URL parameters

A link has two public addresses: https://t.tikio.io/e/<link-id>.gif for email and https://t.tikio.io/e/<link-id>.html for a live web embed. Both take the same query parameters. The Get code wizard builds them for you — this page is for building them yourself.

Dates and time zones

target is a moment: the deadline, the count-up start or where a custom cycle starts. Use unix seconds, or an ISO date with a time zone:

target=1795823940
target=2026-11-27T23:59:00Z
target=2026-11-27T23:59:00-05:00

A date without a time zone (2026-11-27T23:59) is rejected and the timer shows a blank placeholder: the sender, the email platform and the recipient can each be in a different time zone, so the moment would be ambiguous. Unix seconds are safest in email — nothing in them needs escaping.

A recurring timer is set by the local clock instead: every=day&at=14:00&tz=America/New_York resets at 2 PM New York time every day, and stays at 2 PM when daylight saving starts or ends (that day's cycle is 23 or 25 hours long). every=weekdays skips Saturday and Sunday; every=week&on=mon resets once a week. Without tz the time is UTC. An every with an unreadable at, on or tz shows the placeholder rather than resetting at the wrong moment.

every=day&at=14:00&tz=Europe/Berlin
every=weekdays&at=17:00&tz=America/New_York
every=week&on=mon&at=10:00&tz=Asia/Singapore

For a custom interval, such as every 6 hours, use cycle in seconds with an optional target where the cycle starts (without it, cycles line up with 00:00 UTC). A cycle counts exact seconds, so a daily reset set this way moves by an hour when the clocks change. Links already sent with cycle keep working as before.

Parameters by countdown type

Fixed deadline

target: Deadline — unix seconds or ISO date with timezone (…Z or …+02:00)
lang: Label language — locale code, optional
v: Optional cache-buster for email — any per-send value (e.g. a campaign-id merge tag). Varies the URL so mail image proxies (Apple, Gmail) don’t reuse a frame cached from an earlier send

Evergreen (restarts on every open)

duration: Countdown length in seconds
lang: Label language — locale code, optional
v: Optional cache-buster for email — any per-send value (e.g. a campaign-id merge tag). Varies the URL so mail image proxies (Apple, Gmail) don’t reuse a frame cached from an earlier send

Personal evergreen

duration: Countdown length in seconds
uid: Recipient ID — your ESP merge tag, e.g. *|UNIQID|*
sig: HMAC signature of uid — only when "Signed uid" is on (see link settings)
lang: Label language — locale code, optional
v: Optional cache-buster for email — any per-send value (e.g. a campaign-id merge tag). Varies the URL so mail image proxies (Apple, Gmail) don’t reuse a frame cached from an earlier send

Recurring

every: How often it resets — day, weekdays (Mon–Fri) or week
at: Reset time, HH:MM on a 24-hour clock — default 00:00
on: Reset day for every=week — mon, tue, … sun; default mon
tz: Timezone of the reset, e.g. Europe/Berlin — default UTC. Stays at that local time when the clocks change
cycle: Advanced: a custom interval in seconds instead of every — e.g. 21600 for every 6 hours
target: Where a custom cycle starts — unix seconds or ISO date with timezone, optional (default 00:00 UTC)
lang: Label language — locale code, optional
v: Optional cache-buster for email — any per-send value (e.g. a campaign-id merge tag). Varies the URL so mail image proxies (Apple, Gmail) don’t reuse a frame cached from an earlier send

Count-up

countup: Count up from the start — set to 1
target: Start moment — unix seconds or ISO date with timezone (…Z or …+02:00)
lang: Label language — locale code, optional
v: Optional cache-buster for email — any per-send value (e.g. a campaign-id merge tag). Varies the URL so mail image proxies (Apple, Gmail) don’t reuse a frame cached from an earlier send

How the parameters are read

They are checked in a fixed order, and the first match wins: countup, then every, then cycle, then target, then duration. A URL with both countup=1 and duration is a count-up. duration and cycle must be whole, positive numbers of seconds. A URL with neither a usable target nor a usable duration shows the placeholder image.

What is not a parameter

What the timer shows at zero and where clicks go live in the link's settings, not in the URL — so you can change them after the email is sent. See After zero and smart links.