Omnisend countdown timer for campaigns and automations

Omnisend's Email Builder includes a Countdown timer block on its Standard and Pro plans. You set an end date and time, choose a format (DD:HH:MM:SS, HH:MM:SS or MM:SS), pick a font, color and padding, add alt text, and replace the default "THIS OFFER HAS ENDED" fallback image if you like. It counts down to one fixed date for every recipient, in the time zone from your store settings.

If that is all your campaign needs, use it. Omnisend's own help center says that for a deadline per contact you need a third-party timer in a Custom HTML block, and that's where flashtimer fits. Choose flashtimer when you need:

• A countdown per contact that starts on each person's first open, for welcome, cart and browse automations (Basic and up).
• Dates from contact properties, such as a reward expiry or renewal (Pro and up).
• Recurring deadlines that reset daily or weekly, like "order by 2 pm for same-day dispatch" (Basic and up).
• More design: multiple layouts, transparent backgrounds, brand kit colors and uploaded fonts on paid plans.
• Labels in several languages, or "auto" per reader, for stores selling across Europe.
• Measurement: views, geography, click-tracked links and A/B tests of timer designs on higher plans.

An evergreen countdown timer gives every contact their own clock. It starts the first time they open the email and runs for the duration you choose, such as 48 hours, and a reopen tomorrow shows the time still left, not a fresh start. Omnisend's built-in block can't do this, because it counts down to one date for everyone.

To tell contacts apart, the flashtimer embed snippet adds Omnisend's contact email personalization tag to the timer URL for you. flashtimer hashes the value before storing it. Check the email preview to make sure the tag fills in. Evergreen timers are on Basic and up.

Omnisend's automation workflows (welcome series, cart abandonment, browse abandonment and more) send each email on a different day for each contact. Open the workflow, edit the email step, and add the flashtimer snippet in an HTML block, the same as in a campaign.

Match the timer to the real offer. If the cart discount expires 24 hours after the email, set the evergreen duration to 24 hours. Our abandoned cart email countdown timer and welcome email discount countdown pages cover timing and copy.

For a date each contact already has, use a dynamic timer (Pro and up): put ?end= and the custom property's tag in the URL, for example ?end=[[contact.custom_properties.reward_expiry]]. See personalized countdown timers.

The timer counts down 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 of a GIF. flashtimer makes that frame the correct time left at the moment of opening; it just doesn't tick. Restate the deadline in text, like "ends Sunday at midnight".

Apple Mail Privacy Protection loads images before the reader opens the email. 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 caches images through its proxy, so the timer is served with no-cache headers and a reopen shows the current time.

When the countdown ends, readers see your expiry message, or your own fallback image on Basic and up. Because the image is served live, you can swap that fallback after sending, for example to point late openers to your next sale.

Many Omnisend users sell on Shopify. Connect your store to flashtimer on Pro and your Shopify discounts become timers whose end dates stay in sync; see the Shopify email countdown timer page. Compare plans on pricing.