How to Create a Sales Countdown Timer in Shopify (Step by Step)

Are you struggling to make enough money from your Shopify store? A sales countdown timer could solve that problem.

While the top Shopify stores can generate sales worth thousands of dollars each month, some store owners struggle. So, if you were disappointed by the results of your last sale, you’re not alone.

One smart way to boost sales is to create a sales countdown timer for your Shopify store.

Sales timers let you promote your sale to every visitor. They’re also a great way to make visitors take action NOW by using marketing techniques like urgency and FOMO so your visitors feel compelled to buy.

Sales countdown timers are proven to get results. Lifter LMS unlocked $23,700 in additional sales within five months with a simple countdown timer on their pricing page. Kennedy Blue, an eCommerce site, increased sales by 50% with the help of a sales countdown timer like this one:

In this guide, we’re going to show you how to create a sales countdown timer for Shopify that will give your visitors a great experience AND help you boost your income.

Here’s the timer we’re going to create:

Before you begin, you’ll need to get OptinMonster so you can easily create this effective slide-in campaign. You’ll need to sign up for the Pro Plan for Countdown Timers!

1. Create a Campaign

Login to the OptinMonster dashboard, and press the Create Campaign button. This will start your new campaign.

Choose a campaign type. We’re going to go with a Slide-in because it will stay on the page without disturbing your visitors and looks great on mobile devices.

Choose a template. We’re going to use the Holiday template because it has a built-in countdown timer. You could also use the Spooktacular or Black Friday themes, or design your own campaign with our Canvas template.

Name your campaign. You can add the site where you want your campaign to run at this stage, but we’ll leave it blank for now. Don’t worry, we’ll show you how to publish your campaign to Shopify later in this tutorial.

Press Start Building.

This will take you to the OptinMonster campaign builder, where you’ll see the default Holiday campaign.

2. Edit the Campaign

Next, we’re going to edit the campaign to create the Shopify product countdown timer.

We’ll start by changing the headline which tells visitors what you have on offer. Click on the text you want to edit, then type the text you want to use instead in the text box on the left. You can format the text with all of the tools in the editing panel.

Edit the body text in the same way.

Click on the image area to replace the image with something suitable for your Shopify sale. You can find suitable images by visiting one of these sites hosting free images.

Save your campaign. Do this at regular intervals throughout this tutorial.

Click on the email field. This will take you to the Email Placeholder section on the left. You can edit the placeholder text here, though we’ll go with the default text.

Next, click on the Button tab to edit your submit button. If you wish, edit this text.

3. Edit the Sale Timing

Next, it’s time to choose the timing for your sales countdown timer. Click on the countdown timer in the preview to bring up the editing tools.

OptinMonster offers both a static and a dynamic timer. The static timer shows the same countdown for all visitors. The dynamic timer shows a customized countdown for each visitor, depending on their behavior on your site.

Since we want to show the same offer to all visitors, we’re going to use a static timer.

Set your countdown timer’s End Date by clicking the date to bring up a calendar. Do the same for the time, then select the timezone and how you want the countdown time to display the remaining time.

4. Set the Display Rules

The next step is to choose when your sales countdown timer will appear. To do this, go to the Display Rules section of the OptinMonster campaign builder.

By default, the time on page condition is set to is at least 5 seconds and current URL path condition is set to is any page. This means that all visitors will see your Shopify countdown timer after they’ve been on your site for at least 5 seconds.

If you want the timer to display right away, you can set that timing to 0.

We’ll look at other display rules you can use later in this tutorial.

5. Add Your Email Integration

Delivering your coupon by email gives you the chance to get your customers’ email addresses so you can send them more offers later. To do this, you’ll need to integrate your email service provider with OptinMonster.

Here’s how you add Constant Contact. Go to Integrations » New Integration » Email Provider. Pick Constant Contact from the available options.

Need more guidance? Here’s the full Constant Contact documentation. Connecting a different email service provider? Don’t worry, we integrate with all of them.

6. Deliver Your Offer

You’ve got a couple of options for letting visitors to your store take advantage of your sale. For example, you can deliver your coupon by email as described above.

You can also go to the Success view in the campaign builder. Edit the default success message as described earlier to include the coupon code.

You can even add a link to automatically apply the discount code to the shopper’s cart when they click the code. Just select the code, click on the link button, and enter your discount URL in the Link Target field.

Your discount URL is your store’s checkout page URL followed by ?discount=DISCOUNTCODE.

You can also use a Form Success Action to apply the discount directly to the customer’s cart. Choose Redirect to a url, then add your Shopify coupon URL in the Redirect URL field.

Learn more about this in our Shopify email popup tutorial.

7. Publish Your Campaign on Shopify

When you’re happy with your campaign, save it again and get ready to publish it on your Shopify store. You’ll need to link OptinMonster and Shopify first, as shown in the video below. If you prefer written instructions, see our guide on how to integrate Shopify with OptinMonster.

Next, go to the Publish tab and choose the website you wish to use your campaign on.

Toggle the Status to live and Save your campaign.

You’ll see a range of publishing options, including Shopify.

Other Ways to Get More Sales With OptinMonster

There are also other ways to do even more with OptinMonster and Shopify.

For example, since engaged visitors are more likely to buy, you can also make sure that only engaged visitors see your sales countdown timer. To that, go to Display Rules and set the condition If pages viewed to is at least 2.

If you target different geographical markets, you can use geo-location targeting to show different offers to visitors in different regions. That’ll let you run more targeted campaigns that are even more likely to get the sales you want.

To enable this, go to Display Rules » If visitor’s location » select the operator you want from the dropdown, and then type the location you want to target in the box. Go through the validation process, then save and publish your campaign.

Learn more in our geo-marketing guide.

And you can use OptinMonster’s page-level targeting to show you offer only on your highest-converting pages. This makes it even more likely that visitors will buy.

To enable this, go to Display Rules » If current URL path and select your operator. Then, enter your criteria in the text field.

You can also create campaigns that only appear during checkout so you can reduce abandoned carts in your Shopify store.

That’s it! Now you know how to boost your Shopify sales with a sales countdown timer.

To really kick your Shopify sales into high gear, check out TrustPulse. With TrustPulse, you can leverage the power of social proof, which works really well next to the urgency of a countdown timer. Adding TrustPulse to your site gives you an instant lift in site conversions by up to 15%.

Want even more? Learn how to create a Shopify announcement bar or boost your email list with a Shopify MailChimp signup form. You can also boost your website traffic with our guide to Shopify SEO.

Or, if you want to keep learning about countdown timers, you should check out the 8 best countdown timers for WordPress.

Not using OptinMonster yet? Get started so you can improve your Shopify sales today.

And follow us on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook for more Shopify tutorials and guides.

Published by Jacinda Santora

Jacinda Santora is a writer specializing in eCommerce and growth marketing. She prides herself on her ability to make complicated things easier. When she isn't writing you can find her daydreaming about campervans, drinking coffee, and listening to podcasts.