Man of Many Built Its Email List With 297 Gleam Giveaways

Man of Many has run 297 giveaways on Gleam in 12 years. One of them, a giveaway for Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones, averaged about 58 Actions per Entrant.

Man of Many describes itself as Australia’s largest men’s lifestyle site. It covers gear, watches, fashion, travel and culture.

It has won Website of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards four times and was named Media Brand of the Year at the Mumbrella Awards 2025.

A List That Pays for the Rest

Scott Purcell, Man of Many’s Co-Founder, calls the email list the site’s most valuable owned asset.

Man of Many needed a way to grow its subscriber list consistently, bring new readers into the brand, and give existing subscribers a reason to keep opening. Each giveaway had to read like Man of Many content.

Prizes Your Editors Would Cover

Man of Many picks prizes its editorial team would write about anyway.

If a product wouldn’t make the cut for an article, it doesn’t make the cut for a giveaway.

Scott Purcell, Co-Founder:

“Prize selection is editorially led, not promotion led. We pick products our team would write about anyway, flagship hero items that match Man of Many’s voice (premium audio, watches, fragrance, luggage, home tech). The WH-1000XM6 is representative, prizes our readers would be researching regardless.”

The Sony Headphones Giveaway

The Sony WH-1000XM6 giveaway was for a pair of headphones worth US$399.99. Entrants could read Man of Many articles, visit sponsors for 5 extra entries each, follow Man of Many on Digg and claim a daily bonus entry.

Each Action matched how Man of Many’s readers already use the site. They follow its channels, read its editorial and visit the brands that partner on its prizes.

The Man of Many editorial article on the headphones ran alongside the giveaway, so Entrants got the reason behind the prize as well as the prize.

The giveaway converted about 17% of its Impressions.

The daily bonus entry was the most completed Action of the giveaway.

The Other 296 Campaigns

Scott on what 12 years of giveaways added up to:

“If we had to quantify a single outcome from 12 years on Gleam, it’s compounding email subscriber growth. The list we’ve built off the back of giveaways is the single most valuable owned asset Man of Many has, and it underwrites everything from newsletter ad revenue to direct traffic to editorial commissioning.”

Scott says the team runs flagship prizes alongside smaller ones. The flagship campaigns bring in most of the signups and reach, and the smaller ones keep the calendar moving between them.

One Mailchimp List for Every Campaign

Man of Many connects Gleam to Mailchimp. Every Entrant is tagged by campaign and source, goes through a welcome series, then joins the main newsletter list.

Man of Many doesn’t run a separate list per giveaway. It segments inside one list, so an Entrant gets the same Man of Many experience from the first email as every other reader.

What Mailchimp shows feeds straight into the next giveaway. The team checks open rates by entry source to see which channels bring real readers and which bring prize hunters. It checks segment performance after the welcome series to see which prize categories keep subscribers longest.

The team has retired some prize types after Mailchimp showed those subscribers stopped opening quickly, even when entry numbers were high.

Scott on the Mailchimp connection:

“The most valuable thing the Gleam to Mailchimp combination unlocks is closed-loop measurement. Gleam captures the moment of intent, Mailchimp captures the long tail of behaviour. Either tool on its own gives you half the picture. Together you can answer the only question that actually matters, which is whether a giveaway entrant becomes a real reader.”

From Social Post to Newsletter

Scott says most entries start on social or in the newsletter. A reader sees the giveaway in a Man of Many channel, clicks through to the Gleam entry page and completes Actions such as a follow, a sponsor visit or a referral.

Once they enter, Gleam hands them to Mailchimp. The welcome series introduces them to Man of Many properly. From there they fold into the regular newsletter.

Scott says giveaway subscribers take longer to warm up than readers who subscribe from an article, and their engagement evens out over the first six months. “They’re not lower-quality, they’re just earlier in the relationship.”

Scott says referral entries turn into engaged subscribers at a higher rate than cold entries. A reader who arrives because a friend referred them already trusts Man of Many a little before they enter.

Scott describes it:

“Gleam sits at discovery and delight. It’s the moment a stranger meets the brand. Mailchimp is the relationship layer that turns that moment into a habit. Editorial is the connective tissue that makes both feel like Man of Many rather than a generic giveaway flow.”

Key Growth Takeaways

Man of Many sends every Entrant from every giveaway into one Mailchimp list. So what can you take from it for your own publication?

• Pick prizes your editors would cover. The Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones came from premium audio, a category Man of Many already writes about. Before you pick a prize, ask whether your team would write about it.

• Publish the article beside the giveaway. Man of Many’s editorial piece on the headphones ran alongside the giveaway. Link your giveaway to an article about the prize so Entrants arrive knowing why it’s worth wanting.

• Add a daily bonus entry. Man of Many’s daily bonus entry outdrew every other Action in the Sony giveaway. Add one so readers have a reason to come back each day.

• Tag every Entrant by campaign and source. Man of Many tags Entrants from every campaign inside one Mailchimp list and checks open rates by source. Retire any prize type whose subscribers stop opening, as Man of Many has.