Every prize on the wheel has to pass two tests at once: the visitor should see it as a real gain, and it should not wipe out your profit even on the smallest order it applies to. For most stores, that means a few discount slices, each tied to its own minimum spend, free shipping where the shipping fee is the thing holding visitors back, and one or two clearly labelled empty slices. Instead of a headline prize that almost never comes up, put only prizes you actually give on the wheel, and write each prize’s conditions right next to it.
The worked example below lets you calculate what each slice costs per participant, write each prize’s conditions around the smallest order it applies to, and tell when free shipping is worth more than a discount. You can also decide how many slices and how many empty slices to use, which figures in the coupon report to check once the wheel is live and which slice to change, and how to rebuild the prize mix as a big sale period approaches.
Work out what each slice costs per participant
Before weighing up which prize looks more attractive, you need to know what each slice will cost you. When you are deciding what prizes a spin-to-win campaign should offer, do this calculation with your first-order values and your gross margin; the values come from your order records, the margin from your product costs. A slice’s cost per participant is the product of two numbers: the share of spins on which the slice comes up, and what it costs you when its code is used.
If your tool gives every slice an equal chance, each slice on an eight-slice wheel comes up in roughly one spin in eight; write the same prize on three slices and it comes up in three spins out of eight. If your tool lets you set how often each slice comes up, use your own rates. On Pushouse’s spin-to-win wheel, a slice can be a discount, free shipping or an empty slice, and the example below uses those three types.
Worked example: what an eight-slice wheel costs
Take a hypothetical pet supplies store. The median value of its first orders is 750 TL and its gross margin is 30%; it charges a 90 TL shipping fee on orders under 1,000 TL. Three slices of its eight-slice wheel give free shipping on orders of 500 TL or more, two give 75 TL off orders of 600 TL or more, and one gives 150 TL off orders of 1,200 TL or more; the remaining two slices are empty.
Assume every code won is used. The free-shipping slices cost 3/8 × 90 = 33.75 TL per participant, the 75 TL slices 2/8 × 75 = 18.75 TL, and the 150 TL slice 1/8 × 150 = 18.75 TL. In total, that is a discount cost of at most 71.25 TL per participant. To find the average discount on an order that comes in with a code, leave out the empty slices and take the average of the six prize slices: 95 TL. A first order of median value leaves 225 TL of gross profit, so the wheel sets aside roughly 42% of the profit on a typical coded order for discounts.
Update the figures with real code usage
Whether that share is reasonable depends on how many of the coded orders would have come in without the wheel. In the first weeks, do the calculation as if every code will be used; once the wheel has been live for a few weeks, replace that assumption with each slice’s actual redemption rate. A free-shipping slice costs you nothing on an order above the threshold, so the first calculation is an upper limit.
Write each prize’s conditions for the smallest order it applies to
Set a separate minimum spend for each slice, because each prize starts eating into your profit at a different order value. In our article on the validity period and minimum spend of a welcome coupon, we showed how to work out how much of the gross profit a code eats up on an order exactly at the minimum spend; on the wheel, do the same calculation for each slice separately. In the example store, a 600 TL order leaves 180 TL of gross profit, and 105 TL remains after the 75 TL code. The 150 TL slice leaves the store 210 TL of the 360 TL profit on a 1,200 TL order, and free shipping leaves 60 TL of the 150 TL profit on a 500 TL order.
On both discount slices, the code amount is one-eighth of the minimum spend. Because the minimum grows in step with the prize, the 150 TL slice is no riskier than the 75 TL one; only visitors with a large basket can use the bigger prize. Free shipping works differently because the shipping fee does not grow with the basket: it takes 60% of the gross profit on an order right at the 500 TL minimum and 33% on a 900 TL order. That is why the free-shipping slice needs a minimum spend too.
Percentage or fixed amount on a slice?
Whether to use percentages or fixed amounts on the slices is a separate decision; we worked out how the cost of each type changes with the basket value in our comparison of fixed-amount and percentage first-order discounts. With fixed amounts on a wheel, you know from the start the most each slice can cost you, and a single calculation together with the minimum spend keeps it in check. If you use percentages, add a cap to the slice, for example “10%, up to 200 TL”.
Validity, number of uses and excluded products
Alongside the minimum spend, show the validity period, how many times the code can be used and the products it does not apply to. Give the validity as an end date and time rather than a number of days; a visitor who spins the wheel today and remembers the code a few days later should be able to see when it runs out. Make codes personal and single-use; we explained why a slice that gives everyone the same code is risky in our birthday campaign article. List the excluded products explicitly too: products already on sale, brands with very thin margins, gift cards. Where your platform supports it, restrict the code to first orders, so a returning customer who spins the wheel does not get a discount on an order they would have placed anyway.
Show the conditions right under the code
Where the conditions appear matters too. Law No. 6563 on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce, the Turkish e-commerce statute (Elektronik Ticaretin Düzenlenmesi Hakkında Kanun), asks for clarity in Article 5 for promotional contests and games as well as for discounts and gifts: the promotional nature of the game must be clearly identifiable, the terms for taking part and benefiting must be easy to reach, and those terms must be understandable without leaving room for doubt. A wheel that shows the conditions only in the cart or on a separate rules page gives the visitor incomplete information at the moment they win. Write the prize name and its minimum spend on the slice itself; the other conditions should sit wherever the code is shown, right below it:
Congratulations, you’ve won 75 TL off.
Your code: {{coupon code}}
Valid once on an order of 600 TL or more, until 23:59 on {{end date}}. Not valid on sale items or gift cards, and cannot be used together with another discount code.
When is free shipping worth more than a discount?
Free shipping is worth the shipping fee the visitor would otherwise pay on that order. What it costs you depends on the order: on an order you would have received anyway, you give up the fee you would have charged the customer; on an order that only the code brought in, you cover what you pay the carrier. When planning, use whichever of the two is higher; the example uses the 90 TL charged to the customer.
What makes free shipping the better prize is a shipping fee that is stopping visitors. If the bulk of first orders sits below the free-shipping threshold and visitors drop out once the shipping fee is shown, making shipping free removes that obstacle directly instead of giving the same amount as a discount. In the example store, the 90 TL fee equals 18% of a 500 TL basket; on the same basket, the 75 TL discount slice cannot even be used because of its 600 TL minimum.
Measure whether the shipping fee holds visitors back
Use your own data to see how much the shipping fee is holding visitors back. In your analytics tool, the share of visitors who drop out right after the shipping fee is first shown, and the share of exit survey answers that choose “shipping cost”, are the two most direct indicators. Baymard Institute’s research with US online shoppers gives a general outside view. Leaving out those who say they were only browsing and not yet ready to buy, the most common reason for abandoning a cart is extra costs such as shipping, tax and fees being too high, cited by 40%.
Start the free-shipping slice below your usual threshold
For a visitor whose order already clears the threshold, though, a free-shipping slice means nothing. If your threshold is low, or most first orders already exceed it, the slice turns into an empty slice with a prize’s name: the visitor sees that they have won, but the amount they pay does not change. If shipping is already free on every order, leave this slice off the wheel altogether.
A middle path is to start free shipping from an amount below your usual threshold. The 500 TL condition in the example does exactly that; while the store’s threshold is 1,000 TL for everyone, it drops to 500 TL for a visitor who wins this slice. Also state which delivery option the code covers; if a paid option such as express delivery is excluded, the customer should learn that from the prize text, before reaching the cart.
Balancing prizes by basket size and product type
Your price level also shifts the balance. For example, in a coffee and tea store whose median first order is 400 TL, a 90 TL shipping fee is more than a fifth of the basket; at that value, where profit per order is small, it is hard to build a meaningful discount slice, while free shipping offers a clear gain. On a wheel like that, you can give most of the weight to free-shipping slices and limit discounts to one or two small slices. In a camping gear store where the median first order reaches 6,000 TL, the situation is reversed. If shipping is already free, a free-shipping slice is pointless, and even a 5% slice comes to 300 TL on a 6,000 TL basket. There, fixed-amount slices with a high minimum spend are easier to calculate, and their cost stays the same even on the largest basket.
For a store whose products customers think over for a long time, a wheel may not be the right tool at all. We compared how to choose between a wheel and a lead capture pop-up with a plain offer, depending on the product type, in our article on increasing sales in a Ticimax store.
How many slices and how many empty slices should you use?
Choose the number of slices based on readability on a phone screen and how finely you want to tune the mix. Each slice has to fit the prize name and a short minimum-spend note; the more slices there are, the smaller the text gets. On a tool that gives every slice an equal chance, the number of slices is also the unit of your mix. With eight slices you adjust each prize’s share in steps of one-eighth; with six, in steps of one-sixth. Spreading two or three prize types across several slices is easier to read than giving every slice a different prize, and it leaves room to write each prize’s conditions.
An empty slice is the easiest way to lower the cost per participant; the price is paid by the visitor who leaves their contact details and gets nothing in return. The two empty slices in the example cut the cost per participant by a quarter compared with a wheel where they are replaced by prizes of the same average value. You can get the same saving by raising minimum spends or lowering prize amounts; an empty slice gives some participants nothing, while the other two routes give everyone a little less. If you mostly show the wheel to visitors who are new to your store, we recommend keeping empty slices to one, or at most two.
Give the empty slice an honest label
The empty slice’s label should be honest too. Labels like “Surprise” imply a prize, while “Next time” and “Try again” read as if there were another spin. On Pushouse, the wheel does not open again for a visitor who has signed up, so any wording that hints at a second chance makes a promise that will not be kept. Label the slice “No prize” or “Not this time”. If you can edit the text shown for an empty result, thank the visitor for taking part and mention any campaign that is open to everyone:
No prize this time; thank you for taking part. {{campaign name}} is open to all our visitors until {{end date}}: {{campaign link}}
Keep the big prize genuinely winnable
Putting a big prize such as “50% off” on the wheel and setting that slice’s chance close to zero can look like a shortcut to more sign-ups. But the wheel presents every slice to the visitor as a prize they can win. On a tool that lets you set how often slices come up, a prize can take up one-eighth of the wheel and still come up once in a thousand spins; the picture on the screen and the visitor’s real chance then come apart.
Article 29 of the Regulation on Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial Practices (Ticari Reklam ve Haksız Ticari Uygulamalar Yönetmeliği) treats as misleading any practice that, even when the information given is essentially correct, deceives or is likely to deceive the average consumer through the way it is presented and may lead them into a transaction they would not otherwise enter. Ask your legal adviser how a slice that sits on the wheel but almost never comes up would be assessed under that rule. There is a cost on the trust side as well: a visitor who notices that nobody ever gets a prize may start to doubt the other prizes on the wheel too.
A high minimum spend instead of low odds for the big prize
If you want a big prize, give it a high minimum spend rather than a low chance. The example store could replace one of its empty slices with a 300 TL slice valid on orders of 2,400 TL or more; the code amount is again one-eighth of the minimum, and the slice comes up as often as the others. In the worst-case calculation the slice adds 37.50 TL to the cost per participant; since the median first order is 750 TL, the real cost will most likely be well below that. Because the minimum is written right next to the prize name, the visitor sees at the moment of winning that the prize only applies to large baskets. If you use a tool that lets you set how often slices come up, publish how often each prize comes up in the wheel’s rules and compare the actual numbers with that text once a month.
Read the coupon report slice by slice
Track the wheel once a week with four figures for each prize slice: how many people it came up for, how many of its codes were used, the total value of coded orders and the total discount given. Code usage comes from your store platform’s coupon report; how many people spun the wheel and left their details comes from the wheel’s records or your analytics tool.
The ratio of used codes to codes given gives you an idea of which prize visitors value more. Compare slices whose minimum spends are close to each other, such as the 500 TL free-shipping slice and the 600 TL discount in the example. If free-shipping codes are used clearly more often, turn one discount slice into free shipping; if the opposite holds, turn one of the free-shipping slices into a discount. For a slice whose codes are hardly ever used, first compare its minimum spend with how first-order values are spread; if the minimum is above most first orders, the prize is out of reach for most visitors.
Discount cost and what the wheel really adds
Compare the total discount given with the gross profit of coded orders, and set it beside the calculation from the first section. The example store was prepared to put about 42% of the profit on a typical coded order towards discounts; if the actual share is clearly higher, start with the most expensive slice and either lower its amount or raise its minimum.
The hardest question is how many coded orders would have come in without the wheel. The most reliable answer comes from not showing the wheel to some visitors and comparing the two groups. If your tool does not allow that, compare two equally long stretches outside sale weeks: two weeks with the wheel on and two weeks with it off. If most first orders in the period with the wheel came in with a wheel code, yet the total number of first orders did not rise compared with the period without it, the wheel is most likely giving discounts to visitors who would have bought anyway.
Track permissions and change one slice at a time
Track the number of visitors who give contact permission separately; it is the wheel’s second return, independent of orders, and visitors who land on an empty slice are included in it too. When you change the mix, touch only one slice at a time. For example, turn one 75 TL slice into free shipping and, two weeks later, compare the redemption rates of the two prize types again.
Rebuild the slices before a sale period
In weeks with a sitewide discount, the wheel’s slices enter a different calculation. Before a busy period begins, whether 11.11, the late-November sales or New Year, the first decision is whether wheel codes will also work on sale-priced items. Put that decision in your campaign copy as well; our page-by-page guide to announcing a sale shows which page each piece of that copy belongs on. We covered the cost of a visitor who gets two separate codes, one from the wheel and one from signing up, in the article on welcome coupons.
If the code stacks with the discount, redo each slice’s profit calculation on the discounted prices. If the example store, which works with a 30% margin on list prices, takes 20% off its products, its margin on the discounted price drops to 12.5%. A 600 TL basket at sale prices then leaves 75 TL of gross profit, and the 75 TL wheel code takes all of it. If you decide to let the codes stack, raise the discount slices’ minimum spends or lower their amounts for that period.
If the code doesn’t apply to sale items
If the code does not apply to sale items, the problem flips. While most products are discounted, a discount code won on the wheel is of no use in most visitors’ baskets, and the wheel starts handing out prizes that cannot be used. If your campaign does not include shipping, consider turning the discount slices into free shipping for that period; the shipping fee is still paid even when the product is discounted. Check the free-shipping minimum against discounted basket values as well.
Switching the wheel off or keeping only free-shipping slices
The third option is to switch the wheel off for the duration of the sale. If your traffic goes up in those weeks, switching the wheel off also means missing the busiest days for collecting contact details; keeping it on with free-shipping slices only can be a middle path. Whichever route you choose, change the slices before the sale starts, and test in your own cart how codes won earlier, whose end dates run into the sale days, behave with campaign prices.
Write down your normal and sale-period prize mixes
On Pushouse’s spin-to-win wheel, slices are set up in the panel; write down the mix you build for the sale period and the mix for normal weeks, together with their figures. When the sale ends and you switch back to the old slices, you can compare the coupon reports of the two periods on the same measures. Our team can help you work out the prize mix from your own margin and basket values; get in touch.
