Email guide

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 stored on the link rather than baked into a design you would have to rebuild each campaign.

Create your free countdown Jump to steps

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
Get the code

Click Get code, choose “In an email”, pick how the countdown works — until a date, a personal timer per subscriber, or repeating on a schedule — and copy the code. The link stores the timer, so you can change the deadline any time, even after sending: emails already sent pick it up within minutes.
URL
```
https://t.tikio.io/e/a1b2.gif
```
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.
HTML
```
<img src="https://t.tikio.io/e/a1b2.gif" alt="Offer ends soon" width="480" style="border:0;max-width:100%;height:auto;" />
```

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.

HTML

<img src="https://t.tikio.io/e/a1b2.gif?uid=[email]" alt="Offer ends soon" width="480" style="border:0;max-width:100%;height:auto;" />

FAQ

Questions, answered

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.

Your first countdown is minutes away

Free during early access — no credit card required. Design once, paste one snippet, and the timer ticks on every open.

Create your free countdown