The Sweepstakes is oldie but goldie vertical. One of the oldest but still blooming and smelling. In a word — the evergreen direction. In this article, we’ll go through everything about sweepstakes inside and out: what they are, what’s their advantage, what kinds of them are used and what to look for when starting out. Let’s take a journey through a world of prizes and gifts!
What is a sweepstake?
Sweepstakes are various lotteries and raffles in which users can accidentally win a coveted and usually expensive prize.
Initially, the vertical was associated specifically with draws for mobile phones. But as time goes on and trends change, today the arsenal of prizes in sweepstakes has multiplied. Gadgets, gift cards from major shops, gaming consoles, brand sneakers, and even baby care products are options that can be offered as prizes.
Interesting case
In some GEOs, necessities convert better than gadgets. In 2020 summer during the Covid-19 pandemic in Australia, gift card giveaways to children’s shops worked great. Well, baby maintenance is like keeping a cool car. Not everyone wants a popular gadget, some people need gift cards for necessities. It is also a great case of real-time marketing.
The key value of sweepstakes for the advertiser is the targeted action. To enter the sweepstakes, the user must perform a certain action: fill out a form and leave contacts or pay a small amount of money with the card. A kind of trade offer — you give us your details, and we give you the opportunity to win the prize you want.
Why is it popular, and who needs it?
As we mentioned before, sweepstakes is an evergreen vertical: free cheese in a mousetrap has always and will always attract people. Sweepstake vertical is built on this idea.
The advertiser is interested in sweepstakes as a parser of the users’ data in order to form a customer database. For further campaigns, he may use the information derived from sweepstake (email, mobile phone, etc.). In addition, if you add a couple of questions about the company to the registration form, such offers may become a useful tool for audience research.
From an affiliate point of view, this vertical has several advantages, such as:
- Simplicity. Sweepstakes are easy to understand and flexible enough. Many affiliates choose it at the start of their career.
- Stability. Even with relatively low payouts, sweepstakes are a good choice because it gives the affiliate a working strategy. If you choose your traffic well, it will successfully generate income for a long time.
- Great variety. Another advantage is that in this vertical you always have a lot of offers options. What’s more, you have tons of articles and case studies on bundles of sweepstake offers with almost any source of traffic. It would be a crime not to take advantage of such a knowledge base.
Sweepstakes models
For the most part, all sweepstakes offers are similar in mechanics and offer users a unique chance to win some very attractive prizes for a small contribution of data. But what is the difference in the types of sweepstakes offers? Precisely in the data that the user leaves behind. Depending on the data collection model, users can leave different sorts of personal information for later use. And accordingly, the amount of payment for the target action differs as well. There are three main models:
SOI (Single Opt-in)
In this case, the user has to enter an e-mail or phone number with first and last name. No data confirmation is required. In terms of funnel complexity, this is the simplest type of sweepstakes, but the cost per lead is also minimal here.
DOI (Double Opt-In)
The model differs from SOI in that the user must confirm that the data is correct. Usually, there is a need to follow a link sent to your email in order to confirm registration. More steps — higher cost per lead!
CC Submit (Credit Card Submit)
Such offers literally sign up the user for participation in a lottery. The target action is to enter bank card details. There are CC Submit offers where a certain amount is deducted from the card immediately, others give a few days as a “trial period”. CC Submit requires more knowledge and experience in dealing with traffic, but it is worth it because the payout is much higher than in SOI/DOI offers.
Traffic sources for sweepstakes
This vertical has been successful on a variety of traffic sources. Some become less popular over time due to the difficulty of dealing with them. At the same time, new sources and opportunities are emerging. Tests are important here as in any other vertical. However, many affiliates have proven sources for promoting sweepstakes offers. These include:
- Facebook Ads
- Push ads
- Pop ads
- E-mail.
Sweepstakes pre-landing page design
The experience in affiliate marketing shows that launching a successful sweepstake campaign is almost impossible without a pre-landing page, and sometimes even several of them.
The peculiarity of this vertical is that the user must know the reason for being chosen as a participant and believe in the opportunity to win. For many users, it is important to understand their exclusivity. In addition, users need to be prepared to leave their details. They must understand the benefits of completing the questionnaire and entering personal data.
Design is also very important here. The visual should not be pretentious or contain a lot of text — less is more. The image of the price is key. Beyond that, simple instructions on what is needed to do to enter a game are sufficient.
Answering questions, choosing a gift, solving a puzzle, playing with the wheel of fortune — all these elements are designed to warm up the audience and increase the level of engagement.
Final thoughts
While everyone is chasing the larger verticals’ offers, we invite you to pay attention to the sweepstakes. Not the most popular, but still an evergreen direction to drive traffic. This vertical is easy to implement and has established itself as a stable vertical in the affiliate market for a long time. Sweepstakes’ profit will not change dramatically because it is independent of the environment. Drive traffic to the sweepstakes offers, don’t forget to test new traffic sources, and you’ll definitely be a winner!
If you want to reach new GEOs and audiences, maybe it is all waiting for you on Telegram? We’ve prepared some material about Telegram audiences. What are the messenger’s users like this year? How old they are, what they do, and what they are interested in!
