How to create a Pick a Card popup

Card Game (also called Pick a Card) is a gamified element that invites visitors to reveal cards until they find a match, unlocking a reward along the way. Like Spin-to-Win and Scratch-Off, it's designed to make the opt-in moment feel like a fun, low-effort interaction rather than a standard signup form, which tends to increase both engagement and completion rates. Card Game works well as either the first step in a new campaign or an added step in an existing popup flow, and performs consistently across product and non-product pages.

How to Add the Card Game Element

There are two ways to add Card Game to your popup:

From Scratch: When creating a new popup, select the Card Game template in the first step of the editor to start with a pre-configured layout.

To an Existing Popup: Open your popup in the editor, click the + (Plus) icon in the step management area, and select Card Game from the element list. You can then drag and drop the step into position.

💡Note: Card Game typically performs best when it's the central focus of its step, similar to Spin-to-Win. We recommend avoiding competing calls to action on the same screen.

Configuring Match Logic

Once the element is added, you can control how the game plays out:

Number of Cards: By default, visitors need to match 3 cards to win. You can increase this, but more cards generally means a longer interaction, so balance this against your popup's overall flow.

Reveal Order: Card values are randomized on each load, so the same prize won't always appear in the same position. This keeps the experience feeling fair and game-like for repeat visitors.

💡Note: You aren't limited to a minimum set of cards. Adding more options to the layout has performed well in testing and can make the game feel less predictable.

Setting Prizes Per Card

💡Tip: Want to customize your cards without digging through settings? Just ask Lia, Alia's built-in AI assistant. Tell Lia what you want to change such as colors, borders, icons, layout, and it handles the rest with no CSS required.

Each card can be assigned its own reward independently:

Select a card in the editor to open its settings on the right-hand side.
Assign a reward to that card (for example, a discount percentage, free shipping, or a flat dollar amount).
Repeat for each card. You can mix reward types across the set. For instance, two cards offering 15% off, one offering $5 off, and one offering free shipping.
If you want a guaranteed outcome, assign the same reward to enough cards to make that the only realistic match.

💡Tip: As with Spin-to-Win and Plinko, you can weight outcomes so that lower-value rewards appear more frequently than premium ones, while still keeping the game feeling random to the visitor.

Visual Customization

To match your brand, use the Style Editor to customize:

Card Colors: Background and border color for both the card back and revealed state.
Icon: The symbol shown on the card back (a question mark by default) can be replaced or restyled.
Typography: Font family, size, weight, and letter spacing for any text shown on or below the cards.
Layout: Spacing and alignment of the card grid to fit your popup's dimensions on both desktop and mobile.

Functional Behavior of the Reveal Interaction

Cards flip or reveal on tap/click, one at a time, until the required match count is reached.

Once a match is found:

The claim button becomes visible, and the reward is automatically applied to the visitor's next step.
Remaining unrevealed cards are disabled to keep the outcome clear.

Use Preview mode to test the full reveal sequence on both desktop and mobile before publishing. Tap targets can feel different across screen sizes.

Performance Signals

Card Game is one of Alia's stronger-performing gamified formats, alongside Scratch-Off. Based on live A/B tests run across multiple merchants:

Email and SMS opt-in rates have come in meaningfully higher than Plinko in head-to-head tests — in some cases over 25% higher on both channels.
Attributed sales have shown some of the largest gains of any format tested, in certain cases roughly 45–50% higher than the comparison variant.
Sitewide conversion rate has also trended upward when Card Game replaced a lower-performing first step.
In tests against Spin-to-Win, Card Game has shown modest but consistent lifts on both product and non-product pages.

Results will vary by industry, audience, and your current baseline performance. We recommend validating Card Game against your existing first step using Alia's A/B Testing tools before rolling it out to all traffic.

Publishing Your Campaign

Once you're happy with the match logic, prizes, and styling, click Publish in the top right corner. You can track Card Game's performance alongside your other campaigns from your Alia dashboard.