These days it seems that almost every blogger and their pet cat is giving away stuff using Rafflecopter. I love Rafflecopter, and think I was probably the first to use it in the UK. If Greg and his team had not come up with it, I would have paid a developer to write something very similar for my own use. It makes running a giveaway very easy for a blogger, it is free, easy to use, easy to moderate, easy to check people are not cheating, easy to have multiple and daily entries etc etc.
Look at the competition above – which at first glance is a PR’s dream! The competition has closed, they receive an e-mail from the blogger with the winner’s details and the fact that there were over 21 thousand entries. By any standards that is fantastic engagement. The figures get fed back to the sponsor and everyone is happy.
But what does that huge number of entries actually mean? From recent conversations I know that some brands and PRs are, quite reasonably, assuming that 21,000 people saw and entered the competition, but the actual number of unique individuals who entered will be many times lower than this.
Rafflecopter is awesome in that it allows different entry mechanisms, and daily entries, which mean that any one person can get multiple entries to one giveaway. To make an (extreme) illustration of the point I set up the two giveaways below, about 21 days ago, posted them and promoted them within minutes of each other.
Both had 8 entry mechanisms, but in one of the giveways I gave 25 entries for every way of entering, and the other I gave 8. With two extra ways to enter each day gaining the entrant another 50 points it is not that surprising that the bagel giveaway has gained nearly 59,000 entries. One person could have already gained about 1,250 entries! Actual unique individuals entering to date are around 325 for the chocolate and 250 for the bagels.
The problem is that currently (and having spoken to Rafflecopter HQ this might well change in the future) once the giveaway has closed all the information on number of entry mechanisms, and total number of entries possible vanish, so you have no idea how many unique people have seen, entered and engaged with your brand.
I make a comment as a mandatory entry for all my competitions, so on Fuss Free Flavours the number of comments will pretty much equal unique entrants. Although be aware some people get carried away and comment more than once, some say they have commented when they have not (I disqualify them) and on some sites the blogger replies to competition entries, but all these are pretty easy to spot.
In summary
Total Rafflecopter entries usually is MANY times the number of unique individual entries
Check the number of comments to estimate unique individuals who have entered
To accurately measure true engagement for your client ask the blogger for a screen print of the moderate entries screen, grouped by entry option – This hides all the entrants’ data so there will be no data protection issues.
Are you a Rafflecopter fan or not?
I love Rafflecopter whether I am running a competition or entering one. When running one, it makes it easy for me to see exactly who has entered and whether they have completed the required tasks, and means that I can draw and contact the winner fairly and easily.
When I am entering one, it is clear what I need to do, I know my personal details are secure and I don’t need to leave my contact details in a public comment, where they could be picked up by spammers. Ant it removes any suspicion I might have that a less-than-scrupulous blogger might award the prize to a personal friend rather than doing an independent draw.
Having said all that, I strongly believe that one task should equal one entry. The only reason I can see for offering more entries than that is to pull the wool over the eyes of the PR offering the prize. They are going to be far happier if I tell them a comp had 5,000 entries then the 300 or so unique entrants – and yet the reach of the comp would have gone the same distance in each case. Fair enough to give one entry for each task, as each one is an extra shout out for the blogger or sponsor or both, but more than one entry seems pointless.
One more thing, those totals will always look better than they actually are, as they don’t include disqualifications. There are still an alarming number of people who thing they can get away with clicking the green button to say they HAVE commented, liked or tweeted when they haven’t. So the actual number of VALID unique entrants is even lower!
Exactly Jane.
I reckon I disqualify about 1 in 20.
Although from a PR point of view the face that someone has seen the competition even if they have not properly taken part is a good thing.
I am not a huge fan of rafflecopter, though perhaps peer pressure will push me to it eventually, especially if people assume that, by not using it, I pick friends as winners. (Actually I use random.org and sometimes friends win, sometimes strangers win, often compers from what I can tell).
But regarding the number of entries and reasons for ever awarding more than 1 for a particular method of entry. I came across one good reason… if you are looking to encourage a particular method of entry, whether that’s liking your FB page or writing a blog post, over other methods, giving those methods higher points makes sense. Giving every entry method the same number of (multiple) points makes no sense at all and is, as you say, just a way of making entries look higher to PRs.
Well exactly Kavey. But to have everything at 10 or 5 entries seems daft. When not use 2 for the harder tasks and 1 for the easier ones?
What I have seen recently is lot of Tumblrs which people are using when required to write a blog post to enter a competition.
I really am not a fan of tumblr. 90% of tumblr blogs are just stolen (visual) content with no credit to original creator or source. Ghastly.
Well yes. I find it very useful for microblogging and for sending instagrams to FB.
must admit I have used it on my blog only if the promoter of the prize wishes me too. Not keen on it myself, but got use to them now. I moderate all comments that go on my blog for any reason and delete the ones that dont comply with the requirements, or who say that have tweeted and they havent.
I then use random number to pick a winner and put up the snip of the no selected.
Interesting information, thanks
I find it very easy to use, and it keeps getting better and better.
My comments are not numbered in my site dashboard and counting through them was always a pain.
Also having fewer comments for each giveaway takes a huge strain off my database.
I had wondered why the bagels were getting what seemed to be a silly number of entries each time :)
Now you know ….
I love Rafflecopter from a host point of view – it’s SO much easier and less time consuming – but I agree about the methods of entry. I sometimes wonder if people aren’t put off by Rafflecopter, if they have so many ways of entering, as it also technically reduces their chances. Like you I have comment as my mandatory entry, just to give me an at a glance view of how many entries there (roughly) were.
Being put off by the huge entry numbers is a very good point and something that I had wondered about. It would be nice to have the option of hiding the number during the giveaway maybe?
Interestingly there have been times when I’ve been tempted by a prize on a blog but glanced at the entry numbers and gone on my merry way. Time on the laptop is precious and I don’t want to waste it entering a competition that has a (seemingly) huge amount of entries, especially as I don’t always do the extra entries. I think that unless it’s something you really, really want, or a dedicated comper, then seeing large amounts of entries can be off-putting at times.
Having said that I love Rafflecopter from a host point of view on the rare occasions I run a giveaway.
Yes Helen, I have thought the “total entries” bit can be very misleading and use the mandatory comment so I can see how many unique entries I get (more or less). I’ve often wondered why people bother awarding 25 points for certain entries, I think you’ve now explained it.
I think the idea was that you can ask people to do something that takes more effort for more points – such as blog about this giveaway – not that I would ask someone to do that.
Hi Helen, I love entering competitions and find rafflecopter really easy to use. I like the fact that you can enter easily using a variety of methods and just choose the ways you want to enter and ignore any you don’t want to use. I would think that some methods would give more publicity for both the brand and blogger so although it wouldn’t need loads of points I could understand if some methods of entry are worth say 1 point and others perhaps 2 points.
Love Rafflecopter! I am their number one fan for all these reasons.
The one thing I hate about Rafflecopter is it asking for a twitter URL and then giving you a quick look at the link to twitter which vanishes before you can click it. Why bother with a link if it’s only there a few seconds and so easy to miss?
I will point Greg and the Rafflecopter team at this post Tim, they are awesome at listening to feedback and making changes.
I hate rafflecopter. As above, you have to cut and paste twitter urls, enter your name as well as presssing the like button for facebook etc. Why can’t it do that automaticaly? I find using my laptop keyboard difficult so I prefer forms and use autofill. Unless it’s something I’d really like to win it puts me off.
Here’s an interesting little odds calculator for people who enter rafflecopter comps: http://contests.about.com/library/blsweepstakesoddscalculator.htm
Obviously, it doesn’t take into entries that are disqualified. (But your odds of winning will probably be even higher!)
If you use it with rafflecopter competitions and there are options to enter daily, you have to add up or have a good guess at the amount of entries you have made.