Make signing up the best thing that happens to them today
Sign-up is the moment of the customer’s greatest attention: they have just given you their email and expect something in return. The wheel turns that instant into a reward with a date on it — and a reason to come back soon.
Why a spin works harder than a gift
A straight gift gets a thank-you and is forgotten. A spin gets talked about. But the underlying reason isn’t the thrill: the roulette lets you give something expensive to a few people and something cheap to almost everyone, without looking stingy to anybody.
The maths fits on a napkin. Three prizes with weights of 6, 3 and 1 add up to 10: they come out 60%, 30% and 10% of the time.
| Segment | Costs you | Weight | Probability | Average cost per sign-up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free coffee | €0.40 | 6 | 60% | €0.24 |
| Free dessert | €1.20 | 3 | 30% | €0.36 |
| Set lunch | €4.00 | 1 | 10% | €0.40 |
| Total | — | 10 | 100% | €1.00 |
One euro of product per sign-up, and only if they come back to redeem it. If half of people redeem, that’s fifty cents per new customer with a name, an email address and your card on their phone.
And what the table doesn’t show: the 10% who win the set lunch talk about it. Nobody talks about a straight one-euro gift.
How it works in etlas
The roulette lives on the screen right after sign-up: the customer fills in the form, lands on “You have a free spin”, spins, and from there goes on to add the card to their wallet. Three things worth knowing exactly as they are:
- The prize is decided on the server, at the instant of sign-up, using the weights you set. The spin just reveals it.
- The weight isn’t a percentage: it’s a whole number, minimum 1. The panel works out
the percentage live, in the
Prob.column, as you adjust it. - The wheel repeats segments so it looks full: three prizes are drawn as six alternating segments. Seeing the same prize twice changes nothing — the weight is what counts.
The prize they win goes onto their wallet card with your programme’s expiry. The exception: prizes of the Give stamps or Give points type are credited to the card instantly, with no voucher to redeem.
How to set it up
- In Set up → The rewards, create the prizes for the wheel: three is what the screen itself suggests (“3 prizes are suggested”).
- For each one, fill in “How much does it cost you to give it?”: it’s optional, but it’s what lets you do the maths above.
- In the same place, set “A won reward is kept for … days”. Empty means it never expires.
- Go to Set up → The welcome and, under “What does your customer get at signup?”, choose Random roulette.
- The screen opens with three rows already in place: fill in the prize, emoji, colour and weight for each, and use Add prize if you want more segments. The preview on the right is the wheel the customer will see.
- Save and continue.
What to put on each segment
The short rule: on the likely segment, something you’d happily give away anyway; on the rare one, something people would tell their friends about.
| Business | Likely segment (high weight) | Middle segment | Rare segment (weight 1) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Café | Free coffee | Coffee + pastry | Full breakfast |
| Restaurant | House dessert | Starter for the table | Free set lunch |
| Poke, açaí, fast food | Extra topping | Free drink | Free bowl |
- Give things, not percentages. 5% off excites nobody; a free product does.
- Every segment comes from your catalogue. There’s no “better luck next time” segment unless you invent one as a prize yourself. Don’t.
What spoils it
- Six segments, all tempting. The average cost shoots up and the wheel is harder to read on a phone. Three well-chosen ones do the same job.
- The expensive one with a high weight. If the good one comes up one time in three, it stops being the good one.
- Small print. If the segment requires a minimum spend, say so in the name. Finding out at the till ruins the moment you were trying to buy.
- Setting it up and not showing the link. A beautiful wheel nobody sees brings no sign-ups: the QR code on the counter is what gets it spinning.
Frequently asked questions
What probability should I give each prize?
Use weights: high weight for the cheap one, weight 1 for the expensive one. To decide, multiply each prize’s cost by its probability and add them up. With prizes costing €0.40, €1.20 and €4 and weights of 6, 3 and 1, each sign-up costs you €1 in product.
How long does the customer have to use the prize they win?
Whatever you set in “A won reward is kept for … days”, under The rewards; leaving it empty means it never expires. Stamp and point prizes are different: they’re credited instantly, so there’s nothing to expire.
Can I give starter stamps and the roulette at the same time?
No: the two options are mutually exclusive, and choosing the roulette sets the starter stamps to zero. The workaround is easy: create a prize of the “Give stamps” type and add it as a segment. Whoever lands on it gets the stamps credited straight away.
Is the roulette rigged?
No. The prize is drawn on the server at the moment of sign-up, with genuine randomness and the weights you set; the animation just shows the result. Repeated segments are purely cosmetic: two segments of the same prize don’t make it any more likely.