How tikio works

Three pieces: a template you design, a link that turns it into code for one campaign, and the settings you can still change after the email is sent.

1. Template — how the timer looks

The template is the design: colors, fonts, labels and languages. Edits are saved as you go, but they reach your timers only when you click Apply changes. That way you can work on a design without touching emails that are already out.

Applying changes updates every timer made from the template — including the ones in emails you have already sent.

2. Link — one timer for one campaign

Click Get code in the template. A few questions later you have code to paste: an animated image for email, or a live counter for a website. Each campaign gets its own link, so you can see its views and switch it off separately.

The link keeps the timer — when the countdown ends and how it counts. The code is a short address that carries no date, so the timer can still change after the email is sent.

3. What you can change after sending

The design — edit the template and apply the changes.
The timer — change it on the link's page and click Save. Emails that are already sent show the new timer within minutes.
What the timer shows at zero, and where clicks go — in the link's settings (details).
Whether the link works at all — pause it and the timer disappears everywhere.

Links made before timers were kept in the link carry their date in the code itself, and keep working exactly as sent. You can still save a timer on such a link's page for new code — emails already sent keep the date from their code.

When to choose tikio

If one fixed date for the whole list is all you need, the countdown block built into your email platform does that job. tikio is for the cases it can't handle:

A deadline of their own for each subscriber — welcome offers, trials and abandoned carts, where the clock starts at each person's first open.
A cut-off that repeats in your local time — “order by 2 PM for same-day shipping”, every day or on chosen weekdays, correct across daylight saving changes.
Plans that might change — extend a sale, change what shows at zero or where clicks go, after the email is sent.
One timer in the email and on the website, with your own brand font and labels in 12 languages.
Timers created from code or an AI client — through the REST API or MCP.

Limitations

Some limits come from email clients and apply to every countdown image, tikio's included:

Older Outlook for Windows doesn't animate GIFs. It shows the first frame — the correct time at the moment of opening, just not ticking. Outlook on the web and the new Outlook animate normally.
Apple Mail Privacy Protection downloads images when the email is delivered, not when it is read. A reader can see the time as of delivery, and a personal evergreen timer can start at delivery instead of at the first real open. The link’s In Apple Mail setting can hide the timer or show your own image to Apple Mail readers instead.
Image caches in Gmail and Apple Mail can keep an old frame for a while, so a change you make after sending reaches some readers later than others.
The animation runs for about a minute and then stops on its last frame. Reopening the email shows the current time again.

For developers

Create links and change their timers from your own code, sign subscriber IDs, read stats and check a timer URL before a campaign goes out — the API reference has it all, including every URL parameter and the timer types the dashboard doesn't offer (count-up, custom intervals, deadlines from a merge tag).

Setup guides for each platform: email platforms and website builders.