Adding countdown timers in emails is a proven way to increase user engagement.
Whether running an event such as an online summit or webinar, online giveaway, affiliate promotion, or flash sales, using a timer at the right placement of emails and landing pages can yield greater, positive results.
Our recent article on best countdown timers for emails listed several services. Mailtimer.io is one of those quality ones which lets you create timers for emails and webpages.
In this review on Mailtimer, you will find out how it works, its features, and the pros & cons of Mailtimer.
Mailtimer Review: Design and Manage countdown timers
What is Mailtimer.io?
Mailtimer.io is an online tool that allows you to create countdown timers. Since these timers are animated images or GIFs, you can embed them on emails and websites.
One benefit of using Mailtimer in your marketing campaigns is that you can adjust the timer from the dashboard and customize its appearance at once rather than using separate timers for email marketing and embedding on web pages.
How to use Mailtimer
Using Mailtimer is straightforward. Create your account from here and log in to your account.
Click on the “Create Timer” button.
Now you will be shown the countdown timer editor. On the left-hand side, you will see general settings, and on the right-hand side, you can see the live preview.
- Timer type – Which type of countdown timer you want to create. Currently, Mailtimer.io provides four different timer types:
- Standard – Set expiration date and time. You might most likely use this option often. Perfect for prelaunches and special events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
- Run when email is opened – This timer type is an evergreen type. Countdown clock will start when a recipient opens email message, and the timer is unique to each subscriber. Perfect for evergreen email drip campaigns and cold email messages.
- Run when email is sent – This evergreen timer type lets you create countdowns to be started when the email is sent. Excellent for broadcast campaigns (also known as one-off email blasts) where you promote present marketing campaigns such as giveaways, events, webinars, online summits, meetings, etc.,
- Dynamic end date – This timer type allows you to set expiration dates and times through variables. Perfect for transactional emails. Ex: Time-sensitive coupon codes with coupon expiration timers.
- End time – Set the date and time for the clock
- Timezone – Choose the timezone for the timer
- Hide and show specific digits
Change Template
Currently, Mailtimer includes nine templates of countdown clocks.
Some templates have unique features and customization options. The file size of the timer will adjust when you change the template and edit it. For optimal results, try to minimize the file size.
Counter
Click on the “Counter” tab from the left menu bar. At this time, you can change font size, font family, and counter color.
Labels
Want to localize label texts? Mailtimer lets you do it.
Container and positions
Customize the background of the timer. From here, you can add a background image to a timer and change the background color to resonate with your email template. To make the background transparent, leave the background color field empty.
Advanced
Advanced settings of a countdown timer of Mailtimer include several features.
On Expiration
Specify what to do when the timer expires or the countdown reaches zero. Currently, there are four activities:
- Show Zeros
- Hide timer
- Show message
- Reset and start
Dynamic Links
One coolest (and critical) feature I want to highlight in this Mailtimer review is the ability to use different links depending on the timer’s status.
- Timer Active URL – Web address that you want to highlight through the timer. Ex: sales page, webinar registration, or thank you page of a giveaway campaign
- Timer Expired URL – A web page where people who missed the opportunity can visit and get something. Ex: Flash-sales page, winners page for a sweepstake
Use a tracking tool such as ClickMagick to track link clicks originating from the timer. Tools like ClickMagick can filter out bot clicks, route traffic based location, operating system, etc., and track conversion rates. Also, you can use a website link rotator to redirect traffic to multiple URLs.
Get embed code
Click on the “Save & Publish” button, and you’ll be given the HTML code for the countdown timer.
Now, you can embed the countdown timer on your email and website by editing the HTML code.
Many email marketing services such as Aweber, ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, and self-hosted email marketing software such as Sendy lets you customize the source code of an email message or add an HTML section to an email message.
Also, you can use the timer on HTML email template builders such as Stripo and Beefree.
When displaying a unique timer for each visitor, you will have to add the correct liquid tag that generates the unique subscriber ID. A liquid tag is a code that dynamically returns corresponding data.
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://i.mailtimer.io/l/KwZweQMpSI?id={{ subscriber.id }}">
<img src="https://i.mailtimer.io/KwZweQMpSI.gif?id={{ subscriber.id }}" border="0" alt="mailtimer.io" style="max-width:100%;" />
</a></div>
Liquid tag of the subscriber or user ID can change based on the email marketing service or software. Aweber users can use {{ subscriber.id }}
.
Demo
Following is an example evergreen countdown timer that resets and restarts created on Mailtimer.
Utilize target=”_blank” to force the link to open in a new tab.
Create a Countdown on Mailtimer
A short video on creating a timer on Mailtimer.
Mailtimer Review: Features
Custom Fonts
You can upload custom fonts and use them in your timers.
Custom domains
Use your domain name to replace mailtimer.io in embed code and dynamic links. A useful feature to increase email inbox rates and Whitelabel email timer.
Real-time analytics
Mailtimer provides pageview data for each timer.
API
Automate the creation process of countdown timers, get data from existing timers, and power up your funnels and marketing campaigns with API.
Pricing
Mailtimer provides a free plan and four paid plans.
- Free – $0 – Unlimited timer views, Transparent background, Public API, Branding on timers
- Micro – $7 – 100,000 timer views, Everything in Free, Brand removal
- Small – $19 – 500,000 timer views, Everything in Micro, Custom fonts, Background image
- Medium – $49 – 1,000,000 timer views, Everything in Small, Dynamic links, Custom domains
- Premium – $69 – 3,000,000 timer views, Everything in Medium
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Free plan
- Four timer types and nine templates
- Custom domain
- Custom fonts
- Dynamic links
- Custom time zone
- Edit timer after sending campaign
- Set expiration behavior
- Public API
Cons
- Limited customization options
- Cannot create dynamic timers based on local timezones of recipients
Is Mailtimer worth it?
Using countdown timers in email messages helps improve your mailing engagement to increase responses, traffic, or sales.
Just like using fitting catchy email subject lines for sales and email swipe templates helps boost conversion rates, it is tested and proven that email timers help in that regard in all scenarios, such as welcome email and cart abandonment.
Mailtimer is a countdown management tool with a generous free tier. Its free plan allows unlimited timer views. So, if you are looking for a free tool to make a countdown clock for emails, Mailtimer is a great contender to consider.
Mailtimer’s cheapest plan, Micro, costs $7/month (100,000 monthly views, brand removal) and is more affordable than Mailtimer alternatives such as NiftyImages, Promofeatures, and Countdownmail. One downside is that Mailtimer is fairly new to the market and lacks some features.
However, if you are looking for a feature-rich countdown timer for a website that allows you to set up count-from-a-date timers, and redirect users to a different page after the timer hits zero automatically and so on, then you should consider a tool like Powr.
Final words on Mailtimer review
Although there are many tools to create countdown timers for websites, not many provide powerful services to create countdown timers for emails. Mailtimer is a handy tool to quickly make beautiful timers and manage them efficiently from its dashboard.
Its features, such as dynamic links, custom domains, and dynamic timers, will benefit your email marketing campaigns. Once your email timer is archived, Mailtimer will replace the timer image with a 1×1 pixel image to reduce image-not-found errors and decrease the negative impact on your email delivery rates.
Mailtimer Review
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Templates
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Features
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UI & UX
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Pricing
Summary
Mailtimer.io allows you to create beautiful countdown timers for emails and websites. Features like dynamic links & countdown timers and custom domains help not only in improving inbox rates but also in conversion rates as well.
Pros
- Custom domain
- Dynamic timers
- Expiration behavior
- Dynamic links
- Templates
- Set timezone for timer
- Unique timer for visitors
- Custom fonts
Cons
- Limited customization options