Deadline Funnel Review 2024: Use Authentic Urgency to Increase Sales

In this in-depth Deadline Funnel review, I’ll help you decide if it’s the right kind of tool for your online business πŸ™Œ

But let me start off by saying that this is not one of those shitty reviews that you see all the time of people that quickly used it for two hours just so they can write a review for the affiliate commission.

I’ve been a paying customer of Deadline Funnel since 2020:

proof of being deadlinefunnel customer since 2020

And I’m still using it to this day in 2024.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

I’ll also put some affiliate links for Deadline Funnel in this article.

You’ll pay the same amount if you use those links, and I get a small commission πŸ€—

(I’ll use the commission to feed my two cute cats & support my travel addiction)

Let’s dive in, shall we? πŸš€

Part 1

Why use deadlines & timers to create urgency

Why would you use a tool like Deadline Funnel at all?

What are the benefits of creating urgency?

Does it really boost sales?

What is urgency in marketing?

Simply said, urgency in marketing is about creating promotions in a way to influence people to act sooner.

This is done by creating a fixed or evergreen deadline:

  • Fixed: the deadline is the same for everyone.
  • Evergreen: the deadline is unique for each lead.

The deadline is usually for one of the following things related to a product:

  • A hefty discount
  • An incredible bonus
  • Closing enrolment/orders

Or you could even combine them to create an irresistible offer.

Example of companies using urgency

You might not have always realized it, but big (and small) companies are using urgency all the time.

Here are some examples πŸ‘‡

Example #1: Amazon

Online retailers like Amazon often do short promotions for products.

amazon scarcity urgency

See how they combined urgency with scarcity?

They display a timer with the remaining time for the offer, and also the percentage of how much is claimed.

So if you’re thinking about buying that scarf, you would be like; shit! I only have 1 hour & there are just a few pieces left. Where’s my credit card?

Example #2: Black Friday

Black Friday is one big urgency event.

For just a few days in November, it sounds like you’re getting amazing deals.

There’s always a ton of timers involved, and lots of marketing about how many days are left.

walmart black friday deals

Example #3: ThriveCart

I’m using ThriveCart to handle the checkout of my online courses, and they’re guaranteeing the price for a certain time:

thrivecart urgency

Personally, I’m not sure how I feel about this kind of urgency.

They give you the feeling the price goes up in a few days, while in fact the price has been the same for the last 2 years πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ

But I thought it’s a good example to include.

Example #4: Amy Porterfield

Amy Porterfield has a course to help people get started with their side hustle.

And if you’re on the sales page, you’ll see a bright banner at the top that offers a bonus for just a few hours.

amy porterield urgency

I like it because it offers a bonus instead of a discount, which makes it feel less cheap.

How’s urgency different from scarcity?

Urgency and scarcity are different, but also pretty similar;

  • Urgency = time is running out
  • Scarcity = products are running out

Fake urgency & scarcity πŸ‘Ž

Online businesses have been using urgency & scarcity for ages.

But the problem is, that this urgency is/was often fake.

There would be a timer on the page, with just hours left on the clock, pushing you to buy now.

But if you would come back the next day, the timer would just start again & the deal is still accessible πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ

You really want your deadline to be real, to be authentic.

Nothing breaks trust as much as lying about a deadline that doesn’t exist.

That’s why a tool like Deadline Funnel is so important.

Yes, we can show nice timers ⏰

But we can now also make the deal inaccessible when it’s past the deadline.

They track all kinds of things, and redirect the lead to an offer expired page when it’s past the deadline.

Part 2

About Deadline Funnel

Let’s talk about what Deadline Funnel is.

Who’s behind it.

And what you actually use it for.

Deadline Funnel helps you to convert more of your leads into customers:

deadlinefunnel homepage

But how are they doing that? πŸ€”

Let me explain.

What is Deadline Funnel?

Deadline Funnel is a simple, but very sophisticated, tool to help you create special offers that have a fixed or evergreen deadline:

  • Fixed: you set a date & time the offer expires for everyone.
  • Evergreen: the deadline is unique for each lead. It expires X time after they perform a certain action.

And then, to create a sense of urgency, you can display deadline timers that count-down towards that deadline πŸ”₯

The timers come in many different shapes, sizes & colors, but here’s an example of an inline timer:

Example of a timer with 24 hours left

(this is just an example GIF, it’s not dynamic)

But the really cool thing is, that you can use them on you website Γ‘nd in your marketing emails.

And maybe the most important thing; it makes sure people can’t access the deal anymore when it’s past the deadline by redirecting them to a different page.

That way, your deadline is authentic; the offer really has a real deadline, and you can’t access it anymore when it expires. There’s just a different deadline for everyone, and that’s fine.

But you don’t want to be one of those shitty marketers that say there’s a special offer ONLY TODAY, while you can still access it tomorrow – or next month.

Who is Deadline Funnel perfect for?

I think any kind of business with a website could make use of it;

  • The coffee cafΓ© around the corner has a special on the menu for only X more days.
  • A fitness coach gives you a personal food schema if you book a session today.
  • A supplement webshop offers a free online course as a bonus this month.

But not every company will maybe get as much value out of Deadline Funnel.

I think it’s especially companies that sell digital products, like online courses, that could massively benefit from evergreen deadlines;

  • A visitor just joined the email list, and on the confirmation page you show an incredible deal that is valid for the next 30 minutes.
  • Someone signed up for a (automated) webinar, and you pitch a 3-day limited-time offer.
  • After finished a free email course, you could pitch a product with some bonuses that expire in X days.

So many possibilities!

Who’s behind Deadline Funnel? πŸ•΅

Deadline Funnel was founded in 2015 by Jack Born, who still runs the company.

I guess they will still be around for a while, since they keep adding new features & expanding the platform.

How does it work?

If you’re gonna get started with urgency & evergreen deadlines in your marketing, it’s handy to know how the technology behind Deadline Funnel roundabout works.

Showing a fancy timers is not so difficult, it’s just an image that moves.

But what is difficult, is to synchronize timers with that person’s unique deadline (if it’s an evergreen deadline).

That’s where tracking comes into play.

#1 Create lead & set deadline

When Deadline Funnel sees that there is a new lead, a record will be created for that person.

That record contains their;

  • IP address
  • Email address
  • Campaign they’re in
  • When the deadline for that campaign is.

And it also places a cookie in their browser which will help to identify them.

#2 Find lead & check deadline

Then, next time someone comes back to one of the campaign pages, they’re being looked up in the records.

If they come through an email link from a marketing email, the email address that was dynamically added to that link will be used to check the remaining time until the deadline.

If there’s no email address, they’ll check if that person has a cookie in their browser with the deadline.

If that’s also missing, then they’ll check if that IP address has an active deadline running.

If there’s no record, a new deadline will start & lead is created.

Part 3

How to use Deadline Funnel

Is it easy to use?

How do you create a campaign?

What kind of campaigns could you make?

Easy of use

The software is relatively simple without a huge learning curve.

You can have your first campaign up & running within an hour.

Most work goes into writing your emails & webpages for the campaign, but the technical setup is pretty easy.

Tip: I created an in-depth Deadline Funnel Tutorial for Beginners for when you decided to give Deadline Funnel a try.

Creating a campaign from scratch

Let me show you how to create a campaign πŸ‘‡

Step #1: Campaign

You’ll first be prompted to give you campaign a name, set your integrations & select your campaign type.

  • Campaign name: just a description for yourself
  • Integrations: select your email service provider & website builder.
  • Campaign type: choose what kind of campaign you want to create.
deadlinefunnel create a new campaign

Step #2: Deadline length

Depending on the Campaign Type you choose, you can then set the date of the fixed deadline or the length of your evergreen deadline.

deadlinefunnel set deadline length

Step #3: Page settings & setup

Here’s you’ll have to add all the pages related to your campaign.

  • Select timer: portal, floating bar, inline or completely hidden.
  • Where will it appear: sales pages, checkout pages, landing pages, etc.
  • Redirection: where do you want people to go after the deadline expires? Create an offer expired page.

At the bottom of the page you’ll also find how to add the Tracking Code to your page, which is important to track visitors/show timers/redirect when the deadline expired.

Tip: Deadline Funnel has some helpful documentation to help add the code to your website here.

deadlinefunnel page settings

Step #4: Timer appearance

What do you want your timers to look like? Change it here.

deadlinefunnel appearance

Floating bar & portal will appear automatically on your pages, but for the inline timer you have to use the code below.

<div class="ddio_countdown_wrap"></div>

And if you like, you can also show a dynamic text timer with the time that’s left.

There are <span class="dfD"></span> days, <span class="dfH"></span>, <span class="dfM"></span> minutes, and <span class="dfS"></span> seconds left on this offer.

Step #5: Email links & timer

This is where Deadline Funnel is really unique; email links & email timers.

Deadline Funnel gives you a unique link for each of the pages you’ve added, for example:

https://df10.us/s/57kfe834?em=%EMAIL%

This special link redirects to the original page you’ve added, the lead won’t even notice it’s special.

But do you see the part I highlighted in red?

This is the email address that gets dynamically added to the link.

Which is awesome, because it ensures that the deadline is always in sync even if they click a link in their email from a different device.

It works the same for the email timer:

<img
      style="display:block;border:none;outline:none;width:400px;opacity:1;max-width:100%"
      src="https://dfimage.com/email-image/180116/2ZzXja/1234567890-b830a56a-6362-4df0-86a1-272318db2d78?em=%EMAIL%&xgot7=Cbs1t"
      border="0"
      width="400"
    />

Everytime the image of the timer loads, it checks the unique deadline for that subscriber’s email address πŸ”₯

deadlinefunnel emails

Step #6: Lead Tracking

Setting this up will help you to identify people on your email list when they visit your website.

deadlinefunnel lead tracking

Step #7: Testing your campaign

There’s quite some steps involved, so it’s very important to test if everything is working before you promote your campaign.

There’s a handy checklist which is definitely recommend to follow quickly for every campaign.

deadlinefunnel campaign testing

Ready!

And that’s how you create your first campaign πŸ€“

Part 4

Decision time

The tool can be great.

But it might not be a fit if the price, support & integrations aren’t right.

Now that you know what Deadline Funnel is for, and how you can use it, let’s talk about other important factors.

Pricing

Deadline Funnel has a rather straightforward pricing structure, so it’s easy to decide which plan you need.

Just take a look at the major features for each plan below:

StartCreateScale
3 CampaignsUnlimited CampaignsUnlimited Campaigns
1000 Leads/Month10,000 Leads/Month100,000 Leads/Month
Remove brandingRemove branding
Advanced CustomizationAdvanced Customization
5 Client Accounts
$49/month$99/month$199/month

And it’s good to know that you get 20% off when you pay yearly.

So the main questions to ask yourself is;

  1. How many campaigns do you need right now?
  2. How many leads are you going to put into a campaign this month?
  3. Do you want to customize the color & branding of your timers?
  4. Do you care about removing branding?
  5. Do you want to use Deadline Funnel for clients?

When I started off with Deadline Funnel, I went for the Start plan.

Later, when I needed more simultaneous campaigns, I upgraded to the Create plan.

While I think it’s nice to customize the branding, I don’t think it’s essential for a successful campaign.

And keep in mind that you can always upgrade, don’t go for the most pricey plan right away if you don’t have to.

Support

I don’t know about you, but I find good support really important.

(weirdly enough, not many reviews cover quality of support)

Sometimes you get stuck with the software, and having to wait for a long time to get help just sucks.

Method #1: Live Chat

There’s a chat widget on the website where you can ask all your questions.

deadlinefunnel support chat widget

As you can see, they usually reply in under 10 minutes.

You don’t have to wait on the website for a reply, they’ll just send you an email if you’re not there anymore.

Method #2: Email

They mention on their website that you can always send them an email if you need help:

deadlinefunnel support by email

Method #3: Knowledge Base

There’s also extensive documentation with help articles that cover lots of different setups & campaigns.

Personally, I’ve been using this way more than I thought.

Deadline Funnel knowledge base overview

My personal experience with support

I’ve asked a ton of questions in the last 3 years, especially in the beginning when I just got started with Deadline Funnel.

Simple questions about campaigns.

But also techy questions about setting up complex funnels 🀯

And I have to say, they really exceeded my expectations.

They usually replied within an hour (insane!), and seemed always happy to help with whatever questions I threw at them.

There was this one time I messed up an important campaign, and they came to the rescue right away πŸ’ͺ

What others are saying about support

I did some quick research on Twitter, and it looks like I’m not the only one that’s impressed with support:

tweet weekhack first deadlinefunnel campaign in one hour
tweet barbihoneycutt deadlinefunnel awesome live chat support
tweet kevpartner fantastic support deadlinefunnel
tweet sarahdoody deadlinefunnel impressed customer service
tinaleejones about customer service deadlinefunnel

Seems like they’re really doing it the right way πŸ’ͺπŸ˜„

Integrations

The magic of Deadline Funnel is that you can hook it up to your email service provider, so you can run limited-time offer email campaigns.

But for that to work, it has to integrate with the email service provider you’re using πŸ˜…

Here’s an overview of all the email provider integrations;

overview of deadlinefunnel integrations

And they also integrate with WordPress, and a few page builders:

deadlinefunnel page builder integrations

And with some online course platforms:

deadlinefunnel integrations online course platforms

And a bunch of other tools, which you can find on their integrations page.

Alternatives

Before you make a decision, it’s good to know what alternatives there are.

Unfortunately, there’s not much choice since there are not so many tools like Deadline Funnel.

There’s plenty of tools to display timers on a website, but usually they’re not synced with your email service provider.

ThriveUltimatum

Type: WordPress plugin
Link: ThriveUltimatum
Price: $97/year
Downside: no email timers

ThriveUltimatum might come closest to what Deadline Funnel has to offer, and is well worth checking out if your website runs on WordPress.

It allows you to add timers to pages, redirect people away when the offer is expired, and you can start the deadline from a 3rd party with incoming webhooks.

The only thing that’s really missing is email timers, which I think is a total deal-breaker.

TimerCampaign

Type: standalone software
Link: TimerCampaign
Price: $29/month
Downside: not many integrations & limited customizations

I’m a bit biased because TimerCampaign was founded by a good friend of mine, but this is another good alternative.

It offers most core features of Deadline Funnel, at a cheaper price.

Integrations are still a bit limited, customizations aren’t as expansive, and support can sometimes take a while to get back to you, but it might be worth checking out.

Evergreen Countdown Timer

Type: WordPress plugin
Link: IntellyWP
Price: $47/year
Downside: no integrations

This plugin for WordPress allows you to create fixed & evergreen deadlines, and add timers to your pages.

While it’s really great at that, it totally lacks any kind of integrations with email service providers.

But it might be worth checking out if you’re not doing email marketing.

Pros & Cons

I always find pros & cons lists useful myself, so I thought I create one too in this review about Deadline Funnel πŸ™‚

I like Deadline Funnel for many reasons, but there are also some things I dislike.

πŸ‘ Pros: what’s great?

Here’s what I like most about Deadline Funnel:

  • Excellent support: replies usually within an hour.
  • Integrations: works with most email service providers & websites.
  • Great customizations: completely change the branding of timers & banners.
  • Smart tracking: uses email links, ip-addresses and cookies to ensure the deadline is the same on all devices.

πŸ‘Ž Cons: what sucks?

This is what I don’t like about Deadline Funnel:

  • Pricing: it’s a bit pricey for what it does.
  • External tool: it takes 1 or 2 seconds for the timers to load.
  • Limited dynamic text: show only one personalized deadline format for each campaign on your website or in your emails. Would love the possibility of using multiple formats at the same time.

Conclusion

Let’s wrap it all up.

Should you get Deadline Funnel for your online business? πŸ€”

Final verdict

Personally, I think Deadline Funnel is really expensive for what it does.

They place a cookie, sync some timers, and charge a pretty high fee for that.

But in the end, it’s the results that count.

And because of authentic urgency in my campaigns, I’ve earned their premium price back many times over.

So yes, I think the premium price is definitely worth it because it’s an investment that will pay itself back.

Questions?

Have more questions about Deadline Funnel?

Let me know in the comments below πŸ™ƒ

Deadline Funnel icon

Deadline Funnel

My rating: 4.8/5

14-Day Free Trial β€’Β From $49/month

Deadline Funnel is an amazing tool to create authentic urgency. Simply create a fixed or evergreen deadline, and add timers to your pages & emails.

I earn a commission if you click this button and make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

Avatar of Max van Collenburg
Max van Collenburg

I'm addicted to travel, love a good cappuccino, have two cute cats, and craft actionable content for online business owners that want to grow their business with non-sleazy marketing & automation. More weird facts about me here.

6 thoughts on “Deadline Funnel Review 2024: Use Authentic Urgency to Increase Sales”

  1. Avatar of Amy

    Thanks!

    • Avatar of Max van Collenburg

      You’re welcome!

  2. Avatar of Sander

    Hi Max,

    Bedankt voor deze review!

    You said in the end credits “I’m using other tools that offer much more for less money.”
    What tools would that be?

    • Avatar of Max van Collenburg

      Hey Sander! πŸ‡³πŸ‡± That was a bit of a confusing sentence maybe, I scrapped it now πŸ˜‹

      I meant that I use other online tools, that do different things, that are much more complex & charge way less. I feel like those offer more value for the money, but in the end it’s the end result that counts. DeadlineFunnel helps you sell more, and that’s why they can ask a premium while being such a simple tool.

      Hope that clarifies things πŸ€“

      • Avatar of Jasper

        Can’t agree more. I was surprised about the price, as it was much higher than I expected. What I still wonder is why there aren’t any serious competitors. I am considering deadline funnel, but I am not sure if I can integrate it with my Elementor form which is connected with convertkit. Any idea?

        • Avatar of Max van Collenburg

          Hey Jasper! I haven’t used Elementor, but pretty sure it’s possible to hook DeadlineFunnel up to it by using HTML blocks πŸ™‚ and with ConvertKit it should work for sure.

Leave a Comment