What Share of Giveaway Entrants Come From Referrals?

On the typical paid Gleam giveaway that offered the Viral Share action, 7.5 percent of entrants arrived through a referral, about 1 in 13. That is the campaign-level median across 4,200 giveaways run by about 1,000 businesses between September 2025 and August 2026, from the Gleam Giveaway Benchmarks 2026, Edition 2.

The range matters more than the midpoint

Referral share varies widely from one giveaway to the next. A quarter of giveaways drew under 3.4 percent of their entrants through referrals, a quarter drew over 15 percent, and one in ten drew over 26 percent. If you need a number you are confident of clearing, plan against 3.4 percent. If you are setting an expectation, use 7.5 percent. On a giveaway expecting 1,000 entrants, that is 34 to 75 referred entrants.

Where the referrals come from

For every 100 entrants, the typical giveaway had 64 share-link clicks and 8 referred entrants. Industry moved the figure most: gadgets brands drew 16.5 percent of entrants through referrals and content creators 6.1 percent. Giveaways promoted through eight or more traffic sources had a referral share of 12.2 percent against 4.6 percent for giveaways reached from one or two. The action amplifies promotion you already run, so the referral share follows the reach behind the giveaway.

Where to read your own figure

Your campaign's Viral Share report lists share-link clicks, successful referrers and the click-to-entrant conversion rate, so you can set your own referral share against the benchmark. See [Viral Share Reporting]https://gleam.io/docs/competitions/data/viral-share)

These are observational benchmarks, describing giveaways that already differed, and they exclude Free and Hobby plans and cryptocurrency campaigns.