Prelander: Wheel of Fortune

What a wheel prelander is

It's an intermediate page between the ad click and the offer itself: the user interacts with a spinning wheel, it lands on a prize or bonus, and only then do they reach the PWA witrina — already feeling like they won something rather than just followed a link. The format is already familiar to gambling and betting audiences, so it needs no explanation; people know what to do with it on sight.

The psychology behind the mechanic

The interaction itself — tapping to spin — creates a small sense of invested effort, after which the prize reads as earned rather than simply handed over. That reframes the next step: installing the app or reaching the offer stops feeling like a cold ad and starts feeling like claiming something already won.

How it lifts conversion down the funnel

Compared with a direct redirect straight to the witrina or store page, a warm-up step usually raises the share of users who make it to install, since they arrive already engaged rather than cold off a click. That effect only holds up further down the funnel if the wheel's promise matches the offer's reality — otherwise the warm-up lifts installs but conversion to deposit drops.

Setting up the wheel in APEX

The no-code editor lets you set a prize list and a weight (probability) for each sector, including a guaranteed-win setup on a specific prize if that fits the offer's logic. Styling is branded to the vertical and geo, the delay and the redirect into the PWA witrina after the spin are both configurable, and the prelander slots into the funnel as its own step ahead of the main app.

Where this mechanic fits best

The wheel sits most naturally in gambling and betting, where bonus-style framing is a standard part of the industry, and in sweepstakes and nutra, where coupon- or discount-wheel formats produce a similar effect. In stricter verticals like finance or dating, a casino-style wheel tends to look out of place and reads as untrustworthy rather than lifting conversion — a more restrained warm-up format fits better there.

Mistakes that hurt conversion

A prelander stretched across several screens before the prize loses part of the audience before they even see it — the job is to warm someone up in seconds, not to stall them. A prize that doesn't match what's actually waiting on the next step lifts installs but tanks deposit conversion, ending up worse than skipping the prelander entirely. A separate common mistake is running a prelander that isn't localized to the geo on top of a witrina that is — the mismatch in language or styling reads as off-target immediately.

FAQ

Are the wheel's prize odds genuinely random?

No, and they're not meant to be — it's a controllable tool: the buyer sets each sector's weight, same as any bonus mechanic, and tunes the distribution to the funnel's goals rather than running a fair lottery.

Does the wheel fit every vertical?

No — it fits best in gambling, betting, sweepstakes and bonus-style nutra offers; stricter verticals like finance are better served by a more restrained prelander without a game mechanic.

How long should the prelander take?

Short — a matter of seconds of interaction; the job is to build interest, not to make the user wait longer than they're willing to before reaching the offer.

Can I actually compare a wheel prelander against a direct redirect with real numbers?

Yes, through an APEX split test with sticky-by-visitor — both funnel variants run on real traffic in parallel, and comparing the click → install → deposit chain shows which one actually wins.

Does the prelander need translating for every geo separately?

Yes — the language, prize copy and currency labels on the wheel need to match the witrina and geo, or the mismatch between funnel steps noticeably cuts conversion.

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