Honest Deadlines setup guide

Honest Deadlines gives each of your email subscribers their own deadline. It starts when they join your list or when they first click your link. The countdown image in your email, your link and your CountingDownTo page all show the same deadline, and when it passes your page shows the ending you chose. Honest Deadlines is part of Pro.

Setup guides for each email platform:

How deadlines start

When they join your list. Your email platform calls a webhook address that CountingDownTo gives you, and the subscriber's deadline starts then. This works with Kit and MailerLite.
When they click your link. The subscriber's first click on your tracking link starts their deadline. This works with any platform that can put the subscriber's email address into a link, including Kajabi.
Both. Choose "When they join your list" and tick "Also start on first click". Someone who clicks before the webhook arrives still gets a deadline.

With "When they join your list" alone, a click from someone who has no deadline yet opens your page with its normal countdown and does not start one.

What you need

A Pro account. Guest accounts cannot create campaigns.
A countdown page made in the CountingDownTo editor, published, and set not to repeat.
An ending on that page. In the editor's Ending pane, turn on "Show a message when the countdown ends" or "Redirect visitors when the countdown ends". You can also turn on "Hide buttons at zero". A campaign cannot be activated without an ending.

Each page can have one campaign, and each account up to 25 campaigns. If you need more, contact us.

Set up a campaign

Open your countdown page in the editor and click Honest Deadlines.
Click Enable deadline campaign.
Set the campaign name, the duration in days and hours (3 days unless you change it) and how deadlines start, then click Save campaign.
Click Snippets & setup, choose your email platform and follow its guide.
Go back to the campaign and click Activate campaign. Webhooks that arrive before then do not start deadlines; they show as "inactive" in the setup log.

Changing the duration later applies only to deadlines that start after the change. Deadlines that have already started keep their end time.

The snippets

Webhook URL. It is shown in full only right after you create the campaign or click Rotate, until you leave or reload the editor. Copy it then. After that the editor shows it masked. Rotate creates a new URL and the old one stops working at once, so you then have to put the new URL into your email platform.
Tracking link. Use it as the link in your emails. It ends with ?e= followed by your platform's merge tag for the subscriber's email address.
Email GIF. An image tag that shows each subscriber their own deadline. Paste it into your email's HTML. Loading the image never starts a deadline.

Test your setup

Send a test webhook sends a test to your webhook URL with your account's email address. It creates a real deadline for that address, which you cannot remove from the editor. The button is there only while the webhook URL is shown in full.
The setup log under the button lists the last 10 webhook calls, with a masked address and the result: registered, duplicate, restarted, inactive, unparseable or rate_limited. Tests are labelled "test".
"Setup verified" appears once a real webhook from your email platform has started a deadline. Test webhooks do not count.
The Deadline checker shows when a subscriber's deadline started and when it ends. Up to 60 lookups an hour.
Finally, send yourself a real email from your platform, click the link and check that your page shows your deadline.

What your subscribers see

The tracking link takes them to your countdown page on CountingDownTo, counting down to their own deadline. Their browser keeps a cookie so that the page still shows their deadline when they come back without the link.
After their deadline, the link goes to your redirect address if you set one. Otherwise it opens your page, which shows its ending.
Someone who leaves your list and joins again keeps their first deadline while we still hold it. We delete each deadline record 90 days after its deadline has passed; after that, joining again starts a new deadline, and so does clicking the link if deadlines start on click.
A forwarded email still carries the original subscriber's address, so whoever clicks it sees that subscriber's deadline.
Email security scanners that open links before the subscriber does are recognised from the name their software sends, and do not start a deadline. A scanner we do not recognise can start one.

Known limits

The email image is a still image until the final hour. It shows the time left, to the minute, when the email is opened. In the final hour it counts down for one minute and then stops.
Apple Mail can load the image early. Apple Mail can load images when the email arrives rather than when it is opened, so the image can show the time left at delivery.
Large sends may show a general image. When many images are requested at once, some subscribers may see a still image showing the campaign length in whole days instead of their own time left. If that image could not be prepared when the campaign was activated, a blank (transparent) image is shown instead. Subscribers who have no deadline yet also see the campaign-length image. For subscribers whose deadline has already started, the link and your page still show their own deadline. With "When they join your list" alone, a subscriber with no deadline yet sees your page's normal countdown.
The personal deadline shows on your CountingDownTo page only. A countdown embedded on your own website does not show each subscriber's deadline.
Deadlines belong to email addresses, not networks. People on the same network, such as an office, do not share a personal deadline. Visitors who arrive without the tracking link and without a valid deadline cookie see the page's normal countdown. Subscribers who return in the same browser while their cookie is valid still see their own deadline.
A new device needs the link. The cookie is kept by one browser. On another device the subscriber sees their deadline after clicking the link again.
Rotating the webhook token breaks the old URL. Webhooks sent to it fail until you give your email platform the new one.
Pausing. While a campaign is paused, no new deadlines start and your page shows its normal countdown.
If your account loses Pro. Links in emails you have already sent still open your page, which then shows its normal countdown.

Other platforms

Choose Other in Snippets & setup.

The webhook URL accepts a JSON or form post with the subscriber's address in a top-level field named email.
The tracking link and the email GIF end with YOUR_MERGE_TAG. Replace it with your platform's merge tag for the subscriber's email address. If your platform cannot send a webhook, choose "When they click your link".

Privacy

We store a one-way keyed hash of each subscriber's address, not the address. Our privacy policy lists what we keep and for how long. You are responsible for telling your subscribers, in your own privacy notice, that you use CountingDownTo for their deadlines.