What is an offerwall? A plain-English guide

Who is involved

Four parties sit behind every completed offer, and it helps to keep them straight because the money flows through each of them.

• The advertiser wants a specific result, such as a new player who reaches level 10, and pays a fixed amount per result (cost per action, or CPA).
• The partner network or tracking platform aggregates advertiser campaigns and pays the networks and publishers that drive results. Many run on platforms such as Everflow, Affise or impact.com.
• The offerwall network collects offers from one or more partners, presents them on a wall, tracks clicks and conversions, and pays its publishers a share.
• The publisher owns the app, game or site where users see the wall, and turns their share of each payout into rewards for the user.

How an offer is completed, step by step

From the user's point of view an offer takes a few taps. Underneath, a reliable offerwall does quite a lot.

First, the user opens the wall. The wall knows which publisher app it is running in and which user is looking at it, because the publisher passes both in the wall URL. It shows only offers that user can complete: the right country, the right device, and offers that are currently active.

Second, the user taps an offer. The wall records a click and issues a click ID, a unique token that links this user, this app and this offer. The user is redirected to the advertiser's tracking link with that click ID attached.

Third, the user completes the task. The advertiser's tracking platform notices the qualifying event and sends a server-to-server message, called a postback, back to the offerwall network, carrying the click ID and a transaction ID.

Fourth, the network matches the postback to the click, checks it is genuine and not a duplicate, works out the publisher's share and the user's reward, and sends its own postback to the publisher's server. The publisher credits the user's account. Our guide on how offerwall postbacks work covers this part in detail.

Where the money goes

Suppose an advertiser pays $2.00 for a new player reaching level 10. The partner network passes the offer to an offerwall network at a payout of $2.00 for that network. The offerwall network has agreed a 70% revenue share with the publisher, so the publisher earns $1.40 and the network keeps $0.60.

The publisher has set its currency at 1,000 coins per dollar of its earnings, so the wall shows the offer as worth 1,400 coins. When the conversion arrives, the user receives 1,400 coins. The coins cost the publisher nothing to issue; they have value because they buy something inside the app.

That last point is why offerwalls work. The publisher converts a cash payout into virtual currency at a rate it controls, and the user values the currency more than the publisher pays for it. Everyone in the chain is paid for a real result.

Common offer types

Offers on a typical wall fall into a handful of categories.

• Game offers: install a game and reach a milestone. Often multi-event, paying a small reward for the install and larger ones for later levels.
• App installs and sign-ups: install an app and register, or start a trial.
• Surveys: answer questions for a market research panel.
• Purchases and subscriptions: buy a product or start a paid subscription, usually with the highest rewards.
• Financial and lead-generation offers: open an account or request a quote, where advertisers allow incentivised traffic.

Multi-event offers

Many modern offers pay for several goals rather than one. A game might pay for the install, for reaching level 5 and for reaching level 20. The wall lists each goal with its reward, and each one is credited as it is achieved. Users see that they will be paid along the way, which keeps them engaged with the advertiser's app for longer, which is exactly what the advertiser is paying for.

Offerwall vs rewarded video

Rewarded video asks the user to watch a short ad for a small, instant reward. It is paid per view or impression, the reward is small, and it fits naturally between levels or before a bonus.

An offerwall asks for more effort, such as installing and playing a game, in exchange for a much larger reward. It is paid per completed action. Revenue per engaged user is typically much higher, but fewer users engage, and rewards arrive minutes or days later rather than instantly.

The two complement each other. Rewarded video earns from many users a little at a time; the offerwall earns most from the users who want to progress faster or get premium items without paying.

What makes an offerwall good for users

Users stay with walls that show offers they can actually complete, describe clearly what counts, and pay out reliably. That comes down to accurate targeting, clear instructions, multi-event offers that show progress, and a postback pipeline that never loses a conversion. When a user completes an offer and does not get paid, they rarely try another one.

What makes an offerwall good for advertisers

Advertisers want real users who keep using their product. They care about fraud, because incentivised traffic attracts people trying to game the system with VPNs, emulators and fake accounts. A wall that screens clicks, holds suspicious conversions for review and reverses fraudulent ones keeps advertisers paying good rates. Our offerwall fraud prevention guide goes through the checks that matter.

Running your own offerwall

Publishers can rent a third-party offerwall, which is quick to integrate but means the wall provider keeps a share of every payout and owns the advertiser relationships. Larger publishers, ad networks and affiliate networks increasingly run their own: they connect directly with partner networks, keep the margin, and control the user experience and fraud rules.

Running your own used to mean building click tracking, postback handling, deduplication, retries, a publisher portal and fraud screening from scratch. A white-label offerwall platform such as LaunchOfferwall provides those pieces under your brand, so you can focus on partners and publishers. If that sounds like you, our guide to launching an offerwall network walks through the decisions.

Key terms

• CPA: cost per action, the amount an advertiser pays per completed result.
• Click ID: a unique token issued per click and returned in the postback to match the conversion.
• Postback: a server-to-server call that reports a conversion.
• Revenue share: the percentage of each payout passed to the publisher.
• Virtual currency rate: how many units of the app's currency one dollar of publisher earnings buys.
• Reversal or chargeback: a conversion the advertiser later rejects, which should deduct the user's reward.