How to Create a Countdown Timer Popup (Step-by-Step)
Here’s how to make a countdown timer popup in 4 simple steps with Popupsmart popup builder.
Step 1. Create a New Popup
Go to your Popupsmart dashboard to create your popup campaign.
If you don’t have an account, you can get started with Popupsmart today for free to create advanced popups for your website in minutes with no-code.
Select your business objective, name your campaign, and choose the domain where you want to display your popup.
See our popup building documentation for more information on creating your first popup.
Step 2. Customize Your Timer Popup
Select a popup template and popup types such as floating bar, lightbox, sidebar popup, or fullscreen popup. Next, start customizing your popup and make it fit your website design.
You may use our ready-made popup templates as well. There are various ways you can personalize your popup.
For example, today, I’ll make the countdown popup timer below. I change the popup template’s appearance:
- Background color,
- Button text, font, color,
- Image,
- Its call to action and headline. (more personalization available)
Play around with customization settings such as using your brand’s font, colors, and images.
Step 3. Add Countdown Timer to Your Popup
Once you are done with the changes, add the countdown popup. Turn off the “hide” toggle if it’s on.
Select a countdown type; dynamic or static. If you choose static, you need to select a timezone from the dropdown list.
Set an end date for your timer and determine whether you want to show the countdown as days, hours, minutes, seconds, or a combination of the selected units of time.
Once you’ve set up the timer, define what will happen when the countdown timer runs out. Upon hitting zero, you can;
- Target a URL
- Show a message
- Close the campaign
Next, choose a font for your timer among a wide range of font options, including Google fonts.
Lastly, set up the font-weight, color, size, and alignment.
Tip: Timer pop ups are available for mobile devices, too. You can enable mobile view and optimize your mobile popup.
Step 4. Set up Triggers & Targeting Options
Finally, set up the display rules, triggers, and targeting settings of your timer pop up to show it to the right users at the right time.
Now, your countdown timer pop up is all set to go live and bring conversions!
Save and publish it, or just save it to publish later.
Do you still have questions like; how to add countdown popup on Shopify? Or how to create a countdown popup in WordPress? Then, you can follow the same steps above because Popupsmart works with any website that allows JavaScript.
Now that you know how to create a countdown timer popup let’s go through the best ways to use countdown popup timers.
How to Use Countdown Popups - Best Practices
There is more to countdown timer popups than just a simple urgency message. If you use them correctly, adding a countdown timer popup to your website can;
- Help you grow your email list,
- Increase sales,
- Boost engagement,
- Promote holiday sales,
- Build excitement for product launches and more.
1. Collect More Email Signups
You might already be using email or subscription popups to ask people to join your email list. However, without a deadline, people will be less motivated to do so.
For example, if you are;
- Running a giveaway campaign for new subscribers or first-time users,
- Offering your new sign-ups an early-access to an event,
You can encourage more visitors to sign up and pop your campaign with a countdown timer, like in the example below.
It is common to offer discounts in exchange for email signups, but giving discounts to each subscriber can be costly.
2. Excite Customers About Upcoming Sales Campaigns
Another efficient way to use a countdown timer pop up is to tease your upcoming sales campaigns to excite customers. 🤩
This way, you can leverage urgency to increase e-commerce revenue. Announcing an upcoming big sale is a great incentive, but it’s even more powerful to get customers to take action using countdowns.
This type of countdown popup works best, especially long-awaited sales, such as Black Friday sales, holiday sales, or flash sales. In such cases, a countdown timer is the easiest way to see a big boost in your bottom line.
You could, for example, create two separate campaigns that target two different visitor groups before your sales begin and convert each towards different goals.
You can ask to display a countdown timer pop up to visitors and ask them to get their cart ready, like in the example below.
Or you can offer an early access to holiday deals in exchange for their email address.
3. Promote Product Launches 🥳
Anticipation drives consumer behaviors.
Just take Apple as an example. Apple releases dramatic teaser trailers weeks before the product launch to boost the anticipation.
It clearly works as they always have mile-long lines of consumers waiting at their doors the day new product launches. They know how to get people excited.
You can build excitement for product launches whether it is;
- A new product line,
- New-season items,
- Stock-hyped products,
You can anticipate customers and double your sales with promotional popups. Here’s an example:
For visitors who haven’t signed up to your mailing list yet, you can create another popup to invite them for early access.
4. Skyrocket Sales with Limited Time Offers 🚀
Popup counters convert when used to promote limited-time offers, too.
According to a study, 60% of consumers make purchases because of FOMO within 24 hours.
You can use the FOMO marketing strategy to your advantage. It’s not only big sales that can convert users with a countdown. Adding a countdown popup timer to your website for other sales campaigns such as;
- Flash sales
- Hourly deals
- Long weekend offers
- One-day-only sales
If you have an offer valid for a limited period, countdown popups can help you skyrocket your conversions and engagement. Make sure your popup design is attention-grabbing but not annoying.
5. Reduce Cart Abandonment Rates
Most e-commerce marketers are searching for different methods on and off their sites to reduce cart abandonment. If you are one of them, you should include timer pop up campaigns in your marketing strategies.
You might be offering discounts to prevent customers from abandoning shopping carts. Although this can effectively win back potential buyers, it can also be quite costly to give discounts to every single of them.
Instead, make similar special offers but only for a limited time. Take the period countdown popup below as an example:
6. Count Down to Special Days
Make your customers count down to special days; give them an excuse to shop.
It’s not only big sales or limited-time offers that you can count down to. Any day that is special to make an excuse for shopping is a day to look forward to.
Whether it’s a special occasion or day in your niches, such as Dress Up Your Pet Day or a holiday like Christmas, promote it with a countdown timer in your popup.
For example, you can target gift-shoppers and drive urgency to buy gifts by reminding them that there’s little time left until the special day.
Once the time runs out, you can make slight alterations to your promotion popup. For example, this time, you can target last-minute shoppers, as in the example below.
Wrapping up
Popups are incredibly versatile tools to support all marketing goals in your arsenal and get you a step closer to achieving your dream conversion rates.
When you know how to use them correctly and combine them with the right triggers, such as urgency and scarcity, you can leverage them for your business goals.
Now that you know how to create a countdown timer popup and how to add a countdown timer to your popups in just a few minutes, it’s your turn to create one!
Get started with Popupsmart today for free to create a countdown timer for your campaigns.
How do you use countdown popups? Do you find them useful? Tell us in the comments. 🙂
Check out this blog post as well:
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