How to Master Spin-to-Win Wheel Popups

People love discounts. The bigger, the better. 

But even the most dedicated deal-hunters can grow indifferent to the discount popups they see in more than 50% of stores they visit.

That’s why, if you really want to grab your visitors’ attention, you need to change your tactics and go beyond regular popup displays.

Spin-the-wheel or spin-to win popups are the popups you’re looking for. They are fun, engaging, and add a bit of a thrill to the shopping experience.

Plus, they are super easy to create.

Go to content:

• What is a spin to win popup?

• Are spin-to-win popups effective?

• Spin-to-win popup best practices

What Is a Spin-to-Win Wheel Popup?

A spin-to-win wheel popup is a type of opt-in popup that shows website visitors a spin wheel game. After entering their contact details, visitors can spin the wheel for the chance to win a prize. Spin-the-wheel adds a bit of “gamification” to your site and makes standard marketing activities (e.g., signing up for a newsletter) more fun.

You probably came across other names, such as gamified popups, discount wheels, wheel of fortune popup, or spin a wheel popup. These all refer to the same effective and engaging popup tool.

Here’s an example of a spin-to-win popup in action:

The wheel is composed of several segments, each having a different prize visitors can win. Prizes can be a discount, free shipping, a gift, or any other incentive you want to offer.

Are Spin-to-Win Popups Effective?

Spin-to-win popups can improve your conversion rate by 30.3% (the average popup conversion rate is 3.8%).

Let's give you some real-life examples of how spin-to-win popups can help generate leads and engage customers.

Martin, the head of ecommerce marketing at Faguo, used two versions of spin-to-win popups.

This one...

...and this one later (which is basically a variation of the first version):

His results: Faguo was able to speed up lead generation 11 times while cutting the costs four times.

Get details:

Learn how Faguo generates over 2,000 new leads even month by giving away a pair of sneakers:

Spin-to-win popup case study

Oddballs, another business using spin to win popups, are building its email list with this good-looking campaign:

Long story short: if used correctly, a spin-to-win popup is an excellent way to engage customers, entice them to buy with the rewards, and collect emails.

Want to try creating a spin-to-win popup?

You don't need any coding or design experience (in fact, you can get a head start by using these popup templates):

Unlimited free trial, no cc needed

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"The software is easy to use. Few clicks, few set up and done. The code is easy, light weight and fast. We collected 2,000 emails within 7 days with 1 pop up. The analytics is great."

Wisepops review from Capterra

Here's a handy video for you to help make this type of popup:

Spin-to-Win Popup: Best Practices

1. Spin-the-wheel popups should show at the right time

A while ago, we ran a survey to understand web users’ general feelings towards popups in ecommerce. The results were interesting, to say the least.

Of the four hundred respondents that took part, 82% admitted they hated popups. And the second biggest reason people had for that was that “they appear as soon as I land on a website.”

In short, popups were annoying because they went off way too early! That's a major popup mistake that many folks make.

When it comes to using popups, the popup timing is essential and you need to find the sweet spot for your audience.

You can add a delay or display your spin-the-wheel popup as the visitor is about to exit. These modifications will help alleviate the pressure on your visitors and improve your conversion rate.

Also, by not letting your popup appear too soon, you’ll collect more emails. After all, if you collect someone’s email before they have even had a chance to get to know your brand and products, chances are that you might not succeed in converting them.

2. The wheel should match your brand style

No matter what kind of popup you want to add to your store website, ideally, you want it to align with your brand visual identity. Your spinner wheel is no exception. 

A generic spin-to-win wheel won’t look great alongside your branded content and products, will it?

With the best popup software, you can easily change the look of your wheel and even add custom visuals to complete your brand identity and provide a better customer experience.

Take a look at the example below.

One of our customers completely tailored his spin-to-win wheel to reflect the spirit of the site’s Halloween promotion. They customized the colors, popup copy, and added a visual to make an original and memorable popup experience.

3. Send a dedicated sequence for spin-to-win subscribers

Spin-to-win wheels are a gamble—some visitors win and some do not. Those who didn’t get what they wanted may find a way to cheat the system. Some disgruntled visitors will submit several unused or fake email addresses just to keep spinning the wheel until they win what they want.

This can lead to your precious email list filling up with low-quality email addresses that can ruin your email campaigns and hurt your domain reputation.

Meri Geraldine from Shopify store Gardens of the Sun sums up the problem below:

“If you use gamification, you need to be super diligent about your list hygiene. In short, list hygiene is about keeping active subscribers on your newsletter, and suppressing inactive subscribers. Some people will sign up in the hope of winning the grand prize. Afterward, they may not open your emails, or even mark them as spam. These subscribers affect your email deliverability to other subscribers that do want to open your emails. You need good systems in place to remove these people from your list, or to stop sending to them if they don’t open.”

That’s why, just to stay on the safe side, we recommend the following countermeasures:

1. Implement a sunsetting mechanism that’ll help you confirm whether your subscribers still want to hear from you.

2. You can also decide to create a spin-the-wheel popup without collecting the user’s email address. It’s a viable option if you care more about enticing the visitors to buy rather than collecting leads. (You can still grow your subscriber lists with the newsletter signup forms.)

4. Spin-to-win wheel prizes (Be careful what you offer)

The second risk is that visitors will try to cheat using more refined methods than just entering their old abandoned email address.

First, users can clear their cookies to play again and again until they win the biggest prize.

Second, visitors with a technical background can hack the wheel’s code to land on the prize they want.

For those reasons, we recommend you avoid giving away prizes that are too valuable. It’s also safer to use a solution that includes anti-spam protection such as Recaptcha or Cloudflare’s IP reputation system.

5. Create responsive spin-to-win wheels

In terms of numbers, mobile shoppers have surpassed desktop consumers. They browse, pick, and pay for their goods using their phones or tablets. And they expect the same shopping experience they would get on a desktop.

That’s why your pop-ups must display properly across all devices. Otherwise, not only will your spin-the-wheel look odd but will also prevent visitors from viewing it in full, entering the game, or even closing it.  

As a result, your potential buyers will leave without even giving your offer a chance.

You can easily design mobile popups with the Wisepops editor or use popup templates. Take a look at the example of a mobile-optimized popup template you could have on your website:

Spin-to-Win Wheel Popups: Summary

Wheel-spin pop-ups can give a significant boost to your list building and sales. Since they use gamification mechanics, they have higher conversion rates and user engagement.

To make the most of them, display them on exit or add a delay so that they don’t appear immediately after the visitor lands on your website.

Take steps to limit people cheating or gaming the system. Treat your spin popup as an incentive rather than a sole reason for customers to visit your store. Consider adding verification requirements for better security.

And finally, when designing your awesome spin-to-win wheel, don’t forget about mobile users. Your popups need to look great on all screen sizes. (Fortunately, this isn’t going to be an issue with our dead simple popup editor.)