How to add a countdown timer to your email signature
Your email signature goes out on every message you send. Hundreds a week, for most people in sales or customer-facing roles. That makes it one of the most-read pieces of real estate you own, and almost nobody uses it for anything more exciting than a phone number and a logo.
A countdown timer in your email signature changes that. It can count down to a webinar, a product launch, a conference where you'll be exhibiting, or the end of a quarter-end offer. Every email you send becomes a quiet reminder. Done carelessly, though, it can also become a very visible embarrassment. Here's how to do it well.
How a signature countdown timer works
Email signatures can't run code, so the timer is an image hosted online. When someone opens your email, their inbox requests the image, the timer service draws the time remaining at that exact moment, and sends it back. Your signature contains the same image address on every email, but each reader sees the countdown as it stands when they open.
The key is that the signature must link to the image's web address. If you upload a saved copy of the image, you've added a picture of a clock, frozen forever.
Creating the timer
Build a Standard timer in Alterable, which counts down to one fixed deadline. Keep the design compact. Signature timers work best small: around 300–400 pixels wide and not too tall, so they don't overwhelm a two-line reply.
Set the deadline and timezone, match your brand colors, and, most importantly for signatures, set the expired state. More on that below. Then copy the image URL (the address inside src="...", ending in .png) from the embed code.
The free plan covers 10,000 impressions a month with no watermark, which is plenty for most people's signature traffic. A busy sales team sending thousands of emails a week may want to keep an eye on usage, since every open counts.
Adding a countdown timer to a Gmail signature
- Open Gmail settings (the gear icon), then See all settings.
- On the General tab, scroll to Signature and select or create one.
- Place your cursor where the timer should go and click the Insert image icon in the signature editor.
- Choose the web address (URL) option and paste the timer's image URL.
- Select the image and add a link to your event or offer page.
- Scroll down and click Save Changes.
Send yourself an email, open it, wait a few minutes, and open it again to make sure the time changes.
Adding one to an Outlook signature
Outlook is fussier about images in signatures, and the steps differ between versions. In Outlook on the web and the new Outlook, the signature editor lets you add images, but it tends to upload them rather than link them, which freezes the timer. A common workaround is to open the timer image URL in your browser, copy the image, and paste it into the signature editor, then test whether the pasted image stays linked to the source.
In classic desktop Outlook, you can insert a picture and, in the file dialog, paste the image URL into the file name field, then choose "Insert and Link" or "Link to File" from the Insert button's menu so Outlook references the web address instead of embedding a copy.
Whichever version you use, test with a real send and a second open. If the numbers don't move, the image got embedded.
The expired state matters more here than anywhere
A campaign email with a stale timer embarrasses you once. A signature with a stale timer embarrasses you on every email you send, until you notice. And people rarely notice their own signature.
Worse, emails live on. Someone forwards your message three weeks after your webinar, and your signature is still counting down to it, or sitting at zero.
So set what happens after the deadline. With Alterable, you can swap the timer for a different image once time runs out: "Watch the webinar recording" or a plain logo. Old emails then update themselves the next time they're opened. That alone makes an Alterable timer a safer bet for signatures than a basic timer that simply stops at zero.
Good uses for a signature timer
Signature timers work when the deadline matters to most people you email. A company-wide product launch, an annual conference, the last week of early-bird registration, or holiday shipping cutoffs for a support team are all good fits.
They work less well for a narrow promotion that's irrelevant to most recipients. Your accountant doesn't need to know your spring sale ends Tuesday. If only some contacts care, put the timer in a targeted campaign instead.
Keeping it professional
A few habits keep a signature timer from feeling gimmicky. Keep one line of text above it explaining what it's for ("Our annual summit starts in"). Use modest dimensions and your brand colors. Add alt text that states the event and date, since many business inboxes block images by default. And take it down, or let the expired image take over, promptly when the event passes.
Also think about replies. In a long thread, a timer in every signature stacks up quickly. Many email clients let you use a shorter signature for replies and forwards, and that's a good place to leave the timer out.
Rolling it out to a whole team
If you want everyone at the company to carry the same timer, keep it simple: one Alterable timer, one image URL, shared with the team or pushed through your signature management tool. When the event changes, you update the timer once in Alterable and every signature everywhere updates with it. No one has to edit anything.
That's the real advantage of a hosted timer. It's one image address, controlled from one place.
If you've got a launch or event coming up, set up a signature timer on Alterable's free plan at alterable.com and let every email you send this month count down to it.
