How to add a countdown timer to Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor gives you real control over template HTML, which makes adding a live countdown a two-minute job: one image tag in the template, and the deadline supplied as a URL parameter rather than baked into a design you would have to rebuild each campaign.

  1. Design your countdown in tikio

    Create a timer in the tikio editor: pick colors, fonts, labels and the languages you need. What you see in the editor is exactly what lands in the inbox — the timer is delivered as a regular animated image.

  2. Publish and copy the image URL

    Hit Publish and copy the public image URL. The deadline lives in the URL as a parameter, so the same link works for every campaign — change the date, not the link.

    https://tikio.io/e/a1b2.gif?target=2026-08-01T20:00

  3. Insert the timer into your Campaign Monitor email

    Paste the snippet below into your template HTML, or into an editable content area that accepts HTML. Campaign Monitor personalization tags use single square brackets and are substituted inside the URL per subscriber.

    <img src="https://tikio.io/e/a1b2.gif?target=2026-08-01T20:00" alt="Offer ends soon" width="480" style="max-width:100%;" />

Per-recipient evergreen deadlines

Use the [email] personalization tag as the recipient key for per-subscriber deadlines. A custom field carrying your own subscriber ID is the better key if you have one — it keeps addresses out of image URLs.

<img src="https://tikio.io/e/a1b2.gif?duration=86400&uid=[email]" alt="Offer ends soon" width="480" style="max-width:100%;" />

FAQ

Does it work inside a Campaign Monitor template with editable regions?

Yes. Put the image tag in the template HTML for a countdown that appears in every campaign, or inside an editable region if you want to decide per campaign.

Can I use a fallback for the merge tag?

You can, but you rarely need one here: if the key ever resolves to an empty value, the timer simply behaves like a shared countdown rather than a personal one.

Will the timer show in Outlook?

It shows. Outlook versions that do not animate GIFs display the first frame — and that frame is rendered at the moment of opening, so it still carries the correct remaining time.

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