Should I Ask for a Photo or a Comment in a UGC Giveaway?

Ask for a comment when you want volume and a photo when you want pictures, and plan for very different numbers. On Gleam giveaways, the typical comment action collected 34 comments. The typical upload, media or submit-URL action collected 9 submissions.

Source: Gleam Giveaway Benchmarks 2026, Edition 3 (v1.1), May 2020 to August 2026. Comments from 7,876 competitions and uploads from 5,689, all with 100 or more Entrants.

The gap holds at every widget length

With two or three actions on the widget, an optional comment was completed by about a third of Entrants and an optional upload by almost a quarter. With six to eight actions, about 10 percent against about 1. With nine or more, 5 to 6 percent against under 1. A comment is a sentence typed into a box the Entrant already has open. An upload is a file they have to find or make. The resistance Gleam measured is to the second.

What each one gives you

A comment action, such as the Blog Comment action or Instagram Comments, gives you words: reviews in the Entrant's own voice, answers to a prompt, reactions to a post. The Upload Action and the media actions give you photos and videos you can reuse, with permission, in ads, product pages and galleries. Half of the upload actions on Gleam asked for that kind of creative content. A quarter asked for proof of a share, a purchase or a review instead, and those collected almost nothing when optional.

How to choose

If the content will be read, ask for a comment and expect about seven times the participation once the widget has four or more actions. If it will be looked at, ask for a photo, make the action mandatory or keep the widget to three actions, and plan for fewer Entrants.

The comment and upload benchmarks sit side by side in the Gleam Giveaway Benchmarks 2026, Edition 3. Read the complete guide.