How to add a countdown timer to ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign automations are where evergreen countdowns earn their keep: every contact enters at a different time, and a tikio timer gives each of them a personal deadline from one image URL — no per-contact setup.

  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. Insert the timer into your ActiveCampaign email

    In the ActiveCampaign email designer, add an HTML block where the timer should appear and paste the snippet below. Personalization tags are substituted inside the URL at send time.

    <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

Use ActiveCampaign’s %SUBSCRIBERID% personalization tag as the recipient key. Combined with duration, every contact in an automation gets their own countdown starting at their first open.

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

FAQ

Does this work inside automations?

Yes — that’s the sweet spot. Contacts enter automations at different times, and duration= + uid=%SUBSCRIBERID% gives each one a personal deadline without any extra fields or logic.

Can I reuse one timer across campaigns?

Yes. The deadline lives in the URL parameter, not in the design — change target= for the next campaign and keep the same link and look.

Will the timer slow my email down?

No — it’s a single image request served from a fast rendering pipeline, the same weight as any hero image.

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