Step by step
How to add a countdown timer to a Drip email
Create the timer
Type the sale into Create with AI (Basic and up), for example "20% off for 3 days, rings layout, our green", or build it in the editor. The AI counts the length from now, so set an exact end in the date picker. Pick Fixed for a broadcast with one deadline, or Evergreen for a workflow.
Copy the Drip embed
Click Embed in the timer editor. For an evergreen timer that starts on open, or a dynamic one, choose Drip as the email platform there; an evergreen timer's URL then ends in
?vid={{ subscriber.email }}, Drip's Liquid for the subscriber's address. Copy the image URL or the HTML<img>snippet.One click: insert into a broadcast draft (Pro and up)
Connect Drip under Settings → Integrations with your API token and account ID. In the timer editor, Send to ESP lists your draft broadcasts; pick one and a position, and flashtimer adds the timer to the email's HTML as its own row.
Or paste it (every plan, including Free)
For workflow emails and any template, paste the
<img>snippet into an HTML or code area of the email, or link an image block to the timer URL. Do not upload the GIF: an uploaded copy shows the time left at the moment you saved it, forever.Send a test
Send yourself a test, check the image URL shows your real address in place of the Liquid tag, and open it in Gmail, Apple Mail and Outlook. Put the deadline in text under the timer.
Where a countdown earns its place in Drip
Drip is built for online stores, and store email is full of real deadlines: a weekend sale, a coupon that expires, the last day for holiday delivery, a cart held for 24 hours. A countdown makes the deadline concrete. Because the image is rendered at each open, a subscriber who opens Saturday sees Saturday's number, not the one from when you hit send.
Keep timers for real deadlines. A countdown that hits zero and the offer carries on teaches subscribers to ignore the next one. For one-off promotions, see the flash sale countdown timer email setup.
Per-subscriber evergreen timers with {{ subscriber.email }}
In a workflow, each subscriber reaches an email on a different day. An evergreen timer gives each of them the same window, such as 48 hours, starting from their first open. flashtimer tells them apart with ?vid={{ subscriber.email }}: Drip fills in each address at send time and flashtimer hashes it before storage.
That makes one workflow email work for every subscriber for months, with no deadline to update. Learn how the window is counted on the evergreen countdown timer email page. Evergreen timers are on Basic and up.
Countdown timers in Drip workflows
Two workflow patterns cover most stores. Welcome series: give new subscribers a first-order discount that ends 72 hours after they open the email, the welcome email discount countdown timer pattern. Cart and browse recovery: hold a cart incentive for 24 hours, as in the abandoned cart email countdown timer setup.
If the deadline is stored on the subscriber, such as a membership renewal date in a custom field, use a dynamic timer (Pro and up). Type the field name in the embed dialog and flashtimer writes Drip's Liquid for you, for example ?end={{ subscriber.renewal_date }}. ISO dates, a date with a time, and Unix timestamps all work. A blank or past date shows the expired frame.
Store sales that stay in sync
If your Drip store runs on Shopify or WooCommerce, connect the store to flashtimer too (Pro and up). A timer linked to a discount or coupon follows its end date: extend the coupon and the countdown in every email already sent moves with it. See the WooCommerce email countdown timer and Shopify email countdown timer pages for the details.
Outlook, Apple Mail and what happens after the deadline
The timer animates in Gmail, Apple Mail, Yahoo, and Outlook on the web, Mac and mobile. Classic Outlook for Windows (2007–2019, and newer versions with Windows animations turned off) shows only the first frame, which is rendered at open time and so is correct, but it does not tick. Apple Mail Privacy Protection pre-fetches images. By default those loads get the live countdown as it stood then; on Pro and up, Apple Mail options can show them a message, your fallback image or nothing instead, so cached opens never show a stale time. Gmail's proxy is handled with no-cache headers.
When time is up, subscribers see your expiry message, or your own fallback image on Basic and up. If every subscriber shares one evergreen countdown, the Liquid tag did not render: check the sent image URL contains an address, not the literal tag.
Questions
Answered before you ask.
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