The LiveTimer Element is used to count down to events, promotions, registration deadlines, or time remaining in sales. The timer counts from the moment a person opens an email to the event or promotion date, creating a sense of urgency.
Examples are expiring offers, reward expiration, iconic launch countdown, holiday offers, store opening,etc.
In this topic, we will discuss the different configuration options specific for the LiveTimer as well as the preview and embed codes. Check out the topic Create a new campaign first for more information on how to initially create a campaign.
Once your LiveTimer campaign has been created, a series of steps need to be followed:
2. Preview and test the LiveTimer
Configure the LiveTimer
Configure basic settings
The settings configured in the Basic Settings section apply to all the different variants of the element, if these exist.
Linking — In the basic settings you define if a clickthrough URL is required or only the embedded image, without the possibility to click through. If you choose the option to add a clickthrough URL, you will have to define the url in the configuration of the element further down.
LiveTimer Layout — Choose between always showing the running seconds or only in the last 99 hours of the countdown.
When opting to always display the running seconds, there are by default 4 time elements in the countdown timer: Days, Hours, Minutes and Seconds. Note that this option is also required when you want to display months in your timer, instead of seconds. (More information on this can be found further down in the configuration of the LiveTimer)
When choosing to only show them in the last 99 hours, there are 2 different countdown presentations: Before the start of the last 99 hours, the days, hours and minutes are shown. In the last 99 hours, only the hours, minutes and seconds.
Alt text — This is the text that will be displayed when the image cannot be rendered. It is recommended to always set an alt text in case openers have disabled image rendering in their email clients or for openers that use screen readers. The alt text is appended to the embed code of the element.
Click Save and Next, to continue to the next step: the configuration of the elements.
Further configuration of LiveTimer
When a LiveTimer campaign is created, there is always a default LiveTimer element that will be the fallback image when the targeting rules do not apply to the opener of the email or when no targeting rules have been defined.
Start by configuring the default LiveTimer.
1. The first step is defining the dimensions of this element. Enter the width and height of your LiveTimer element, or leave the default settings.
Note: If you would like to use the default Liveclicker images, you need to choose one of the following dimensions: 200*70, 300*100, 400*130, 600*200. If you set a different dimension for the LiveTimer element, you will have to create a custom timer image.
2. Then, decide if you want to use the default timer appearance or a custom one. When choosing the custom one, there are 2 possible options: simple and advanced.
Simple — You can change the look of the digits displayed in the LiveTimer in the following way:
- Font family — Controls the font style of the digits. You can select a standard Liveclicker font from the drop-down or use a custom font.
- Color — Controls the color of the digits.
- Sizes — Controls the size of the digits
- Alignment — Controls the alignment of digits and sets the reference point for positioning them in your LiveTimer
- X Positioning — Controls on what pixel horizontally you want to place your LiveTimer digits.
- Top Positioning — Controls on what pixel vertically you want to place your LiveTimer digits.
- Separator — Controls spacing and characters shown in between each set of digits. For example, if you want to show a colon ":" in between each set of digits, you would input ":" into the separator control. You can also add spaces to this separator.
- Background Image — Below the LiveTimer Preview in the wizard, there is the option to upload a custom background image.
Advanced — You can change the font family, size, color, positioning and spacing for each set of digits in the timer:
- Font family — Controls the font style of the set of digits. You can select a standard Liveclicker font from the drop-down or use a custom font.
- Color — Controls the color of the set of digits.
- Sizes — Controls the size of the set of digits.
- X Positioning — Controls on what pixel horizontally your want the first digit of the set of digits to be placed on.
- Y Positioning — Controls on what pixel vertically your want the first digit of the set of digits to be placed on.
- Spacing — Controls the exact spacing in pixels between numbers in a set of digits.
- Background Image — Below the LiveTimer Preview in the wizard, there is the option to upload a custom background image.
- Force width — In addition, you can force the width of each of the numbers in the timer. This impacts how much horizontal space the days, hours, minutes and seconds take up in the timer.
- Condense the days — Strip the leading zeros. 07 days will then be displayed as 7 days.
- Show Months — This option only shows when you chose the option always show running seconds in the basic settings of the LiveTimer. This is the only layout that this feature works on because it shows 4 units of time. If you do not choose this layout, the "months" units will not be displayed in your LiveTimer. Checking the option adds a "Months" row to your table and removes the "Seconds" row.
Tip: you can only show 4 units of time at once, so you should not use this feature if you want to show running seconds.
3. If you chose the option to use a clickthrough URL in the basic settings, here is where you have to define it.
Note: You can use a regular clickthrough link or a mobile deeplink. Mobile deeplinks are URLs that the mobile device will interpret as an instruction to open the app if it is installed, and go to a specific location in the app. If the app does not exist, in general it will take the opener to the location where the app can be downloaded.
Note 2: Clickthrough URLs can be personalized with ESP tags. Please check out our dedicated topic on this subject if this is something you consider doing.
4. Next, the expiration of the LiveTimer needs to be set. Enter a date, time and timezone towards which the timer is counting down. Setting a timezone here will result in the countdown timer to expire everywhere at once.
Example: If the expiration time it set to 18:00 and the Brussels timezone is selected, for someone in Brussels the timer will expire at 18h00 at night, while for someone in New York, this will be at noon.
Note: If you choose further on in the configuration to personalize this expiration date and time, the values defined here will be overridden by the customized expiration date and time. Only if the personalized expiration date cannot be retrieved, the settings for the expiration of the LiveTimer will be used as a fallback.
5. The option Expire LiveTimer in opener's local timezone will make sure that the expiration of the countdown timer is expressed in the timezone of the opener. This means that the countdown expiration will be different depending on the opener's location.
Example: If the expiration time is set at 18:00, the timer will expire in Brussels at 18:00 local time and at 18:00 in New York local time.
Important note: Expiration based on the opener's timezone is not supported in Gmail due to Google's image proxy limitation. If you checked the option Expire LiveTimer in opener's local time, and the local timezone can not be detected, the timezone defined in step 4 will be used as a fallback.
6. When the expiration date has been reached, you can show an image. Upload the expiration image here and set the dimensions.
7. Next, define a clickthrough URL for the expiration image. This URL can take openers for example to the expired deal or You missed out page.
8. Last, the LiveTimer expiration can be customized by using either a Custom field or a Dynamic field (from an external data source). When choosing this option, the expiration date and time set earlier in step4 of the LiveTimer configuration will be overridden.
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Custom field — The LiveTimer Expiration Custom field needs to be configured in the Account Settings. This Custom field will determine what the expiration date is for each opener individually. Note that it is possible to further customize this Custom field with extensions to the expiration. For more details please check out the topic on LiveTimer Custom fields.
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Data source field — This is a Dynamic field of your choice. When choosing this option you need to select the data source as well as the field in that data source. This field will then be used to determine the expiration date for each opener individually.
9. When using a customized LiveTimer expiration, a personalization fallback image must be uploaded. This image will be served when Liveclicker can not retrieve the data for the selected Custom or Dynamic field. This image is also served when there are account overages.
Now you have finished the configuration of your first LiveTimer.
At this point you can either add an alternative version of the LiveTimer or move on to the targeting and testing section.
An alternative version can be used when targeting rules are implemented, presenting some of the viewers with one version, and others with another version.
10. If you want to do this, click the button Add Alternate LiveTimer and repeat the configuration steps as for the default LiveTimer.
11. When done, click Save and Next to set up the targeting rules.
Define targeting rules and AB tests
1. In this last step, you can decide which subscriber should get a specific version of the LiveTimer through the use of targeting rules. A targeting rule will split up the audience and only target a segment of the audience with a specific version. There are 2 options:
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Define targeting rules from scratch.
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When you have already defined targeting rules for a different element in this campaign, you can re-use these targeting rules for the current element.
For more details on setting up targeting rules, please check out the dedicated topic.
2. In addition, you can also set up AB testing for this element. With A/B testing the final version of the LiveTimer shown to the remainder of the audience, is determined by the A/B test.
3. When done, click Continue. You are taken to the next element to configure, if any. Otherwise, you are taken to the Preview.
Preview and test the LiveTimer
The Preview tab for your campaign becomes available when all elements in your campaign have been configured. It provides you with the ability to test the look and rendering of the elements in your campaign, either as a static preview or as a dynamic preview, simulating an opener. You can also send yourself or others an email preview.
For more details on how to test your elements using preview, please read the corresponding topic.
Retrieve the embed codes
In this last step, you need to provide some estimated campaign details, such as expected opens, launch date and Expiration date, as well as the Subscriber ID field.
All this information will be used by Liveclicker to optimize resources but also to create the embed code.
For more details on the Embed codes, check out this topic.
