How to Run Online Sweepstakes
Follow this step-by-step guide to run online sweepstakes that grow your email list, drive social media engagement, and attract a targeted audience.
If you're looking for a way to grow your audience, engage your users and drive powerful actions then there might not be anything you can do which will be as effective as running online sweepstakes.
Online sweepstakes are one of the most efficient and effective tactics you can use to grow your brand or business, and with Gleam's powerful Competitions app running one has never been easier.
We'll show you exactly how to use Gleam to create and run a sweepstake campaign that drives relevant, engaging actions and helps grow your business.
Online sweepstakes are a type of online prize promotion where winners are chosen at random from a pool of entrants who have completed a designated list of tasks.
Entrants can to gain multiple entries for completing multiple actions.
Take a look at this demo sweepstake we've put together to get an idea of what your own campaign could look like with Gleam.
Find out what online sweepstakes are and what rules and laws apply to them.
Running an online sweepstake is a highly effective way to run an online contest as part of your broader marketing strategy, especially if you’re targeting a digital marketer audience or trying to grow a more targeted audience. Running an online sweepstake with Gleam is a powerful promotional strategy for a few key reasons:
- With Gleam's extensive range of entry methods you can use sweepstakes to drive just about any action and reach any objective.
- Gleam features numerous social or sharing actions which will amplify the reach of your sweepstake and expose you to new audiences.
- Entry into a sweepstake is typically quick and easy which encourages entry and increases participation.
- The random nature of winner selection paired with the ability to earn more entries by completing more actions makes sweepstakes perfect for driving an array of actions from your users.
- Any campaign which gives away a prize is going to be fun and attention grabbing. This makes sweepstakes ideal for both engaging your existing following and generating awareness from new audiences.
- With Gleam you can contain your entire sweepstake in a sleek, compact widget which makes it a lot easier for you to share your campaign, and a lot easier for users to enter it.
- Gleam makes setting up a sweepstake, tracking entries and drawing winners a breeze so you don't have spend your time on the minutia of campaigns.
This step-by-step guide will show you exactly how to run a compliant, engaging campaign — from setting up landing pages to collecting each entrant’s email address while remaining sweepstakes legal.
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Define Your Goal and Choose a Prize
Determine your objective (grow your list, increase followers, etc).
👉 Setting Up Prizes -
Set Up Your Campaign in Gleam
Use the Competitions app. Pick a template or start from scratch.
👉 Using Templates -
Configure User Details
Decide what to collect (email, name, age restriction).
👉 User Details -
Add Entry Methods
Include email signup, visit link, refer friend, etc.
👉 How to Enter -
Customise the Design
Adjust layout, colours, and fonts to match your brand.
👉 Design Customisation -
Set Rules, Eligibility, and Dates
Add start/end dates, entry criteria, terms & conditions.
👉 Rules Setup -
Configure Post-Entry Behaviour
Redirect, show thank-you, or fire tracking scripts.
👉 Post-Entry Options -
Install Your Widget
Embed it on-site, use popup, or Gleam’s hosted page.
👉 Install Guide -
Promote Your Sweepstakes
Share on social, email, ads, and partner networks.
👉 Promotion Tips -
Announce Winners and Follow Up
Pick winners via Gleam. Re-engage non-winners.
👉 Announce Winners
When you run a sweepstakes, one of the first decisions you'll need to make is what you want to give away as a prize — and whether it truly appeals to your targeted audience.
Ideally, your prize should be valuable enough to encourage widespread entry, but also tailored to users who are likely to engage with your products or services after the campaign ends.
The ultimate goal of a sweepstake is not just traffic — it’s to grow your audience and drive meaningful actions that contribute to long-term business growth.
If you offer a generic item like an Amazon gift card, you'll attract plenty of entries, but many participants may have no genuine interest in your brand. That’s why a well-selected grand prize can make all the difference.
Giving away your own products or services not only ensures your entrants are genuinely interested — it also doubles as a powerful promotional opportunity. You'll increase awareness and potentially even showcase the prize in use.
If you want to add an extra layer of value to your prize, try adding some exclusivity in the form of a limited or special edition product.
If you don’t have a product of your own, choose something contextually relevant. For example, a beauty blogger could give away a skincare kit, while a gaming streamer might offer a console or a favourite title.
Gleam also makes it easy to manage larger prize pools by allowing you to add multiple prizes to your campaign. This is ideal for offering weekly draws, tiered winners, or runner-up incentives.
A great way to increase the value of your prize pool (and net yourself a lot of extra promotion) is by partnering up with complementary brands and offering a product bundle as a prize. Our customers Flyte Socks and Greenbelly.
Once you've chosen your prize, the next step in your marketing campaign is deciding how users can enter your sweepstake.
When you run a sweepstake with Gleam, you’ll gain access to a wide range of entry methods designed to support various contest goals — from growing your social presence to increasing traffic, referrals, or newsletter signups.
Your entry actions should align with your core objectives. For example, if you're trying to grow your email list, then requiring users to submit their email address makes perfect sense. If your focus is on brand awareness, you might prioritise social sharing or video views.
To help you decide which actions to include, we'll now walk through the most effective methods to drive qualified engagement and meet a variety of contest goals.
- Online Platform Interactions
- Subscribe to a Mailing List
- Visit a Webpage
- Submit Photos
- Ask a Question
- App Downloads
- Coupon Codes
- Bonus Actions
- Claim Loyalty Bonus
- Tweets/Retweets
In order to really make the most of social media marketing you will need to accrue an online following and draw attention to your social activity. Gleam has a host of actions across Facebook, X, Instagram, Pinterest and more which are all fantastic for garnering online attention and bolstering your following.
Some of the most powerful social media actions you can drive with Gleam include:
- Get users to visit and engage with your Facebook page.
- Drive traffic to your Instagram profile to grow your audience.
- Gain more followers by asking users to follow your X account.
- Boost visibility by getting participants to Retweet one of your own posts.
- Let participants share a personalised Tweet that promotes your campaign or brand.
- Use the Viral Share feature to incentivise users to share and promote your campaign with friends and award additional entries for referrals.
Gleam has integrations with a multitude of different platforms. So if you operate on a particular online platform there's a good chance you can use your Gleam sweepstake to drive interaction and engagement.
We have actions set up for:
Sending your email subscribers updates about your business and targeted calls to action are outstanding ways to maintain interest and drive action.
The main caveat of email marketing is that in order for you to maximise its effectiveness you need to develop a sizeable mailing list. One of the best ways to do this is by using your sweepstake to incentivise email subscriptions.
If you have a website, a blog, or any other online destination you want to drive traffic towards then you can use the Visit action to send users in it's direction. If you don't want users to simply visit the site and immediately leave you can ask a question to validate entries and ensure that users are properly checking out the page. Try it here:
A fantastic way to build social media engagement and collect valuable marketing assets is by using your sweepstake to gather authentic, relatable user generated content.
With Gleam, you can run a social media contest that rewards entries from users who submit hashtag-restricted images. Our Select actions for Facebook, X, and Instagram make it easy to gather content from participants across platforms. Alternatively, you can use the Media Submit action to centralise uploads from any source into a single action.
This is perfect for encouraging users to showcase themselves enjoying your product, completing a challenge, or participating in a brand-related moment.
If you're looking to build an entire campaign around content, you can restrict your sweepstake to media submissions and select a winner based on creativity, originality, or community voting.
Find out everything you need to know about setting up your own engaging photo contest and displaying submissions in a stylish gallery.
A sweepstake can provide you with an outstanding opportunity to generate some user feedback. You can use our Question actions to ask users for product feedback, suggestions for improvement, personal preferences or anything else you would like.
If you have an app that you're trying to promote you can drive downloads by awarding entries to users who successfully download your app.
If you are promoting a paid app then you'll need to be aware of no purchase necessary laws, we recommend offering a free entry alternative to stay legally compliant.
With our Coupon action you can offer discount codes from within your giveaway. This is a great way to offer participants a discount code to redeem at your store which is a great way to help drive sales.
You can use the actions required setting to lock your discount until users have completed a certain number of actions. This allows you to use your discount code to both drive sales and incentivise the completion of more actions which help maximise the effectiveness of your campaign.
The more actions you can get users to complete, the more you will get out of your sweepstake. It's because of this that you should be looking for ways to get users to complete as many actions as you can.
A great way to do this is by using Gleam's Bonus Actions to offer extra entries to users who complete every action in your sweepstake.
If you host sweepstakes frequently, then you can use the Loyalty Bonus action to award bonus entries to loyal entrants. Depending on the number of Gleam campaigns they have entered, you can customise the number of extra entries to award them with.
This can be a great way to keep loyal entrants happy and encourage them to spread the word further to their friends and family.
Check out our documentation on setting up your own Sweepstake or get started right away!
The longer you keep your sweepstake active, the more people you will be able to reach and the more actions you will be able to drive.
Keeping your sweepstake open for a few months is long enough to reach a significant amount of entrants. Just don't drag it on for too long that people lose interest in your campaign
If you have a huge following you afford to run shorter campaigns as it will take a lot less time for your sweepstake to gain traction.
Hosting a sweepstakes in the lead up to a special holiday or event such as Christmas, Valentine's Day or even a sale you are hosting can be a great way to add an extra layer of engagement to your campaign and boost the motivation to enter.
Once you've got your sweepstake set up and ready to launch, you will need to find a suitable online location to install your campaign.
If you don't have your own website then you can use a Hosted Landing Page which Gleam automatically creates for all campaigns.
You have the ability to style your Hosted Landing Page in a variety of ways, so you can add a sense of personalisation and professionalism to your giveaway.
If you do have your own website then it's generally a good idea to embed your campaign within the site.
All Gleam users have the ability to embed their sweepstake in any page that accepts basic HTML.
This could be a blog post, a page on your website or on a third party site/social network that allows you to insert code.
If you have a Facebook Page, you can opt to install your sweepstake within a tab on your Page.
If you opt for our Business plan you will unlock several more fantastic installation options including:
- A full-page install which will mirror the Gleam landing page on your own site.
- The ability to run your sweepstake in a floating tab or popup which can be triggered from your website.
Installing your sweepstake on your website is a fantastic way to promote you campaign from within your own site.
You can install your sweepstake in multiple places at once with Gleam, so you're not limited to a single installation method.
Find out everything you need to know about installing your campaign on websites, hosted landing pages and popup tabs.
For your sweepstake to succeed, it’s essential to drive visibility and awareness across all major channels — especially social media platforms and email.
An effective promotion strategy is what turns a basic giveaway into a powerful marketing campaign. Whether you're looking to grow your email list, increase brand awareness, or generate leads, how you promote your campaign can determine its overall impact.
We're going to walk you through some of the most effective ways to promote your giveaway and ensure it reaches your targeted audience. If you want a deeper dive into promotional tactics, check out our comprehensive contest promotion guide — it’s perfect for anyone looking to run an online contest with maximum reach and ROI.
The best way to reach your existing fans and advocates is through social media, as it's likely that they already follow your various channels.
Social media is an incredibly powerful promotional tool as it allows you to connect with a huge audience in an authentic way, and it's perfect for reaching a new audience via peer-to-peer sharing.
Another highly effective way to drive action from you pre-existing audience is with email marketing. Sending out a promotional email to your mailing list is an outstanding way to encourage entry from loyal followers and get the ball rolling for your sweepstake.
Blogs, YouTube videos, streams, podcasts and more can all be used for promotional purposes, so when you're promoting your sweepstake don't forget about your content marketing channels.
If you have a blog then you will be able to embed the sweepstakes directly on a post, allowing you to not only promote your sweepstakes, but also collect entries within the same page.
When looking for potential brands to partner up with, there are a few important factors to keep in mind.
Firstly, you don't want to partner up with a competitor, as this can take the focus away from you and cannibalise the impact of your campaign.
Secondly, you want to make sure that you partner with complementary brands whose audiences are likely to be interested in your product or service.
A terrific way to gain exposure from a large and relevant audience is by reaching out to influencers in your niche and asking them to promote your sweepstake in exchange for money, product, or even just the interesting content that your sweepstake will provide them with.
Popular YouTubers, Instagrammers and bloggers make for great influencers, so try finding and reaching out to some within your niche.
If you've got the budget for it, using paid ads can be an outstanding way to reach a new audience and expose a highly relevant audience to your sweepstake.
Facebook Ads, X Ads, Instagram Ads and Google Ads are all excellent advertising channels for reaching and connecting with your target audience.
The advantage of using these directories is that they can put your sweepstake in front of hordes of new users at low cost, but by using these sites you run the risk of attracting entries from users who want to win a prize without having any real interest in your brand or products.
However, if you offer up your own product or a another highly targeted prize you are far more likely to limit entries to those with a real interest in your brand.
If you are interested in using contest promotion websites we've created a comprehensive list of directories for you to use:
Check out our in depth guide for all the information you need on promoting your sweepstakes.
Once your sweepstake has ran its course it will be time for you to wrap things up.
If you run your Sweepstake with Gleam then we can randomly draw winners for you, all you need to do is go to the 'Winners' tab of your sweepstake and click 'Draw Winners'.
We highly recommend that you still check if your winner has a qualified entry. For example, a user could have followed you on X to get an entry, then unfollowed you at a later time. If this is the case, Gleam allows you to invalidate particular entries and redraw a new winner.
Once you’ve picked your winners you can then choose to show their names inside the embedded widget, with or without their profile pictures.
Announcing the winner is an important final step in your sweepstake — not just to close the campaign, but to celebrate your community and reinforce credibility.
Make your announcement personal and engaging. Whether you’re sharing results via social media, email, or within the widget itself, this is a great opportunity to show appreciation and build trust with your audience.
You can also use your announcement to offer a small bonus or discount to non-winners, or to promote upcoming giveaways, product launches, or campaigns.
Once you've run your own sweepstake you'll be left with a bolstered mailing list and a strong social media following. It will then be time to think about how you can retain your audience and convert them into customers.
Here are some tactics you can use to drive sales and keep your customer relationships as strong as ever.
If you want to get as much engagement as possible from your campaign's conclusion consider sending out a wrap-up email which includes a discount code to your store, a link to your content, or any other special offering you can provide.
This is a superb way to reward the entrants who weren't lucky enough to win and drive further action!
It's crucial that you capitalise on this heightened attention from your sweepstakes by continuing to engage your expanded audience across your social media channels and drive sales or other further action such as subscriptions, views, listens, or anything else you're after.
If you're an online retailer then one of the best strategies you can implement in the immediate aftermath of a sweepstake is hosting a sale, or another form of discounted offering.
You can achieve this by hosting a store-wide sale or by using Gleam's Rewards app to offer Coupon Codes to users who complete designated actions.
Check out our Rewards app and find out how you can use unlockable rewards to drive powerful actions.
If your sweepstake was well-received then you know you have just earned yourself a highly engaged community of fans!
Reward your customer base regularly with flash sales or giveaways. Gleam makes it so easy to set up a campaign that you may as well run them on a regular basis.
Now that we've shown you how to run your own sweepstake campaign, we're going to take you through some specific examples of highly effective sweepstakes that you can model your own campaign after.
To run an online sweepstake, choose a prize, write official rules, and use a sweepstake platform like Gleam to build your entry form and track participants. Tap to learn the exact steps to create a legally-compliant and high-converting sweepstake.
Online sweepstakes are prize promotions where winners are selected at random, and no purchase is required to enter. Tap to understand how entries, rules, and winners are managed in modern sweepstakes.
Yes — online sweepstakes are legal and legitimate when run by reputable companies that follow giveaway regulations. Click to learn how to tell the difference between safe sweepstakes and potential scams.
