Email guide

How to add a countdown timer to Omnisend

Omnisend is built around ecommerce automations — abandoned cart, browse abandonment, win-back — where every contact enters the flow at their own moment. That is exactly where a per-recipient countdown beats a shared deadline, and a tikio timer delivers it as one image URL.

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 Omnisend email

In the Omnisend content editor, drop in a Custom HTML block and paste the snippet below. Omnisend personalization uses double square brackets, so tags placed inside the URL are resolved per contact at send time.
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 [[contact.email]] as the recipient key so every contact gets a personal deadline from their first open. If you keep a contact custom property with an internal ID, prefer that — it keeps email addresses out of image URLs.

HTML

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

Omnisend’s built-in timer vs tikio

Omnisend has its own countdown block. If one fixed date for everyone is all you need, use it — it is already in your editor. tikio is for the rest: personal deadlines in automations, timers that reset on local time, and deadlines you can still fix after sending.

Feature	Built into Omnisend	tikio
Fixed date for everyone	Yes — one end date in your store’s time zone; Standard and Pro plans	Yes
Personal deadline per subscriber	No — “does not create a separate countdown for each contact”	Yes — a personal timer per subscriber, from their first open
Recurring on local time (DST)	Not documented	Daily, weekday or weekly reset at a local time, following daylight saving
Change the deadline after sending	Not documented	Yes — emails already sent pick up a new deadline within minutes
At zero	A fallback image after expiry	Zeros, hide or another image; a smart link sends clicks elsewhere after zero
Same timer on your website	Not documented	The same link as an iframe on any site
Fonts	Custom fonts	Your own uploaded fonts or Google Fonts, free
Other platforms	Omnisend only	Works in every ESP you send from

Every platform’s built-in block compared: built-in ESP timers vs tikio.

Evergreen countdown timer in Omnisend

In tikio, click Get code, choose In an email and pick Personal timer. Set how long each subscriber gets — for example 24 hours — choose Omnisend as your platform and enter [[contact.email]] in the Subscriber ID merge tag field — Omnisend does not document a contact ID tag. Every subscriber then gets their own countdown from their first open, and reopening does not reset it. Paste the code into the Omnisend email that sits in your automation. This is the countdown timer for automation workflows — abandoned cart, browse abandonment, welcome — that the built-in block cannot do.

HTML

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

FAQ

Questions, answered

Does this work in Omnisend automation workflows?

Yes, and that is where it pays off most. With a personal timer keyed on a per-contact value, someone who abandons a cart on Tuesday and someone who abandons on Friday each see their own honest deadline from the same email.

Can I use it in an SMS or push message too?

No — those channels carry text, not images. The countdown is an image, so it belongs in the email step of your workflow.

Can I show different currencies or languages per segment?

Labels, yes: bake the languages into the design once and add lang= per segment. The timer renders digits and labels, not prices.

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