The remaining time is recalculated each time the email is opened. Once displayed in the email, the animation will count down 45 seconds before resetting and counting down 45 seconds each time.
The Countdown Timer adds urgency towards a specific deadline, such as the release date of a video game or product, the start of an event (a conference, webinar, or sporting event), the grand opening of a store location, and so on.
Managing Countdown Timers
You can create and manage the Countdown Timers on the Countdown Timer index page. To access the page, in Navigation, go to CONTENT, and then select Countdown Timer. On this index page, you can create a new Countdown Timer and perform the following actions on the previously created ones:
- Preview – Shows you how the countdown timer will look when viewed in an email.
- Edit – Enables you to edit the details of the countdown timer.
- Delete – Deletes the countdown timer permanently.
The following screenshot shows the Countdown Timer index page and highlights the navigation step and available actions:
Creating a Countdown Timer
On the Countdown Time index page, click the New Countdown Timer button to navigate to the Countdown Timer page. It consists of a left panel where you enter the details of the new countdown timer and a right panel where you can preview your countdown timer.
Perform the following steps to create a new Countdown Timer:
- On the Countdown Time index page, click the New Countdown Timer button.
- On the Countdown Timer page, enter a name for the new Countdown Timer.
- Enter the date and time at which the timer will expire.
- Select an image to be the default image. This is the image that appears in email clients that do not support animated GIFs. You can select an image from the Image Library or upload one from your desktop.
- Select an image to be the expiry image. This is the image that appears in the email when the expiry date and time have passed.
- Enter the background related details for the Countdown Timer:
- Color: Select this option if you want a solid background for the timer.
- Image: Select this option if you want an image as the background. We recommend that you use a simple image without a very high color depth. Otherwise, your Countdown Timer will be very large and take a long time to load in the email client.
- Template: Select this option if you want the Countdown Timer to be displayed as a clock instead of numbers counting down.
- When selecting the Color or Template option as background, you can select the dimension as either of the following:
- Auto Trim: Select this option to set the image dimensions of the Countdown Timer to exactly the width and height of the countdown numbers.
- Custom: Select this option to set the image dimensions of the Countdown Timer yourself. The maximum width and height supported are 700 px and 200 px respectively.
- Enter the font related details for the Countdown Timer:
- Color: Select the color of the countdown numbers on the timer.
- Family: Select the font family for the numbers on the timer.
- Size: Select the point size (in pixels) of the numbers on the timer.
- Font Top Margin: Enter a value in [percentage/pixel ?]. You can use this option to vertically center the numbers inside the image if you are using a custom dimension.
- Weight: Select how you want the numbers on the timer to appear. The valid values are Light, Normal, and Bold.
- Optionally, you can click the Render Preview button on the top-right corner to see how your countdown timer will look when viewed in an email.
- Click Save.
Using a Countdown Timer
To use a Countdown Timer in an email, you need its URL. On the Countdown Timer index page, click the name of the timer that you want to use. The link URL is displayed at the bottom of the Countdown Timer page that opens.
Click the Copy icon to copy the image URL to your clipboard. This is to be used as the URL for the Image tag’s SRC attribute.
In this way you can insert a Countdown Timer in your email content.
