Link expiration for flash sales, betas and time-boxed offers

Three ways a link can end

By date and time, when the campaign is over. By click count, when only the first N people should get in. By age, where the link self-destructs a fixed number of days after creation — useful for links generated automatically.

Always set an expired destination

A dead end is a wasted visitor. Send expired traffic to the general offers page, a waitlist form or the next campaign. People arriving late are still interested people.

Click limits count bots too

Every preview crawler that touches the link consumes a click. On a fifty-click limit shared in Slack, the previews alone can burn a meaningful share before a human clicks. Set the link's robots policy to not follow, and pad the limit.

Time zones cause the classic bug

Expiry is stored as an absolute instant. "Midnight" means midnight in the timezone you set, not in each visitor's local time. For a global sale, decide explicitly whether you mean one global moment or a rolling local one — the second requires geo rules, not an expiry date.

Expiry is a courtesy, not a lock

Anyone who followed the link before it expired has the destination. If the offer must be enforceable, enforce it at the destination with a code or a session check.

Print deserves an expiry plan too

A QR code on a poster outlives the campaign by months. Point it at a page you will keep updating rather than a campaign page you will delete, or set an expired destination that still makes sense in a year.