Singles Day spin-the-wheel promo game: about 4x orders vs 2019
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsA spin-the-wheel game that gave every visitor a promo code on Singles Day 2020 coincided with roughly four times as many orders as Singles Day 2019. Clarins' EMEA e-commerce team ran it across four country sites, and it was published as a VWO case study.
This was a before-and-after comparison, not a split test.
- Orders: about 4x Singles Day 2019 across Germany, Spain, Ireland and Benelux.
- Conversion rate: +89.34% compared with Singles Day 2019.
- Add-to-basket rate: +145% compared with the 2020 average.
- Ireland: +495% orders and +585% revenue. 61.37% of Irish visitors played the game.
- These are year-on-year comparisons, so they don't isolate the effect of the game.
The change
The 2020 site showed a spin-the-wheel game that auto-applied a promo code.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Singles Day 2019 with no game, plus the 2020 site average for add-to-basket rate.
Variant
For 24 hours on Singles Day 2020, every visitor on desktop and mobile saw a spin-the-wheel game. Each spin landed on one of six promo codes, which was applied to the basket automatically.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Every spin won a discount, so the game was a promotion wrapped in play.
- Auto-applying the code removed the need to copy and paste it, which helps on mobile.
- A 24-hour window during a known sales day added urgency.
- Online traffic was much higher in 2020 due to the pandemic, which likely accounts for part of the jump.
Caveats: This was a before-and-after comparison against the prior year and a yearly average, not a split test. Pandemic-era traffic growth and the discounts themselves likely drove much of the change.
Who ran it
Clarins ran this test for Clarins and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Clarins →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we show a spin-the-wheel game that auto-applies a promo code during a sales event, then conversion rate will rise because visitors get an instant, fun reason to buy now.
- Primary metric
- Conversion rate during the event, against a holdout group with no game
- Guardrails
- Margin per order
- Average discount per order
- Repeat purchase rate after the event
- Who should test it
- Brands that already plan to discount during a sales event and want a more engaging way to deliver it. Keep a holdout group, or you won't know what the game added. Brands that avoid discounting should skip it.
Questions
Do spin-to-win popups increase sales?
They can deliver discounts in an engaging way.
Clarins saw big year-on-year gains, but without a split test it is hard to separate the game from traffic growth and the discounts.
Should promo codes be applied automatically?
Auto-applying removes a step and stops codes being lost, especially on mobile. Clarins applied them straight to the basket.
How do I test a gamified popup properly?
Run it against a holdout group that sees no game, or a plain discount popup, during the same period. Compare margin as well as orders.
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