What is an offerwall?

Picture a game with a coin balance. Next to the shop there is a page of offers: Install Coin Quest and reach level 10, 1,500 coins. Start a free trial of a meal kit, 4,000 coins. The player picks one, does it, and the coins appear.

That page is the offerwall. The game did not sell the player anything, and did not show an ad they had to sit through. The player chose to do something an advertiser was willing to pay for, and the money for it was split between the game and the player's reward.

• The user wants something in the app: currency, a perk, points they can cash out.
• The publisher owns the app or site and shows the offerwall. They set the reward and earn per completed offer.
• The advertiser wants an event to happen: an install, a sign-up, a purchase, a level reached. They set the price and pay only when it happens.
• The network (that is us) connects the two, tracks every click and conversion, and handles the money in both directions.

1. The user taps an offer. The publisher opens the offer's click link with the user's ID in it.
2. We record the click, give it a unique click ID, and send the user on to the advertiser with that ID attached.
3. The user installs, signs up or plays. The advertiser's tracking sees it happen.
4. The advertiser's server sends us a postback: a request carrying the click ID and the event. That is the moment a conversion exists. Nothing before it is billed or paid.
5. We send the publisher's server our own postback with the user's ID and the reward, and the publisher credits the user.

For 30 days after that, the advertiser can still reverse the conversion if it turns out to be a refund or fraud. If they do, the publisher gets a reversal postback and can take the reward back. After the window, the conversion is final and the publisher's earnings for it become payable.

Installs, often with a goal such as reaching a level. Sign-ups and registrations. Free trials. First deposits or purchases. Surveys on some networks. Many offers pay in several steps, so a user earns for the install, then again for each milestone.

Offers are tied to countries and platforms. A good offerwall only shows a user offers they can actually complete, priced for their country.

An offerwall needs something to reward. If your app has no currency, perk or points, there is nothing to offer the user, and an offerwall will feel bolted on. It also needs a server, because rewards are credited by server-to-server postbacks, not inside the app.

Platform rules matter too. Apple and Google both have rules on rewarding users for installing other apps or rating apps. Read the current App Store Review Guidelines and Google Play policies for your own app before launching one.