Instant-win promotions are one of the highest-converting tools in any lead generation strategy. Out of all of them, the digital scratch card sits at the top: it recreates the thrill of the classic scratch-off ticket, delivers prizes instantly, and turns anonymous visitors into qualified leads in a single click.
A scratch & win campaign is a powerful ally for collecting customer data and building loyalty at the same time. Want to create and customise your own branded online scratch card? Keep reading, we’ll walk you through the benefits, how to configure your scratch & win, and how to publish it on your social channels, website, blog, or any other digital touchpoint.
What is a digital scratch card?
A scratch & win is a classic instant-win mechanic: participants scratch an area of a card to reveal whether a prize is hidden underneath.
Cool Tabs’ digital scratch card replicates that traditional dynamic in an online version. It lets you build a marketing campaign that looks and feels like the physical scratch-off, but distributes instant prizes at scale, across any digital channel.
Although the mechanic is most common in hospitality, leisure, and FMCG, going digital opens it up to virtually any industry, both in your online channels and at the point of sale.
Key features of an online scratch card
- Structure. The campaign is built around a landing page, a data form, a scratchable image, and a final screen.
- User flow. Participants land on the campaign page, click ‘Play’, fill in the form, and scratch the image to find out instantly whether they’ve won.
- Customisation. Every layer is editable, from design (images, colours, copy) to campaign rules (entries per user, number of prizes, exact times when prizes are released).
- The scratchable image. This is what drives excitement. No waiting until the end of the campaign to find out the result: the reveal happens in the moment.
- Instant win scheduling. Schedule every prize for a specific date and time, or let the tool distribute them automatically based on the rules you set.
- Lead-capture form. The real goal of the campaign: clean first-party data. Configure the form with the exact fields you need. And remember, less is more. Only ask for data you’ll actually use, or your conversion rate will suffer.
- Legal terms. Publish clear terms and conditions covering both the promotion and data processing. To stay GDPR-compliant, Cool Tabs lets you add extra checkboxes for commercial communications, newsletter opt-in, and more.
- Multi-language. Need to run your scratch card across multiple markets? The multi-language feature supports 20+ languages out of the box.
- Virality. Enable personalised share messages so participants can broadcast their results across social channels after playing, extending your organic reach.
- Publishing options. Every campaign comes with a public URL you can share on social media, newsletters, blog posts… and you can embed it natively in your app, e-commerce, or website.
Cool Tabs online scratch and win demo
Benefits of a scratch & win campaign for your brand
Launching a campaign with this mechanic delivers measurable results across four levers:
Attract more users
Instant prizes are a proven magnet. The “will I win?” moment acts as the hook that pulls visitors through the funnel and turns them into leads.
Capture qualified leads
Unlike native social media giveaways, where all you collect is whatever the platform decides to share, and platforms are tightening that every year, a digital scratch card campaign gives you full control of the form. You ask only for the data you need, and you own it.
Build customer loyalty
Combine the mechanic with code validation, and you instantly have a loyalty play: distribute codes (usually on purchase receipts) to your existing customers so that only they can participate. You reward buyers, you drive repeat purchases, and you segment your database in one move.
Simplify winner selection
Because prizes are awarded instantly, there’s no manual selection of winners. You just need to make sure the winners’ page is set to public so participants can verify the results transparently.
Scratch & win with match-3 boxes
Cool Tabs offers a second version of the mechanic. Instead of scratching a single image, the participant scratches three boxes to reveal symbols.
This variation lets you configure one or several winning combinations. When a user plays at (or right after) the scheduled time, scratching the boxes reveals the winning combo and the congratulations message.
Cool Tabs Scratch and win match-3 boxes demo
How to create a digital scratch card with Cool Tabs
You’ll find the scratch & win mechanic in the Cool Tabs campaign catalogue. It’s available on the Gold and Diamond (white-label) plans.
You can also test it during the 7-day free trial, which gives you full access to any plan with no limits.
The best part: no design or coding skills required. If you don’t want to create your own visuals, pull from our built-in image libraries. If you want a fully branded look & feel, just upload your own assets.
The fastest route is to start from the pre-built scratch & win template and edit from there. For a step-by-step walkthrough, check this tutorial.
Scratch & win campaign ideas to inspire your next promotion
Need inspiration before building your own digital scratch card? The mechanic is flexible enough to fit almost any marketing goal. Here are seven campaign ideas that consistently deliver strong results:
1. Anniversary or brand milestone
Celebrate a key date (your brand’s anniversary, reaching a follower milestone, a store opening) by giving users the chance to scratch and win themed prizes. It’s a great excuse to reactivate your database and drive traffic to both your website and physical stores.
2. Christmas Advent Calendar
Turn your scratch card into a 24-day Advent Calendar: schedule a new prize to unlock every day in December. It’s one of the highest-performing formats in Q4. It drives daily return visits, keeps your brand top-of-mind during the shopping season, and lets you distribute a mix of small and hero prizes.
3. Black Friday & seasonal sales
Instead of the usual flat discount banner, let visitors scratch to reveal their Black Friday offer. You can configure tiered discount codes (10%, 20%, 30% off, free shipping) with different winning odds. The gamified experience converts significantly better than a static promo code on the homepage.
4. Purchase-based campaign with code validation
Reward actual buyers by combining the scratch card with code validation. Hand out unique codes on purchase receipts, product packaging, or bottle caps; to play, users enter the code in the form. Only customers can participate, so every lead you capture is already a buyer. Ideal for loyalty and repeat purchase.
5. Post-purchase “thank you” scratch card
Embed the scratch card on the order confirmation page or inside the thank-you email. Customers scratch to unlock a gift for their next purchase (a discount, free add-on, early access to new releases…). It’s a low-effort way to trigger a second purchase while the brand is still top of mind.
6. In-store QR code to bridge offline and online
Print a QR code on receipts, product tags, or shelf stickers that leads to an exclusive scratch card only accessible in store. Shoppers scratch on their phone before leaving the premises, claim their instant prize, and in the process, you capture the email of a customer you’d otherwise never identify. A clean way to connect physical traffic to your digital database.
Ready to launch your digital scratch card? A digital scratch card is one of the few marketing formats that nails every stage of the funnel at once: awareness, lead capture, conversion, and loyalty. Fun for users, branded for you, and measurable from the first scratch.
Got an idea for your campaign? Need help bringing it to life? Write to us at help@cool-tabs.com or start your 7-day free trial and build your scratch & win today.
Leave a Reply