Why an earned discount beats one you hand out
A welcome offer is usually a handout, even when it’s dressed up as a game. Here’s what changes when the shopper has to earn it.
You’ve seen the welcome offer a hundred times. A popup appears, asks for an email and hands over a code. Some stores dress it up as a game: spin the wheel, scratch the card, drop the ball. Either way, the shopper did nothing to get the discount, and they know it.
That’s worth thinking about, because a discount is never just a number. It’s a message about your prices, your product and what you expect from the person reading it.
What a handout says
A code that appears for anyone who shows up says your price has room in it. Shoppers who see the same offer on every visit learn to wait for it. Shoppers who meet the popup before they’ve read a word about your product learn nothing about why the full price is fair.
None of this makes welcome offers a bad idea. It makes the way you give them important.
Luck games are still handouts
Most game popups are luck games. A wheel spins, a card scratches, a ball bounces, and chance decides the prize. They can be fun the first time. But nothing the shopper does changes the result, and nothing about your product gets through. The prize feels random because it is.
There’s a quieter problem too. When every spin lands on a prize, shoppers work out that the wheel is decoration. The game becomes a slower way to hand out the same code.
Effort changes how people value things
Researchers have a name for the pull of things we work for. In a 2012 paper, Michael Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely described the IKEA effect: people value products they assemble themselves more highly than the same products made by someone else. There’s a catch, and it’s the useful part. In the authors’ words, “labor leads to love only when labor results in successful completion of tasks.” When people didn’t finish, the effect went away.
A discount isn’t flat-pack furniture, and that study wasn’t about coupons. But the lesson carries over neatly: ask for a little real effort, and make sure people can succeed. Effort that ends in failure doesn’t build anything.
What a skill game gives you that a wheel can’t
A skill game asks the shopper to do something that depends on them: tap the right products, answer a question about what you sell, sort what’s in from what’s out. Three things change.
- Attention lands on your product. For a short round, the shopper is looking at what you sell, not at a wheel.
- The discount has a reason. It was won, so your full price still means something.
- You learn something. You see what shoppers knew and what they missed, which is the start of a better first email.
Ask for the email after the win
Many popups ask for an email before they give anything. That turns the form into a toll. Ask after the shopper has won and the same form becomes a receipt: they’re giving you an address so you can send them something they already earned.
Earn first, ask second. It’s a small change in order that changes the whole tone of the exchange.
Keep the reward honest
An earned discount only works if it’s real. A few habits keep it that way.
- Make every code work once. A code that can be passed around was never really earned.
- Give it an expiry. A deadline is honest urgency: the offer is real, and it ends.
- Make the label true. If you advertise “up to 30% off,” something should really be 30% off. In the US, the FTC’s Guides Against Deceptive Pricing say a former price used for comparison should be the actual, bona fide price the item was offered at on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period of time. A percentage worked out from a compare-at price is only as honest as that price. (That’s a summary, not legal advice.)
In Earnaroo: we check every round on our side, against what was dealt and the clock. Codes work once by default, and they expire. “Up to X% off” labels can come from your real prices, rounded down so they stay true.
When a plain discount is the right call
Not every offer needs a game. A sitewide sale is for everyone, and making people play for it would feel like a hoop. A thank-you code for loyal customers should simply arrive. Games fit best where you want attention and a first conversation: a new visitor, a launch, a product that needs explaining.
How to start
- Pick one product a new shopper should understand.
- Choose the game that suits the moment: quick and fun for a welcome offer, or a question about your product when there’s something to teach.
- Set a winning score a first-time player can reach. Our guide to setting a fair winning score walks through it.
- Ask for the email only after the win.
That’s the whole idea behind Earnaroo: shoppers play a short game, earn a real discount code, and you ask for the email once they’ve won.
Sources
- Norton, M. I., Mochon, D., and Ariely, D. (2012). The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(3), 453–460. doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2011.08.002
- Federal Trade Commission. Guides Against Deceptive Pricing, 16 CFR Part 233. www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-233