A Faith-Based Shopify Brand Gained 3,961 Subscribers With One Giveaway

Elevated Faith has run 53 campaigns in 8 years, about one every seven to eight weeks.

Josh's answer makes it clear why Gleam giveaways have stayed in rotation this long.

"The giveaway is the intro; our email and SMS flows do the converting," he says, and that's exactly why it works: it reliably refreshes the top of the funnel with new, values-aligned people at a low cost per subscriber relative to paid acquisition.

A giveaway brings in a large number of subscribers in a short window, who are faith based due to the prize, then lets email and content build the relationship from there.

Elevated Faith's Gift Card Giveaway

The $1,000 Gift Card Giveaway is the most recent campaign in that eight-year span, and the numbers are impressive:

• Impressions: 26,122

• Actions: 21,405

• Users: 3,961

• Conversion rate: 15.16%

That's $0.25 per new subscriber, on a prize that costs the same whether 500 people enter or 5,000. Research on email subscriber value puts a typical subscriber at $4.40 a year, so this pays for itself many times over in year one.

The majority of that traffic came through the campaign embedded directly on Elevated Faith's Shopify storefront:

• Shopify storefront: roughly 20,600 impressions

• Gleam's own public giveaway page: about 2,500 impressions

That audience is also heavily domestic: 91.6% of entrants were in the US, which makes sense for a US-based brand.

Thirteen Actions Available Per Entrant

5.4 was the average number of actions per entrant. Even better, the most engaged entrants didn't stop there, they completed all 13 available actions.

Here's what the actions looked like:

• Downloading the EF app

• Opting in as a "Text Insider" for SMS

• Following four Elevated Faith Instagram accounts, plus a fifth via a custom action asking for their Founder's IG handle

• Visiting their YouTube

• Following on TikTok

• Following on Amazon

• Applying to become a Brand Ambassador

• Reviewing EF on Google

• Reviewing the EF App

The Gift Card's Job Is Getting Someone to Enter

The gift card gets someone to stop scrolling and enter, but Elevated Faith isn't trying to drive sales with the gift card itself, they are using it to get people onto their list.

The real goal is introducing them to Elevated Faith. They sell accessories that other Christians recognise and start conversations, and they give a portion of every sale to faith-based organizations, including through Charity Day, when they donate 50% of that day's profits to a different featured charity on the first Thursday of every month. Because their core brand is built around visible faith and generosity, giveaways fit naturally into how they already operate.

They run the giveaway with a fairly simple system:

• A variety of valuable entry actions

• A simple prize tied to the brand

• A frequency that the audience comes to expect

In this campaign, entrants could:

• Download the EF app

• Join the Text Insider list

• Watch on YouTube

• Follow four separate Elevated Faith Instagram accounts

• Opt in as a Brand Ambassador

These are all low-commitment ways entrants can learn more about the brand and stay in the loop with Elevated Faith's marketing materials.

The Mission and Community Behind Every Purchase

Arguably the main part of Elevated Faith's brand is charity and spreading faith based conversations. 605 entrants used one of their giveaway actions to apply for Elevated Faith's Brand Ambassador program, the program 'is a community of believers who help share Elevated Faith with the world. Ambassadors wear our products, post about their faith, and earn perks for being part of the movement.'

Elevated Faith also gives a portion of every sale to faith-based charities and organisations around the world, most visibly through Charity Day: on the first Thursday of every month, they donate 50% of that day's profits to a different featured charity, causes ranging from anti-trafficking ministries to clean water nonprofits, announced on Instagram and email each time.

So, a new subscriber's first email from Elevated Faith, the welcome flow, tells that story before it mentions a discount or tries to sell anything.

What Other Mission-Driven Shopify Brands Can Take From This

53 campaigns over 8 years is what happens when a giveaway is treated as an ongoing system, built around mission and community rather than a one-off prize.

1. Pick the Next Date, 7 to 8 Weeks Out

Elevated Faith doesn't decide whether to run another giveaway - the next one's already on the calendar, before this one even closes. That means customers can keep an eye out for the next one and get excited, and it's a built-in part of their marketing strategy.

2. Use Actions That Make an Impact

Every action on the list builds Elevated Faith's brand somehow, whether that's a channel they now own, like app installs, SMS, or social followers, or something deeper, like becoming a brand ambassador or submitting a review.

3. Email and SMS Continue to Convert

The giveaway generates the excitement, but what a new subscriber sees first matters just as much: Elevated Faith's welcome email tells the mission and Charity Day story before it ever mentions a discount. That sequencing, story before sale, is what makes the ongoing email and SMS calendar convert weeks later instead of just once.

4. Give Quiet Subscribers a Reason to Come Back

An eight-year-old list re-engages the subscribers who've gone quiet. Every seven to eight weeks, they get a low-effort, genuinely fun reason to interact with the brand again, follow an account, download the app, apply to be an ambassador, instead of just another sales email.

Get started with your own Shopify giveaway using the template below, then build it into a system: pick the next date before this one closes, and connect it straight to your email and SMS platform so every entrant sticks around.