How to Run Amazon Giveaways After the Built-In Tool Ended

Running Amazon giveaways is still one of the most effective ways to get attention on your products, build your email list, and boost engagement on social media or your store.

While the official Amazon Giveaways program ended in 2019, you can still run powerful promotional contests using third-party platforms like Gleam. Gleam gives you full control over how your giveaway is hosted, how winners are selected, and what actions are rewarded.

In this post, we will explain what happened to Amazon Giveaways, how they used to work, and how to set up your own Amazon gift card giveaway or product promo using Gleam’s flexible tools.

The official Amazon Giveaways program was discontinued on October 17th, 2019. Until then, it offered Amazon Sellers a simple way to promote products, run sweepstakes, and generate visibility from within the Amazon ecosystem.

Before it was shut down, the Amazon Giveaways tool allowed sellers to:

1. Select a product to feature in a giveaway.
2. Choose how winners were selected: instant win, sweepstakes, or first-come first-served.
3. Let users enter by watching a video, following a profile, or clicking a button.
4. Offer promotional codes to non-winners to help drive sales.

These Amazon gift card giveaways and product promos were shown on Amazon's internal giveaway listing page and served as a hands-off way to attract customers. However, they offered limited customization and no control over email list growth or multichannel promotion.

Now that Amazon’s native tool is gone, sellers need to turn to more flexible platforms—like Gleam—to keep running effective Amazon giveaways.

Yes, you absolutely can — even though the original Amazon Giveaways program has been retired.

If you are looking to run a promotional contest to drive traffic to your Amazon store, build your email list, and reward customers with real engagement, Gleam is the perfect replacement.

With Gleam, you can run custom Amazon giveaways that go beyond a simple follow or video watch. You control the rules, the design, and the entry types — giving you more flexibility to grow your brand, build your audience, and drive actual sales.

Gleam makes it easy to create a contest promotion where users complete valuable actions to unlock more chances to win. Think of it like an upgraded hosted giveaway with more features and flexibility.

Try out this ready-to-launch template:

Unlike the limited entry options of old Amazon Giveaways, Gleam gives you the ability to:

• Grow your email list with newsletter signups.
• Drive traffic to your Amazon product page or Seller Central store.
• Increase social exposure through social media contests and actions on Instagram, YouTube, and X.
• Collect user generated content with photo contest entries.
• Reward referrals, reviews, video views, and more.

If you sell books on Amazon, Gleam also supports book promotions. You can pair your campaign with Goodreads Giveaways to reach even more readers.

Entrants are required to sign in — giving you access to email addresses and other verified user info. You can even allow users to log in with Amazon, which makes it easy to qualify them as high-potential customers.

You can run these contests and promotions on your website, a hosted Gleam page, or via social media platforms. It is a powerful way to offer a chance to win while growing a targeted audience of engaged Amazon shoppers.

Unlike Amazon Giveaways, which could only run on Amazon’s internal giveaway page, Gleam gives you full flexibility over where and how you launch your promotional contest.

You can:

• Embed your contest promotion directly onto your own site or landing page.
• Use Gleam’s professionally designed hosted giveaway pages with your own branding and messaging.
• Share giveaways on social media platforms, blogs, or anywhere else you engage your target audience.

This flexibility is ideal if you want to grow your email list, capture new email addresses, and drive website traffic — something the old Amazon format could never support properly.

Getting visibility is critical for any Amazon gift card giveaway or product promotion.

Here’s how to effectively promote your Gleam giveaway:

• Share the giveaway link across all your social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, X).
• Send a dedicated email campaign to your existing subscribers.
• Feature your giveaway prominently on your website or Shopify storefront.
• Use the Viral Share action to reward participants who refer friends and help you reach a wider audience.
• Retarget warm visitors using Meta Ads or Google Display with urgency-focused messaging like “Last chance to enter to win a prize.”

Need more help getting the word out?

👉 Check our guide on promoting contests and giveaways

These promotion techniques ensure your promotions and contests reach the right people — and convert.

One of the most popular features of the retired Amazon Giveaway program was the ability to offer Amazon promotional codes to users who entered — even if they did not win. It was a smart way to incentivize customers to purchase by giving them a second-chance reward.

With Gleam, you can still do this and more.

You can:

• Automatically send out Amazon promo codes via post-entry emails.
• Use our Coupon action to deliver codes immediately inside the widget.
• Require a certain number of actions before revealing the discount code — a powerful way to increase the number of entries and drive deeper engagement.

Using a hosted giveaway to offer a coupon code allows you to capture email addresses, engage your target audience, and guide them directly to your Amazon store to complete the purchase.

This kind of contest promotion is perfect for turning browsers into buyers — especially if your products or services already have some interest and need a final nudge.

Want more tips on how to structure this type of campaign? Check out our guide to combining contests with coupons.

If offering Amazon discount codes is your primary goal, try running a dedicated promotional contest using Gleam's Rewards app. These campaigns let users complete tasks like social media follows, referrals or newsletter signups to unlock a coupon code.

You can even redirect participants to an Amazon Social Media Promo Code landing page to instantly redeem their reward: Social Media Promo Codes Help Doc (Amazon)

This is a fantastic way to offer incentivised coupons while growing your email list and social presence at the same time.

If you want to reward existing customers or boost conversions, try running a customer-only giveaway. Ask users to:

• Make a purchase on Amazon
• Submit proof of purchase to enter the giveaway

You can even add bonus entries for referring friends, turning your contest promotion into a viral growth loop.

Note: In countries where No Purchase Necessary Laws apply (like the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia), you must offer a free alternate method of entry.

With Gleam, these alternate entry methods are included automatically in all countries where required:

• Read more about legal requirements
• Review US-specific laws

With these tools, you can go far beyond the original Amazon Giveaways format — running scalable, compliant campaigns that grow your email lists, increase Amazon store traffic, and boost product sales.

Run Your Own Amazon Giveaway

Check out Gleam's Amazon Giveaway tools to start growing your store, promoting your product and driving conversions.