Why try using a popup wheel?
Well, even the most dedicated deal-hunters are often indifferent to the discount popups they see in more than 60% of stores they visit.
Spin-the-wheel popups (also called pop up wheels and gamified popups) are the popups you’re looking for. They are fun, engaging, and add a bit of excitement to the shopping experience.
Plus, creating a popup wheel is easy.
So, let’s take a closer look at the spin-to-win wheel popups and see how you can use them to maximize conversion rates in your store.
Easily create beautiful spin-to-win popups
Expanded the subscriber base and triggered immediate purchases with campaigns that match your brand. Use designer-made templates and publish in minutes.
See examples of spin wheel campaigns and get tips from ecommerce teams that created them:
What is a popup wheel?
A popup wheel is a type of popup that shows website visitors a spin to win wheel game. After entering their contact details, visitors can spin the wheel for the chance to win a prize.
If used strategically, wheel popups can convert up to 10.15% of website visitors on average—12% higher than traditional formats, making them one of the most engaging and effective popup types in ecommerce marketing.
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 popup wheel campaign:
The popup 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.
To give you some real-life examples, we asked a few ecommerce entrepreneurs to share their experience with the spin-to-win popups:
"The "Spin to Win" campaigns not only grew our list but also generated immediate sales and positive brand engagement. By gamifying email capture and promotions, we transformed routine processes into delightful interactions that drove real results."
Dan Mitchell, Ecommerce Manager, OddBalls
"The "Wheel of Love" not only grew our list but also generated immediate sales and positive brand sentiment. By turning email capture into a game, we transformed a typically mundane process into a delightful brand interaction."
Lucie Poirier, émoi émoi
Spin wheel popup playbook
This playbook breaks down the highest-performing spin wheel campaigns we see ecommerce brands using today. Click them to see how they work.
Adding a spin-to-win popup to your website is an excellent way to engage with customers, entice them to buy with the rewards they can win, and collect emails on your website.
If you'd like to start right away, get a free account in Wisepops, our popup platform, and customize one of the pre-made spin wheel templates:
14-day free trial, no cc needed. Learn more about our popup builder
How to make high-converting popup wheels
However, to make the most of your spin-to-win popup popup campaigns, we recommend following these practices.
1. Wheel popups should appear at the right time
A while ago, we ran a survey to understand web users’ general feelings towards popups. The results were interesting, to say the least.
Of the four hundred respondents that took part, 82% admitted they hated popup wheels. 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!
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 get more qualified leads. 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.
In our recent popup personalization study, we found that delaying popups by 20–50 seconds reduced bounce rates by up to 45% among engaged visitors and boosted email capture by 20–43% in top-performing tests. In contrast, popups shown immediately (within 5 seconds) increased bounce rates by up to 5x.
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.
3. Send a dedicated sequence for spin-to-win subscribers
Spin-to-win wheel popups can be 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 email domain reputation.
Meri Geraldine from Gardens of the Sun sums up the problem:
“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:
Implement a sunsetting mechanism that’ll help you confirm whether your subscribers still want to hear from you.
You can also create a wheel popup without a requirement to provide an 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
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 a popup editor or use popup templates. Take a look at the example of a mobile-optimized pop-up template you could have on your website:
Wheel popups: summary
Wheel popups 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 popup, 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 simple popup editor.)
Get started
in minutes
Start converting more visitors today.
Get started in minutes and see results right after.
