Tutorial: How to create a Spin the Wheel promotion

Do you want to offer your users a moment of fun and entertainment? We present to you the "Spin the Wheel" app which lets you give away prizes, rewards, and discounts among the participants that spin the wheel to try their luck.

 

General description

The “Spin the Wheel” app allows you to set up an entry form that users need to fill in and then they get the chance of trying their luck by spinning the wheel to see if they’ve won one of the prizes you’ve set up in the promotion. When you set up the promotion, you can create all the prizes that you want to give away in the wheel and the number of units of each prize.

These prizes will be shown in the prize wheel as “segments” and you can also choose the number of segments that you want to show. If you don’t want all users to get a prize, you can also add “No prize” segments.

What probability is there of winning a prize in the wheel?

• The probability of winning a prize in the wheel is the same as the number of segments in the wheel:

Example: a prize has 2 segments in a wheel with 10 segments. The probability of winning this prize is 2 to 10 (20%).

• Equally, the probability of getting a ‘NO PRIZE’ is the same as the number of segments in the wheel.

Example: If there is 1 “NO PRIZE” segment in a wheel with 10 segments, the probability is that of 1 to 10 (10%).

• If there are no more units of the prize available, the prize will still appear on the wheel but the wheel will never stop there.

 

Additionally, in the “Spinning the Wheel” prizes, there’s an option of adding a condition of a certain date so that the prize won’t be assigned until the chosen date has passed. The prize will always appear on the wheel but it won’t be assigned before the date.

In the following tutorial we explain how to create the prizes, the "no prize" segments, and how to personalize and design your Prize Wheel:

 

How to create the Spin the Wheel

• Step 1. Create the promotion

• Step 2. Create the prizes

• Step 3. Set up the design of the Prize Wheel

• Step 4. Customize text and images for each page

• Step 5. Customize the design

• Step 6. Insert legal texts

• Step 7. Configure My Networks and the promotion footer

• Step 8. Customize viral content

• Step 9. Login System of participants

• Step 10. Restrictions on promotion access

• Step 11. Communicate with participants via the email platform

• Step 12. Activate the promotion

• Step 13. Publish the promotion

• Step 14. Share the promotion

• Step 15. Manage the active promotion

• Step 16. Check the promotion statistics

• Step 17. Activate the final giveaway

• Step 18. Finishing up the promotion

 

Step 1. Create the promotion

1. Access the Easypromos Dashboard. Log in with your email address and password to manage and create your promotions.

2. Click the ‘Create new promotion’ button to start setting it up.

3. You'll see a list of available products. Choose "Spin the Wheel" in the "Games" column:

4. As a next step, set up the following options:

• Organizing brand. As a first step, you should select or create an organizing brand for your promotion. This organizing brand is independent of any social network and works as a folder within your Easypromos account, in order to help organize the promotions that you create.
• Template version. Select which template you want to use to create your promotion: Basic, Premium or White Label.

5. After clicking on "Continue" button, you'll get access to the promotion management page. This is where all the options for configuring the promotion are laid out. The most important sections are outlined below:

 

1. Header. This displays the title of the promotion, the platform you have chosen, and other relevant information such as the promotion ID. You'll also see your Promotion status in the small orange box. This indicates whether your promotion is Active, Draft or Old, as well as if it’s about to start. Once the promotion period has ended, this field will be marked in red, and you'll be able to decide how the expired link to the promotion will appear. 
2. Link to the promotion. This is the URL that you should use for sharing and publicizing the promotion. (You can learn more about URLs for sharing here.) You'll also see the Copy link button. This automatically copies the URL for you to share.
3. Activate Promotion button. When the promotion is ready to launch, click this button to activate it. You'll be taken to the activation page, where you can review your billing information before making the payment for the promotion.
4. Side menu. All your promotion settings in one place.
5. View tutorial. This tutorial guides you through creating and managing your promotion, step by step.
6. Here you will find the following configuration options:
   1. Set the date and timezone for the promotion.
   2. You can set and change the default languages of the promotion.
   3. Finally, you can limit participation to one or more countries with the localization tool.
7. Next steps: Practical suggestions for the creation and management of your campaign.

Note:The promotion ID number is a unique identifier for each promotion. If you have any issues, use the promotion ID when you contact the Easypromos support team. This will make it easier for us to help you out.

 

Step 2. Create the prizes

The next step is to create all the prizes that you want to give away on the prize wheel. To do so, follow these steps:

 

1. Access the Editor > General > Prizes. In this section you will see that you have already created 3 prizes as an example so that the process of creating the prizes is easier for you.

2. Click on the pencil icon to edit the properties of the prizes and thus change the name and description of each prize, modify the number of units, etc.

Below you will find all the following configuration tabs:

A. “Options tab”: In this tab you’ll find all the options to set up the properties of the prize:

1. Name of the prize. This is the name you gave the prize when creating it, you can change it now if you want.

2. Short description. this is the description of the prize you defined when creating it, you can change it now if you want.

3. Number of units. This number indicates the number of units you plan to give for this prize.

4. Do you want this prize to be a promotional code?: This option allows you to convert the prize in a promotional code that the users will obtain automatically when participating in the promotion. A promotional code is an alphanumeric code that can be the same for all users or a different one for each user that wins. For the prize to be a promotional code, you should associate the prize to a codeset. A codeset is a set of alphanumeric codes that the administrator of the promotion uploads to the promotion. The prizes use the codesets to know which code to assign and in which order. Additionally, you have the option to choose to show the assigned code together with a barcode or a QR code. Please refer to the Promotional Codes tutorial to know all the possibilities. 

5. Does this prize have downloadable content?: This option allows you to give content that the users can download as a prize. By marking this option, in the winner pop-up the options “Download” and “Send by email” will be added. This content can be a document (PDF, Word, TXT), an audio file or and image file. If you choose this option, you can upload the file that the users can download (max. 10MB), or point to the external source of the file or mark the option that Easypromos should generate a PDF with the characteristics of the prize.

 

B. “Message to winner” tab: This section presents all the options to personalize the design and the way the message to prizewinners is displayed. In particular, you’ll be able to set up the following options:

1. Message to winner: Here you can write a message that the user will see in the pop-up when winning the prize.

2. Image to winner: you can add an image to the message to the winner to make the pop-up more attractive. It can be an image, an animated GIF o even a video.

3. Short description: this is the description of the prize that you defined when you created the prize and you can change it now if you want.

4. Instructions: if you need to add more details about the prize, for example how to redeem the promotional code or for how long it’s valid, you can use this field.

5. Text to encourage winner to share: you can define the text that is presented together with the Share buttons to share the prize.

6. Open pop-up automatically when accessing the Thank you page: when a user wins a prize upon registration, this pop-up can be displayed automatically above the Thank you page. You can disable this pop-up so it doesn’t open automatically.

 

In the “Layout” section you’ll find the options to customize the layout of the pop-up:

1. Background image: Upload a background image that will be shown underneath the winner pop-up. It should be 1200x630px. We recommend using an image that makes the winner pop-up stand out.
2. Background color: you can define a background color that will be shown underneath the pop-up and you can configure the opacity of the color.
3. Text alignment: configure how you want to align the elements of the winner pop-up.

 

Finally, in the “Viral content” section you can define the viral messages that will be shown when the winner shares the prize he has won from the winner pop-up to his social media profiles. You can customize the messages that will be shared on Facebook, Twitter and instant message applications.

This message is what winners will see and will be shown on the Thank you page, just after the user has completed the registration process. By default, the prize is presented as a pop-up on the Thank you page. Here you can see an example of a direct prize won by a user:

 

C. "Conditions" tab: Prizes can be conditioned so that they are not assigned until a certain date is reached. In this way, a prize with a date condition will always appear on the prize wheel, but will not be assigned until the date defined is reached.

In the following video you will see how to create a condition so that the prize in the wheel begins to be assigned from a specific date:

 

Note: This condition applies to all prize units. That is, if the prize is a tablet with two units and we block the prize until a certain date, the two units will begin to be given from that date. In case you want to control when each tablet will be given, the alternative is to create two different prizes with one unit each, and block the dates of each prize.

 

4. If you need to create more prizes, click on the "Create new prize" button and select prizes of the type "Spinning the wheel":

5. Next, edit the prize properties by following the steps detailed in the previous steps.

 

Step 3. Set up the design of the Prize Wheel

Now you can set up and configure the Prize Wheel and change the settings. To do so, follow these steps:

 

1. Access the Editor> Pages> Participation where the participation mechanic has been automatically created. As a first step, click on the pencil icon to configure the participation settings:

Then you will find the following configuration tabs:

1. Options: It contains the general options of the stage. From this section, you can configure the number of times that users can spin the wheel, as well as the frequency of participation.

2. Requirements: Optionally, before spinning the wheel the promotion may present Requirements as a complement to the user's participation, which are additional actions that the users need to carry out mandatorily before being able to participate. It’s possible to establish one of the following types of requirements:

• Validate a code: The user needs to enter a valid code to be able to access the participation mechanic.
• Watch a video: The user needs to watch a YouTube video until the end to access the participation mechanic.
  

3. Spin the Wheel settings. In this tab you will find all the options to customize and set up the Wheel.

Here you'll see all the options to set up the Prize Wheel:

• Segments. Here you can select the number of segments that you want the wheel to have. The names of the prizes will be shown on the segments.
• No prize. Make the game more exciting by adding segments without prizes.
• Background image. Upload a special background image for the prize wheel page.
• Logo. Upload the logo of your brand, company or product for even more customization.
• IU color. Here you can change the color of the wheel and the spin button.
• Spin button. Here you can change the text on the button that makes the wheel spin.

In the "Prizes in the wheel" section you can change the colors of the prize segments:

1. Label: This is the name of the prize in the Spin the Wheel segment.

2. Color: This is the color of the segment for each prize.

You also have the possibility to edit the color and label for the "No prize" segments:

 

B. "Download images" tab: From this tab the administrator can export the image of the prize wheel to facilitate the creation of promotional material. Additionally you can download the image of the wheel structure, and the prize segments separately, to facilitate more advanced design work. For example to create an animated GIF:

3. Finally, you can test the prize wheel to see if it works and looks like you want it to, before activating the promotion. In the image of the wheel on the right side of there the settings are, you can see the changes you’re making as you go along, and you can click to test the wheel.

 

Step 4. Customize text and images for each page

The platform comes with many features that are pre-set. Now let’s take a look at customizing text and images for the promotion, including colors and font settings.

 

1. Enter the promotion 'Editor'.

2. Configure the text and images for each page of the promotion by going to Editor > Pages:

 

A) Welcome

• Show animated image of the prize wheel. This option allows you to display an animation of Prize Wheel in the Welcome page. It can also be displayed in the header of the Entry form page.
• Title. Change the default title "🎁 SPIN THE WHEEL 🎁" to one that identifies the strong points of your promotion. It’s a good idea to make this descriptive text as attractive to users as possible.
• Description. Customize the text in the Description to explain how the game works. Participants should be clear about what steps they must follow to participate. You can also customize the "Spin the Wheel" button.

B) Entry form.

Add the fields that you want your participants to complete. You can customize the text and the page header image. In the Premium and White Label versions, you can configure the form with all the additional fields, drop down menus and checkboxes that you need. Find out more about setting up the entry form.

 

C) Thank you page.

• Customize the page with a final image and a thank you text. Use the final image to give a more personalized aspect to the giveaway and remind users of the prize. You also have the option to create an extra button with an external link.
• Encourage users to share. To the left of the first share button, there's a text that you can customize. Use this to encourage your participants to share the contest.
• Non-winners message. This is the message that will be shown to the user that gets a "No prize" segment in the Prize Wheel.

 

D) Winners page.

This page is where the winners of the different Prize wheel will be published as they come out. You can decide if you want to make the winners page public from the beginning of the promotion, or you can publish it when you already have the winners

In the section Editor > Pages > Winners you will find the following tools and configuration options to customize the winners page to your liking:

A. “Publish/Unpublish page”: allows to publish or unpublish the prizes page of the promotion.

B. Prizes: here you will find the list of prizes of your promotion, together with the options for editing each one of the prizes and the button to add new prizes.

C. Contents: here you will find all the configuration and editing options to customize the contents of the prizes page. You can choose to Show the winners search tool, which we recommend if you have more than 30 winners published. This way, the users can search by name.

D. Container: here you can configure the characteristics of the container that applies to the prizes page. 

E. Viral: from here you can define the viral messages that will be shown when users share the prizes page on their social media profiles.

 

E) Other Options

Additionally, you have the following additional features to customize the promotion pages: 

• Customize the name of each section and the icon that identifies it within the promotion menu. For example, you can change the default name of the "Welcome" page to "Start".
• Add new sections to the promotion menu for additional content. This new section can be set up in two different ways:
  
  • New page, for example, to present and explain the prizes of the promotion.
  • External link, to drive traffic to your website or microsite.

 

Step 5. Customize the design

In the Design menu, you can customize the look & feel of your promotion to adapt it for your brand or product. The "Design" section offers the following options:

• Colors: Change the colors of texts and buttons in the promotion.
• Typography: Select the font used for texts and buttons in the promotion.
• Container: Completely customize the container by setting the style, opacity, height or position.
• Background: Customize the background of the promotion with your own image or choice of colors. The background will be the same for all screens in the promotion.
• Other: Set the style of the promotion buttons (outlined or solid), as well as the color of the button text. Also from here you can customize the background color of the pop-up windows of the promotion (for example: window that opens the terms and conditions, My Networks window, etc.)
• Advanced (only White Label): Use your own CSS styles to completely customize the template (only available in White Label promotions).

Discover all the creative possibilities offered by our Design Module.

 

Step 6. Insert legal texts

In this section you can upload legal texts to display them in the promotion. Specifically you can upload the terms and conditions to explain all aspects of the promotion, contest or sweepstakes. Additionally you can also upload your privacy policy to explain how and for what purpose you will treat the data of the users that register in the promotion. It's also possible to upload your own Cookies policy.

To add the terms and conditions, go to the Editor > General > Legal content, where you will find the following sections:

• Terms and conditions.
• Privacy Policy. 
• Cookie Policy.

 

Note: Check here how to set up the consent of the legal texts of the promotion. 

 

Step 7. Configure My Networks and the promotion footer

The 'My networks' module enables you to totally customize the screen which the user sees before they finalize registration. For example, you can give them the option to click ‘Like’ on your Facebook Page. My Networks can be customized to connect with Facebook, as well as with Twitter, Instagram and Youtube accounts. Learn how to do that here.

To customize My Networks, go to Editor > General > My Networks:

You can also customize the text in the promotion footer, or deactivate it if you don't want it. The text is displayed as a banner at the foot of each screen of the promotion.

To enable the promotion footer, go to Editor > General > Footer where you'll see the following options:

• "Created by" field which will allow you to customize the name of the brand or company organizing the promotion.
• Decide what elements you want to show in the promotion foot.

 

Step 8. Customize viral content

This section is very important if you want the Spin the Wheel to go viral. The viral content is the message that will be shown whenever a participant shares the promotion with friends or invites others to the promotion. You can customize this share message, based on the social media participants use when they invite friends to the promotion and obtain recruits.

To customize the viral content of the promotion, go to Editor > General > Share:

 

A) Generic:

Set up the generic contents of the promotion here:

• Viral image: This is the image that will accompany the share text. For social network optimization, we suggest a size of 1200px by 630px. The same image will be shared on Facebook and Pinterest. If you don’t upload a specific image for this section, the main promotion image will be displayed when a participant shares the promotion.
• Generic content: This is the viral text that will be shared on social media when the participant uses the share buttons on the main page, the entry form or the header. 

B) Recruitment.

This is the default content when users share to social networks from the final page. Learn how to configure it.

 

Step 9. Login system of participants

Then go to the Editor > Pages > Login and you can set up the way users can identify themselves to participate in the Prize Wheel. Discover here the different types of Login and all the configuration options.

Then go to Editor > Pages > Entry Form > Options to review the following options:

Let's look at those options in a little more detail:

• Max. users: Decide if you want to limit the promotion to a maximum number of participants. By default, there is no limit on the number of users who can participate in the contest.
• Notification of new entrant: Enable this option if you want to receive an email every time a new participant registers for the promotion.
• Disable autofocus in first form field. By default, the “Name” field in the entry form has the autofocus activated so that the participants can begin to write without having to click on the field first when the page loads. This option allows to disable this effect to avoid that the autofocus scrolls down the page, which is useful in promotions that have a big header image. 

 

Step 10. Restrictions on promotion access

The application allows you to restrict access and limit the users who can participate in a promotion. Specifically, the platform offers you 2 forms of restriction:

• Country restriction: You can limit the promotion to a specific country or countries. Only users who connect from the selected country or countries will see the promotion. Learn how to enable country restriction here.

• Age Restriction: Limit the promotion to users whose date of birth is higher than the one indicated by the administrator. This establishes a minimum age for participants. Learn how to enable age verification here.

 

Step 11. Communicate with participants via the email platform

If you need to communicate with participants during or after the promotion, you can use this section to create, customize and send emails.

This tool is especially useful for giveaways. It enables you to configure automatic emails to contact participants:

1. To thank participants for registering, inform them of when the contest will be held, and when the result will be made known.
2. Send an email to the contest winners.
3. Send an email to all participants, confirming that the promotion has ended and thanking them for their participation.

Learn how to create an email with the platform to communicate with participants and increase your promotion's viral reach. 

Important! The email platform includes the ‘smart tags’ feature. This enables you to configure customized emails. The ‘smart tag’ {{user_recruiting_url}} will be substituted by the recruitment URL of each participant when you send the email.

  

Step 12. Activate the promotion

Once you have configured all aspects of the promotion, you can activate it and make payments from the management page. Find more information here.

 

Step 13. Publish the promotion

Now your promotion is active - but your users can't participate unless you publish the web address! When you created the contest, a microsite was created to display the promotion, with a unique URL. The URL is the main link to the promotion.

By default, this main link leads to the welcome page of the microsite, but you can change this. You can additionally publish the promotion on a Facebook Page, or embed it in your blog or website. You can control where you wish to publish the promotion via “Buzz”. You can find all the information about this step here.

 

Step 14. Share the promotion

It’s important to share and publicize the promotion on a range of different channels. Always use the main link to the promotion. Other links may not be compatible with a full range of devices.

You can share in the following ways:

• With the direct link to the promotion.
• With the ‘share’ button on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
• Use Facebook Ads to give more visibility to the promotion. One of the most effective ways to improve the visibility of the promotion is through the Facebook advertising service, which will allow you to create an advertisement to promote the contest and generate traffic to the promotion. To do this, you must access the Facebook advertisers page and create an advertisement to promote the contest. 
• Making your promotion a Featured promotion. This adds your campaign to Easypromos' own list of highlighted promotions. Featuring a promotion has an additional cost per day of the campaign. If you’d like to create a highlighted campaign, consult this tutorial.

We also recommend reading these articles for extra tips:

• 14 basic steps for disseminating and highlighting your campaign on your Facebook Page.
• Tutorial: How to disseminate a promotion. 

 

Step 15 Manage the active promotion

While the promotion is active, you can monitor and manage competition entries from the management page. Just click on the "Participants" section in the menu on the left side. You can also access the entries list from the “Statistics” section:

In the "Participants" section, you can see information about all the participants and download it to Excel.

Note: Information about participants will still be available after the promotion has finished.

 

Step 16. Check the promotion statistics

Access the ‘Statistics’ section to find out how participation is developing, and how users are interacting with the application. This information will be available as soon as the first entry is made, until after the promotion has finished. Learn more about the information available in this section.

 

Step 17. Activate the final giveaway

When the participation period ends, it's time to assign prizes to the winners. In the “Sweepstakes” app, you've created a prize with “Through Random Sweepstakes” assignment. This means that when the promotion ends, we can use the Sweepstakes tool to select the winners. You can run the contest between all participants, or within a segment of participants.

To do this, go to the “Winners” section of the menu, on the left-hand side of the main promotion management page:

In this section, you'll see the prize that you've created for your promotion, together with the tools to manage it. Here you can:

1. Activate the giveaway to assign the prize to the winner.
2. Publish the prize winners on the prizes page.
3. Share the result on your social media channels.

Follow this tutorial for a step-by-step guide through the process of running the contest and assigning prizes to the winners.

When you have selected the winners, you can use the email platform to communicate with them about their prizes, and to thank all participants for joining in.

 

Step 18. Finishing up the promotion

The end of a promotion is controlled by the dates you set in the promotion Editor. When the "End of publication date" is passed, the promotion changes from active status to expired status. By default, the promotion is unpublished and is no longer visible. If users click the promotion URL, a screen with the message "promotion expired" will be displayed.

As administrator of the contest, you can edit the content of the "promotion expired" screen. For example, you could edit it to display the winners of the promotion, or keep the contest gallery visible. You can even republish the promotion so that it's visible again.

In this link, we explain your options once the promotion is finished.