What is an Alternate Method Of Entry and Why Does Your Sweepstakes Need One?

When running a giveaway or sweepstakes campaign, it’s essential to offer a free Alternate Method of Entry (AMOE) to participants. This makes sure that your campaign is complaint with legal requirements and remains accessible to everyone.

Requiring a purchase to enter a giveaway can turn your campaign into a lottery. Lotteries are highly regulated and typically require strict licensing, which can lead to serious legal trouble if they aren't correctly managed.

By providing a free entry option through an AMOE, you avoid these complications. The AMOE ensures your giveaway is fair, inclusive, and most importantly, legal.

Most giveaways are required by law to follow No Purchase Necessary rules. This means participants must have a way to enter without spending money. If you’re unfamiliar with these rules, check out our guide on No Purchase Necessary laws for a detailed explanation.

If you let people enter a giveaway by making a purchase, you must also provide a free way to enter (the AMOE).

The free option must replace the purchase, not add to it. So, someone can’t get entries for both the free option (like subscribing to an email list) and buying something.

If someone could get extra entries by buying and using the free option, it would unfairly benefit people who spend money. That could turn the giveaway into a pay-to-win lottery, which is illegal in many places.

So, the free option (AMOE) and the purchase must be equal, just two different ways to enter, not ways to stack entries.

They basically can only pick one way to enter.

So, an Alternate Method of Entry (AMOE) is a free, no-purchase-necessary way for individuals to participate in your sweepstakes. This is commonly things like signing up to an email list or filling out an entry form.

An Alternate Method of Entry (AMOE) is a free, no-purchase-necessary way for individuals to participate in your sweepstakes.

Something generally won't be considered an AMOE in the following circumstances:

• Too Complicated or Time-Consuming: Entry methods that take a significant amount of time and effort, things like writing long essays or completing detailed surveys. These might count as consideration and are not valid. You can learn more about what actions are classed as consideration here.
• Limited Accessibility: If the method is restricted to certain locations, times, or specific groups of people (for example, in-store entries only), it excludes others and so is not a free method of entry because it is not accessible to everybody.
• Hidden Costs: Any entry method that forces participants to spend money, even inadvertently, like buying a product, paying postage, platform fees, or data charges measn that the method is not valid as a valid AMOE.
• Unequal Odds: AMOE entries must have the same odds of winning as paid entries. Offering more entries for purchases (e.g., 5 bonus entries for buying a product) while giving only one entry for free participants is not allowed. This rule might not be as obvious, so keep it in mind.
• Stacked Entries: An AMOE cannot allow participants to combine free and paid methods to gain extra entries. For example, if someone can enter by subscribing to an email list (free) and also get additional entries by making a purchase, it’s not a valid AMOE. The free method must replace the purchase, not add to it.

The key point is that participants have the option to enter without spending any money. This is what makes sure that the giveaway is not classified as a lottery.

Having an AMOE protects your campaign from legal risks if you don't have the correct licensing, and makes sure that your giveaway is completely compliant with the promotion policies of all the different social media platforms, as well as local laws.

Everywhere has different gamification and lottery laws, but sticking to no purchase necessary is a pretty universal way of ensuring your giveaway is compliant.

When you run your giveaway with Gleam, you can automatically activate free entry alternatives for actions in your campaign that require users to complete a purchase or donation by checking the A purchase or donation is required for users to complete this Action box when building your campaign.

Once enabled, free entry alternatives will appear in the Terms & Conditions section of your campaign. Entrants will need to fill a form with basic contact details to claim their free entry.

Entries awarded for completing a free entry alternative are equal to the entries awarded for completing your action by making a payment.

For example, if you are offering 5 entries to users who purchase your product, 5 entries will also be awarded to entrants who complete your purchase action via the free entry alternative.

Best of all, the free entry alternatives will only be made available in countries with no purchase necessary laws such as the United States, Canada and plenty more so you can ensure you're running legally compliant giveaways while also maximising the value you get from your campaign.

This feature ensures compliance without any extra effort, so you can focus on the fun parts of running a giveaway.

Take a look at this campaign to get a feel for Gleam's Alternate Methods of Entry:

  run your own giveaway