Email guide

How to add a countdown timer to Salesforce Marketing Cloud

In Marketing Cloud the subscriber key already is the stable per-person identifier you need — no new field, no data extension change. Drop one image tag into an HTML block, key the countdown on it, and every subscriber in a journey gets an honest personal deadline.

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 Content Builder email

    In Content Builder, add an HTML block where the countdown should appear and paste the snippet below. AMPscript personalization strings are resolved inside the URL for each subscriber 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 %%SubscriberKey%% as the recipient key. It is stable across sends and journeys, so a subscriber sees one consistent deadline in every message that embeds the timer.

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

FAQ

Questions, answered

Can the deadline come from a data extension field?

Yes, through the REST API: create the link with a deadline that comes from the recipient, then reference the field as a personalization string inside target=. It needs to resolve to an ISO date with a timezone offset or unix seconds.

Does this work in Journey Builder?

Yes, and it is the natural fit: contacts enter a journey at different times, which is precisely what evergreen mode is for.

Do I need a Content Builder image upload?

No. The timer is referenced by absolute URL, so nothing is stored in your SFMC asset library.

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