How iam8bit Turns Limited Collectible Drops Into High-Converting Giveaway Campaigns

iam8bit is a vinyl and collectibles business based in Los Angeles. They have been around since 2005, and they run the shopify store on iam8bit.com.

Often they tie marketing promotions to new releases, anniversaries, and just their own milestone. Iam8bit have run a variation of the same giveaway model 11 times now.

This case study looks at the most recent campaign where they gave away two copies of iam8bit's 2xLP Plants vs. Zombies vinyl soundtrack, to celebrate the game's 17th anniversary.

Think About the Best Way to Reach a Niche Collector Audience

Someone who is going to be looking to purchase a vinyl or a franchise reprint is going to be pretty specific about what they want. The people buying the soundtrack to PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies tower defense game wouldn't be happy to buy a Taylor Swift vinyl just because it is a vinyl. And even someone who loves gaming might not want the soundtrack to the game on vinyl. This is a super niche audience.

So, you can see the problem with paid ads - a platform can target "gamers" or "collectors," but not "people who specifically want a Plants vs. Zombies vinyl." You don't want to waste time and money reaching people who don't care.

On the other hand, organic social has the opposite problem. Posting on iam8bit's own channels reaches people already following those specific accounts, but also the fandom is split across Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, Discord, and half a dozen subreddits, with no single one catching all of them.

Use The Prize as the Audience Filter

So, as we established, the prize is amazing for reaching the right people, and it is also amazing for filtering out the wrong ones. If you give away the record itself, (this applies to any product), the giveaway qualifies its own entrants. Nobody enters unless they're already a fan of Plants vs. Zombies, or of vinyl, or both.

A discount would move the vinyl faster. But it doesn't generate hype or excitement, and it works against what makes a limited pressing worth owning, being hard to get is part of the value. The prize is the product, so the people who enter are real fans, not deal-hunters.

This is why iam8bit runs their giveaways around something that exists, like an anniversary or a release. This one made use of the seventeenth anniversary of Plants vs. Zombies.

The Giveaway Setup iam8bit Has Reused Eleven Times

With your giveaway campaigns, it is logical to make them easy and repeatable. Iam8bit have this nailed down - they installed Gleam once via the Shopify App Store and then they now embed it on a permanent giveaways page.

Running a new giveaway just means swapping in whatever's relevant to that release. It is also a smart way for people who are familiar with your brand to keep checking in to see if you have another giveaway up and running.

This Giveaway's Results

Let's take a look at the results:

• 1,289 impressions

• 498 raw actions, 3 flagged as invalid, so 495 valid actions

• 272 unique users

• A 21.1% conversion rate

Two vinyl records at $44.99 each add up to $89.98 total, which works out to $0.33 per new subscriber, a fraction of what most brands pay for a single lead.
From this we can see that 495 actions from 272 people means most entrants did close to two follows each.

That's a good sign, it appears that the entrants are more like fans than people just ticking a box.

Split by platform:

• Instagram: 264 actions

• TikTok: 137 actions

• Bluesky: 94 actions

Reach went well beyond the US too. Half the entrants were domestic and the rest were scattered from the UK to Chile, with Mexico, Australia, and a handful of others in between. So, ten countries were reached, without picking any of them out specifically. Activity spiked at launch, then they held a steady trickle until it closed.

Conversion From Their Bio Link vs. the Giveaways Page

Another interesting thing to take from the analyics is the traffic from the bio link achieved three times the conversion rate.

The bio link works because whoever clicks it just saw a post about the exact vinyl, so they already know they want it before they click. The giveaways page doesn't have that head start, since someone can land there just checking what's currently running with no specific prize in mind yet. That's the same filtering the prize does, just happening a step earlier: by the time someone clicks the bio link, they've already decided they want this specific vinyl. Keep the giveaways page running too, but post the direct link whenever you can, since it catches people at that peak moment of wanting the thing.

What To Take Away If You Have a Niche Audience

A niche audience can sometimes feel like a disadvantage when you are trying to run paid ads, because as we said above, you can target 'gamers' or 'collectors' but not 'people who want this specific vinyl.'

A giveaway flips the logic around, you make the prize itself impossible to want unless you're already the exact customer. Then, entering becomes proof someone qualifies as a warm lead.

How to Run This Yourself

1. Add Gleam via the Shopify App Store and embed it on a permanent giveaways page.

2. Give away your own product

3. Keep the entry mechanic the right level of effort for the prize

4. Use your bio-link

5. Swap the prize and repeat for the next release.

Run your next drop's giveaway on Gleam. Install it once, then swap the prize every time you've got something new to give away.