Email guide

How to add a countdown timer to Customer.io

Customer.io messages are usually triggered by an event, which means every recipient receives them at a different second. A calendar deadline rarely fits; a countdown that starts from each person’s own trigger does — and in tikio that is a personal timer on one link, not a second campaign.

Create your free countdown Jump to steps

  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. 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 Customer.io message

    In the code or rich-text editor, paste the snippet below. Liquid inside the URL is evaluated per person at send time, in campaigns, broadcasts and transactional messages alike.

    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 {{customer.id}} as the recipient key — it is stable per person and, unlike an email address, is not personal data sitting in an image URL. Each person’s countdown then starts at their first open.

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

FAQ

Questions, answered

Can I drive the deadline from event data?

Yes, through the REST API: create the link with a deadline that comes from the recipient, then put a Liquid expression in target= that resolves to an ISO date with a timezone offset or unix seconds — for example a trial end date carried on the triggering event.

Do I need a fallback filter?

It is good practice. Customer.io fails a send when referenced data is missing, so use a default filter on any attribute you interpolate into the URL.

Does it work in transactional messages?

Yes. The timer is an image URL with no dependency on campaign context, so transactional sends behave the same as campaigns.

Other email platforms

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