Email Countdown GIF: How to Create, Add, and Use It Effectively

What is an email countdown GIF?

A countdown GIF is a picture with an animated timer that clocks time until some event: the start of sales, the end of sales, a reserved abandoned cart, a limited offer, an early sign-up for a webinar, and so on. This is what a typical countdown email looks like:

Timers exist either in a GIF format or an HTML script and can be anywhere in email templates. They can have lots of customization options and be placed either above the main image or inside it. 

How an email countdown GIF works

An email countdown GIF isn’t a live timer, but rather an animated image that lust looks like a countdown.

In reality, it’s built from a sequence of pre-designed frames that display changing numbers. When those frames play in order, they create the illusion of time passing. However, no real-time calculation happens and the GIF doesn’t “know” the current date or how much time is actually left.

Because of this, the animation always starts from the same point when someone reopens the email. Most email clients reload or cache images on open, so the GIF simply plays again as it was designed originally.

This means that a countdown GIF creates visual urgency, but not precise timing. It works well for short-term promotions and “last chance” emails, but if you need a timer that updates accurately, you’ll need a dynamic HTML solution instead (more on this later in the article).

Why use a GIF countdown timer in email marketing

Most of the time, a countdown timer GIF is used to tell your clients that something won’t last forever and they’d better hurry up. These include event notifications, offer deadlines, and so on. However, there’s one more reason to occasionally use timers — to introduce the element of surprise. Let’s explore!

Create urgency

Timers as marketing tools are supposed to speed your clients up towards a certain action. As they see seconds tick away, clients should feel more inclined to do what you want them to. After all, when something is scarce or limited that alerts people — the good old fear of missing out. 

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a long-established marketing principle backed by behavioral research. For example, a study by University College London shows that people remember FOMO-based Facebook Ads a lot better compared to those without FOMO content. Another study by College of Management and Technology-Arab Academy for Science, conducted on Egyptian Millennials showed that FOMO may increase conformity consumption, which means buying to be like others. Finally, there’s a study on Sage Journals related to influencer marketing that confirms the role of FOMO in creating the buying intention.

Notify or remind about something

If you use a countdown GIF timer in an email that teases early access to a product or an event, this may be viewed as a sign of care about your clients. You can even push it further and add a calendar reminder button, like Litmus did.

And if you’re using countdown timers in sales emails, they may also help people make decisions about when to start shopping. For example, if you notify them about your Black Friday offers a day or two before the sales season starts, your customers will have enough time to evaluate your offer and decide if that’s what they need. And, if they like it, they’re more likely to buy from you and not another shop selling similar stuff.

Increase your sales

We have already discussed some studies related to FOMO in marketing. Countdown timers induce FOMO, so they must be as effective as any other FOMO-based content in ads and promotion, right? The results are mixed. There’s not much research on how countdown timers perform, and the data is a bit inconclusive. 

For example, a case study of The Diamond Store Black Friday emails showed that a countdown timer GIF in a promotional email can yield a 400% increase in conversions. Other studies, however, didn’t find a significant difference between emails with and without a countdown timer. This brings us to a simple conclusion: take nothing for granted in email marketing, try things on your audience to see how they respond. 

And, if you want to learn more about the actual patterns behind email clicks, check out our definitive guide on the email click-through rate benchmarks and optimization. 

Surprise your clients

There are dozens of articles on countdown timers in email marketing blogs and other sources, so you may assume the trick is quite popular, even overused maybe? Also, Apple Mail Privacy Protection updates put limits not just on open rate tracking but also on dynamic content. This means that for some Apple users who enabled MPP, countdown timers in emails may end up being non-functional. So, should you use them in emails and do they still carry an element of surprise? 

Long story short, yes. If you introduce your subscribers to countdown timers sparingly, you won’t fail to surprise them. Just don’t put them in every sales campaign of yours and maybe experiment with design. For example, why not make a vertical timer?

What to keep in mind when using countdown timers

Since you deal with an animated image, you must be sure you know how to use it so it works correctly (more on this later). You should only add a countdown GIF when you mean it. Urgency is a big hook in email marketing, but it can’t be the only strategy: not every product is “limited” and not every event “will end soon”.

If you mean a deadline and are sure your clients will respond to it — great. To check how emails with countdown timers perform, testing is essential:  learn how to A/B test email campaigns to know for sure.

Email countdown GIF compatibility

Animated GIF support varies across email clients. According to the email feature database at Can I Email, most modern clients, including Gmail, Apple Mail, and mobile apps, support animated GIF playback. However, older desktop versions of Outlook display only the first frame of a GIF.

Before using a countdown GIF in a campaign, it’s worth checking current client support data to ensure your design degrades gracefully.

Examples of using countdown timers

There are many email types where countdown timers come in handy. Long story short, they can be useful in campaigns where you need to speed up your customers’ decision-making. Let’s take a look at some of the most prominent use cases.

Voucher redemption

Discount codes tend to have expiration dates — use the code a second past it and you won’t save the money. To prompt subscribers to use their discount codes before it’s too late, marketers can use countdown timer GIFs.  

Wait, actually, we did it once! When we ran a campaign for the oldest and most loyal subscribers of FWD: by Selzy newsletter, we sent an extra “Last chance” email — and yep, it had a countdown timer.

Abandoned shopping carts

Placing a deadline is common in abandoned cart emails and you can go the extra mile and highlight it. Notice that a CTA button is placed right under the timer — a straightforward way to influence a potential customer. 

VIP or early access

Notify your clients about a VIP or early access and offer a reward for joining. It’s not only about urgency but also care or even a form of secrecy — you offer your clients something that won’t be for everyone.

Price changes

Tell your customers that prices change soon. You may get more sales, they may be happy with a reduced price and a great service — top content.

Sale ends soon

A deadline is a proven way to get people into action. Why not use it? Make the most of a sales period by showing your customers a deadline on an animated GIF. That’s why using a countdown timer GIF is a common trope in “Last chance” emails like this one from WiX.

Special events

A clock ticking down can be an interesting solution for special events like Black Friday or Cyber Monday when email marketing is all about maximizing the potential of sales. In such campaigns, a timer is often used to demonstrate: hey, customer, it’s your last chance to shop with a discount. 

But it’s not always the case. Here’s a curious example of a special event email with a countdown timer. Here, Market House, a meat delivery service, prompts customers to order now so they have something to grill on Memorial Day. No special offers — in this case, it’s just customer care.

Webinar or live stream reminder

Countdown reminders look natural when you advertise an upcoming webinar or live stream. Sending a reminder with a countdown timer GIF is not just customer care — you’ll also get more visitors since you’re prompting customers to sign up with a bit of urgency.

Limited edition or product release

Advertise a last-chance product or a limited edition with a timer. Feel free to combine it with fun content as in the example below.

Contest

Launch an email contest with prizes. A timer may be a retention tool as it notifies people that they’re still in the game.

Email countdown GIF vs HTML timer

There are two ways you can insert a timer into an email: a GIF or an HTML script. One big difference between the two tools is how they count time. In addition, HTML may be a bit of a challenge to use in comparison to GIFs. 

An HTML script shows only real time. Say, you set a timer at 01:00:00 and place it into an email. If you re-open it in five minutes, it will display 00:55:00. An HTML script is programmed to a certain end date and it won’t stop until it reaches it. 

A GIF will always restart. It’ll always display 01:00:00 every time you re-open an email or update the page. 

This, however, doesn’t mean GIFs are useless tools in email marketing. Since most inboxes are crowded, it’s fair to assume customers only open an email once, so the countdown will only be seen once. 

GIFs are also slightly simpler to use and, in general, more people are familiar with GIFs than scripts. Our recommendation is that unless you’re sure you know what you’re doing, the HTML way might prove too complicated.

How to create a countdown GIF

There are three options: choose a countdown timer from the internet, create one on a specialized website, or customize one in an ESP.

Find a countdown timer on the internet

This is most likely the easiest path. The internet is full of animated pictures and you can choose timers that suit you from popular services like Pinterest or Tenor. You can access the result from a Google page with pictures and choose one of many available designs.

Online services help users design their countdown timers. There’s not much difference between them as the principle is similar: pick a template, choose background and digit colors, set the event time. Once done, save the result as a GIF. 

Some of those services include extra features and tools like embedding a link into a timer but the option may be paid. Here’s a brief overview of the services.

Customize a timer in an ESP

Some ESPs allow you to create countdown timers right in the email builder. Unlike external services, it’s pretty convenient because you can do all the email building and customization in one tab.  Keep reading to see how you can do it with the Selzy email builder. First, go to the Elements tab in the builder and find Countdown.

Then, drag and drop the Countdown element to your email template. Here’s what it will look like:

Then, click the timer to see the editing menu at the right half of your screen.

Then, it’s time to edit the timer! Here’s what you can edit in the Selzy builder:

• End time and timezone
• Font, font size, and color — you can set those up separately for numbers and written time units
• Language of the time units
• Size in pixels 

You can also add a clickable link to the countdown timer GIF. To do this, scroll down the settings menu to see the Chain icon. Click on it to reveal the text field and enter the link. Quick warning: don’t paste the link with UTM tags — you’ll be able to assign all the tags automatically to each and every email link at the next stage of preparing the campaign.

Once you’re happy with the settings, click the Save button — it’s in the top-right corner of the screen.

Now you have a countdown timer as part of your email. 

How to add a countdown GIF to an email

If you created the countdown timer in your ESP, at this point you don’t have to do anything else besides sending the campaign, so you can skip this part of the article. But if you plan to use a countdown GIF you made or downloaded somewhere else, follow this tutorial.

Since GIF is an image format, you have to insert animated pictures into the image field of your ESP. Let’s break down how it works in the Selzy builder. Start by going to the Elements menu and choosing the Image element.

Once you drag and drop the element, hover over the placeholder image, and click the two arrows in the middle of the small menu. Here it is!

Once you click it, you’ll have a pop-up window that will allow you to upload your own image. As you can see, the GIF format is supported. 

Then, upload the countdown timer GIF — here’s what it will look like in the email: 

You can also go a harder path and add a countdown timer with an HTML code. When creating it with online services like Mara or Countingdownto you can either save the result as a GIF or HTML code.

The Selzy builder doesn’t have a separate element in the Content menu for embedding raw HTML in the email. However, you can switch to Code mode by clicking a button at the left part of the screen. Here’s what it will look like:

Here, you can choose the part of the email where you want to put your countdown timer GIF, and paste the code — and you’re good to go! And, if you need some editing, you can do it both in the no-code builder and in the code mode.

How to add a countdown timer inside a picture

Looking at the examples of emails with countdown timers, you could notice that most of them have a timer embedded into a picture. How did they do it? Let’s take this example from Ray-Ban’s Black Friday campaign, try to break it down, and recreate.

Let’s talk about some analogies. First I want you to think of a hamburger. I’ve drawn an ugly one so that you bear with me and don’t feel the urge to order food. Here it is: 

A hamburger can be broken down into ingredients: the buns and a beef patty. Likewise, a picture from an email can be broken down into several pieces. Let’s split the Ray-Ban one into the upper bun and the lower bun with a patty.

Suppose I now want a cheeseburger. I take a slice of cheese and place it on the patty. Here’s what I’m gonna eat now:

So, here’s how it should change our “email meal”: the cheese (a countdown timer in our case) becomes a new part of the picture burger and it must always be placed on the patty (the rest of the picture).

Equipped with the “cheeseburger principle”, you now know what to do — connect three layers (the top of the picture, the countdown timer, and the rest of the picture) in an email builder in your ESP. 

First, you need to slice your image into several parts. You can use any image editing software — here’s an example of what it can look like in Figma. I pasted the image three times and used the Crop option.

Then, let’s go and assemble our cheeseburger in the Selzy builder. Here’s what we’ll need to do:

• Create our own email template from scratch and add three empty blocks to it
• Add images to the top and the bottom blocks
• Add the countdown timer to the block in the middle

Begin by clicking Start from scratch to get a blank canvas to work with.

Then, go to the Blocks menu, choose Empty, and add three empty one-column blocks.

Your email template will look like this: 

Once you have three empty blocks, go to Elements, choose Image, and add images to the first and the third blocks. 

You’ll end up with a blank template looking like this:

Then, upload the images and end up with an email that looks like this: 

To give it a more seamless look, you need to remove the padding in these two blocks. To do this, click on the block to reveal the settings menu, and set the Padding numbers to 0. 

Then, you need to adjust the size of each image so they occupy the entire block. To do this, simply drag the image by the lower right corner.

Now, let’s take a look at our “cheese” block where the countdown timer will be placed. For a seamless look, we need to change this block’s background color. You can do it in the same part of the block settings menu where you set up the background image. To achieve a seamless look, you can use the eyedropper tool to pick the exact light gray color from the images above and below.

Once you adjust the background color, add the countdown timer element following the instructions above — and you’re good to go!

I also changed the background of the entire email template to the light gray color used in the picture — that way, all the blocks will blend together seamlessly. To change the background color, click on any part of the screen around the email template to reveal the Group settings menu. Then, edit the Background color.

Although it’s a great way to add a countdown timer GIF to the email, you shouldn’t make image-only emails. Image-only emails are often associated with spam tactics, which can negatively impact email deliverability. Spammers use this trick a lot, so if you send a campaign like this, you’ll end up in spam. However, you can use it as a small design element in the email that actually has text and clickable buttons.

FAQ about email сountdown GIF

What is an email countdown GIF?

An email countdown GIF is an animated image that simulates a ticking timer inside an email. It visually counts down to a deadline, such as a sale ending, webinar start time, or limited-time offer. Unlike dynamic HTML timers, a countdown GIF doesn’t update in real time, it loops continuously as a pre-rendered animation.

How does an email countdown GIF work?

An email countdown GIF works by displaying a sequence of pre-designed frames that create the illusion of time passing. Because it is a static animated image, it doesn’t calculate time dynamically. Each time the email is opened or refreshed, the GIF restarts. This means the timer may not reflect the actual remaining time if opened after the deadline.

Can an email countdown GIF update in real time?

No. A countdown GIF cannot update in real time. It’s a pre-rendered animation, not a live script. For real-time countdown timers, you would need a dynamic HTML-based timer generated by a personalization platform.

Why does my email countdown GIF reset when I reopen the email?

A countdown GIF resets because it’s an animated image file. Email clients reload images each time an email is opened or refreshed, causing the animation to start from the beginning. This is normal and cannot be prevented with standard GIF timers.

Do email countdown GIFs affect deliverability?

No. A countdown GIF itself does not negatively affect deliverability. However:

• Image-only emails may increase spam risk.
• Large GIF file sizes can slow loading.
• Misleading deadlines may hurt subscriber trust and engagement.

To protect deliverability, always include live text alongside the GIF, keep the file size optimized, use accurate deadlines.

Are email countdown GIFs mobile responsive?

Yes, as long as they are placed inside responsive email layouts. To ensure proper display:

• Set the GIF width to 100% or use a max-width container.
• Optimize file size for faster mobile loading.
• Test across devices before sending.

When should you use an email countdown GIF?

An email countdown GIF works best for:

• Flash sales.
• “Last chance” promotions.
• Product launches.
• Webinar reminders.
• Cart expiration notices.

Avoid using countdown GIFs for evergreen offers or promotions without real deadlines.

Conclusion

• Countdown timers trigger urgency. If you want to put a greater emphasis on a limited offer in your email marketing campaigns, you can add a timer to your email.
• Don’t put countdown timers into every email. Not every offer or event is limited. Your clients will soon get used to it if they see the same content all the time.
• If unsure, use GIFs over HTML. If you’re not yet skilled in HTML, you can customize a GIF on an external website and add it to your email campaign as an image.
• Add countdown timers right from an ESP. This may be even faster than adding a GIF as you have all the tools you need in one tab.
• Place timers inside a picture with a “cheeseburger principle”. If you want a timer inside a picture and not above, imagine a hamburger. To make it a cheeseburger, you need to add cheese between the upper bun and a patty with the other bun. Accordingly, cut your picture in a photo editor and, when putting it all together in an ESP, place the countdown timer layer where it belongs — between the two parts of the image.