the media player over a page’s content in a lightbox. Popover embeds require viewers to click the player to open and play. Users can generate a popover embed code from the “Embed” option on the media page.

See Embed Your Media.

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Record videos natively in Wistia to share with colleagues, embed on your site, or post to social media. Wistia’s Record tool lets you record solo, with colleagues, or invite external users to submit recordings to your account.

See Record in Wistia.

Remix is Wistia's AI-powered video editing tool that lets you create highlight reels, social clips, and more with a short text description.

See Video Remix.

The Replace Media tool is available on video media pages in your account. Replacing a video is pretty much exactly what it sounds like — it allows you to replace a video without having to update the customizations or re-embed the video.

See Replace Your Media.

Responsive embeds are a type of embed code that forces the player to resize to fill its parent container on a webpage. Responsive embeds will adjust to the size of each viewer’s window, so they’re great for all environments (including mobile!).

See Embed Your Media.

An RSS feed is like a newsfeed for your Podcast. As soon as you publish a new episode of your Podcast, its information will be added to the RSS Feed. You and your listeners (and Podcast distribution services like Spotify and Apple Podcasts) can access this RSS Feed at the RSS Feed URL. You can find an RSS Feed URL in any Channel where you’ve enabled podcasting.

See What is a Podcast RSS Feed?.

RTMP ingest lets you control a Wistia Webinar through other advanced streaming tools (e.g., OBS) and gives you more flexibility over your stream.

See External Studio Streaming for Webinars.

A section is a subset of a folder in Wistia. Sections divide up folders to help keep your account organized.

See Media Management.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of including metadata in your site’s code and content to improve search engine ranking. Wistia embed codes optimize your video content for SEO by default.

See Media SEO.

The Set Folder Defaults feature allows users to apply customizations from one video to all other videos in the same folder. Applied customizations include player color, rounded player corners, player branding, thumbnail text overlay, autoplay, player controls, and share buttons.

See Media Management.

The share buttons are in-player social sharing buttons. They allow your viewers to share your media further on their social networks. The “Share” option is located in the “Customize” panel. Sharing options include embedding, emailing, downloading, and sharing on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn.

See Customize the Player Share Buttons.

Simulcasting is used to stream a Wistia webinar to other platforms, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. You’ll need an RTMP URL and Stream Key to get started.

See Webinar Simulcasting.

The small play button is an icon on a video's play bar. It has the same functionality as the big play button overlay on a video’s thumbnail, and can be toggled on or off in the “Controls” section of the “Customize” modal.

See Customize the Player Controls.

Turn your webinars, recordings, and other video uploads into AI-generated clips for social media.

See Social Clips.

The standard embed is a type of inline embed code. Standard embeds load asynchronously, so they don’t hold up page load speeds on your site. They’re fast and resilient and work in almost every environment. You can configure them with our JavaScript Player API, or use them right out of the box. The standard embed code injects JSON-LD metadata into the head of your page for SEO markup.

See Embed Your Media.

A Standard User in Wistia can create and upload new content, including media, folders, Live events, recordings, and Channels. They have admin permissions for any content that they create, and can also be added to existing folders and Channels with varying permission levels.

See User Roles.

A swatch is a blurry image that serves as a placeholder for the video player and thumbnail. You might see a swatch when loading an embedded video on a webpage. All Wistia video embeds include a swatch by default.

The Team Activity dashboard details activity from logged-in users, including media uploads and deletions, scheduled webinars, new user invitations, and more.

See Team Activity Dashboard.

A thumbnail is the still image that appears in place of your video before it’s played. You can upload a custom thumbnail image or select a frame from the video in the “Customize” panel on the media page.

See Choose Your Video's Thumbnail.

Total plays include the total number of times a given media was played, meaning a viewer either pressed play or the media was set to autoplay. Total plays are listed on the individual media stats page.

See Media Analytics Overview.

A transcript is a time-coded log of all spoken dialogue in a media. Transcripts can be uploaded or ordered directly in Wistia and exist in tandem with captions.

See Transcripts and Captions.

Uploading is the act of adding content to your Wistia account. You can upload many different file types, but to use Wistia to its fullest potential, we recommend MP4 videos with an H.264 codec.

See Upload Media.

A user is anyone who is invited to log in to a Wistia account using an email address and password. User roles include Account Owners, Managers, Standard Users, and Limited Users.

See Manage Team.

The View Stream contains a chronological list of everyone who has watched any of your videos, along with their heatmap and other information, such as their device, IP address, and general geographic location. If a viewer has been identified  (e.g., if they filled out a Wistia Form ), their entries in the View Stream will also include their email address and name if provided. You can access the View Stream under the “Analytics” page on the Home page of your account.

See Viewer Analytics.

The viewer page lets you see the full history for a single viewer of your videos. It’s important to note that this refers to public stats ,  not private. You can find the viewer page for any public viewer by clicking its heatmap.

See Viewer Analytics.

A waypoint is an icon in the media timeline on the Customize page that indicates the presence of a Call to Action, Annotation Link, or lead capture form. The waypoint indicates where one of these will appear and how long it will be visible.

See Lead Generation Tools.

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A Wistia Form is Wistia’s native lead collection form. You can add it at any point in your video’s timeline, and it can also serve as a gate by disabling the skip button. Form fields include email address, first and last name, and any custom fields you choose to add.

See Wistia Form.

Your Wistia URL, or subdomain, is the string of letters and numbers that appears before wistia.com in your account URL. You can change your account URL at any time without affecting any embedded media. However, note that any media page URLs that reference the old account name will no longer work.

See Account Settings.

Wistia Webinars is a livestreaming tool that lets you create branded events, track audience engagement, and follow up with leads across various marketing automation platforms.

See Getting Started with Webinars.

301 is a status code that a server sends to a browser to indicate that a page has moved to a new location. If you’re importing an existing podcast to Wistia, you should set up a 301 redirect to ensure directories and subscribers know where to find your new content.

See Import an Existing Podcast.

A 360 video is captured in a spherical format, meaning a viewer can drag and click or move their device to view all directions of the video. You can enable 360 video controls for applicable video files in the “Controls” tab of the “Customize” panel on the media page.

See Wistia's 360° Video Player.