Honest Deadlines with MailerLite

A MailerLite automation can start each subscriber's deadline with a Webhook step, for example when they join a group.

Read the Honest Deadlines setup guide first for what you need, how to test and the known limits.

Before you start

• MailerLite plan. We have not confirmed which MailerLite plans include the Webhook step in automations. MailerLite's pricing page lists webhooks as limited on its free plan (checked on 8 October 2026). If you cannot add the step, use the click-start path in step 1 and skip step 2.
• Not yet tested with a real MailerLite account. CountingDownTo reads the subscriber's address from a top-level field named email in the webhook. If the setup log shows "unparseable" after a real subscriber, contact us.

1. Create the campaign

1. Open your countdown page in the editor and click Honest Deadlines.
2. Click Enable deadline campaign and set the name and duration. Under "How deadlines start", leave "When they join your list" selected, or choose "When they click your link" for click start only. Then click Save campaign.
3. Click Snippets & setup and choose the MailerLite tab.
4. Copy the Webhook URL. It ends with ?src=ml, which tells us the call comes from MailerLite. It is shown in full only until you leave or reload the editor; after that, click Rotate to get a new one.

2. Add a Webhook step in MailerLite

1. In MailerLite, open Automation and create a new automation, or open an existing one.
2. Choose the trigger that should start the deadline, such as joining a group.
3. Click + to add a step and drag the Webhook action into the workflow.
4. Paste your webhook URL. MailerLite also asks for a secret key; use the one MailerLite gives you. CountingDownTo does not check it.

Use the Webhook step in an automation, not a webhook created on MailerLite's Integrations page. We have built the setup for the automation step only.

3. Add the link and image to your MailerLite emails

• Use the Tracking link as the address of your button or text link. It ends with MailerLite's merge tag for the subscriber's email address:

  https://countingdownto.com/d/YOUR_LINK_TOKEN?e={$email}

• To show the countdown image, paste the Email GIF code into your email's HTML.

4. Activate and test

1. Go back to the campaign and click Activate campaign.
2. Optionally click Send a test webhook. It creates a real deadline for your account's email address.
3. In MailerLite, put a test subscriber, such as another address of yours, through the automation. A "registered" row should appear in the setup log, followed by "Setup verified".
4. Send the email to that test subscriber, open it and click the link. Your page should show that subscriber's deadline.

If something goes wrong

• No row appears. Check that the subscriber reached the Webhook step and that the URL is the current one. Rows marked "inactive" mean the campaign was not active yet.
• Rows marked "unparseable". We could not read an email address from MailerLite's call. Contact us.
• The link opens your page with its normal countdown. The subscriber has no deadline yet, or MailerLite did not fill in the merge tag.
• You rotated the webhook token. Paste the new URL into the Webhook step. The old one no longer works.