How to add a countdown timer to Constant Contact

Constant Contact’s drag-and-drop editor wants images uploaded to your library, which is why external timers seem impossible at first. The Custom Code editor removes that limit: it expects images to be hosted elsewhere and linked by absolute URL — which is precisely how a tikio countdown works.

  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. Create a Custom Code email and paste the timer

    Choose Create new email → Custom code, pick HTML as the format, and paste the snippet where the countdown should appear. Two constraints worth knowing: a custom code email cannot exceed 400 KB, and it must not contain the character sequences [#, ${ or <@ — a tikio URL contains none of them.

    <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

Constant Contact inserts contact details from the editor’s personalization menu rather than as a literal tag you type. Put whichever stable per-contact detail you have into the uid position — the key only has to be the same value every time that contact opens the email.

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

FAQ

Why can’t I use the regular drag-and-drop editor?

Its image block uploads files into the Constant Contact library and serves them from there, so the picture is fixed at upload time and cannot re-render per open. The Custom Code editor links images by absolute URL, which is what a live countdown needs.

Does the timer count against the 400 KB limit?

Barely — only the <img> tag lives in your HTML. The image itself is fetched from tikio when the email is opened and is not part of the email’s size.

Will it work in automation paths?

Yes. Custom code emails can be added to automation paths, and a fixed target= deadline behaves identically there.

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