Are you struggling to win giveaway prizes sponsored by your favorite blogs? Well, don't give up hope! Take a look at our tips for how to win giveaways and see if you are making any mistakes.
Understand How Giveaways Work
Bloggers use a variety of methods to collect entries for giveaways. To save time and improve monitoring entries, many bloggers prefer to use a third-party service to collect entries. Although there are many out there, some popular giveaway tools include Rafflecopter, Gleam, and KingSumo. They allow bloggers to create a list of required or optional tasks for entrants to complete. When a winner is randomly selected using the giveaway tool, the blog owner can quickly see each entry that you marked as complete and then go through and verify that you really did each task. Also, they can instantly see if your IP address was used under another email address and name.
Common entry tasks include a mix of the following:
- Providing your email address
- Following on social media platforms
- Leaving a comment on giveaway post
- Leaving a comment on social media pages
- Leaving a comment on non-giveaway blog posts
- Joining Email List
- Sharing about giveaway on social media
- Writing about the giveaway on your own blog
Many bloggers will have a few required tasks that you must complete in order to gain access to additional tasks that are optional. Especially for giveaways offering prizes of a higher retail value, you will see options to repeat a mix of the above tasks for multiple blogs that are participating in the giveaway.
Check your browser extensions.
Some giveaway entry tools might not work correctly if you have browser extensions that block advertisers and other third-party trackers. If you don't see an entry form of some kind, try disabling the extensions and refreshing the page.
Read the Rules and Conditions
Before you enter a giveaway, read all of the terms and conditions. Each blog will have a preferred method for letting you know if you won.
Don't Cheat
Yes, giveaway entries are verified to make sure that you completed them. A giveaway host will see if you entered using multiple emails or social media accounts.
Maximize Your Entries
Tip 1: Create A Dedicated Email Address
Create an email address just for entering giveaways and for subscribing to email lists. We recommend this for a couple of reasons. Most giveaways require an email address to enter. You don't want to enter a giveaway with more than one email address by mistake because you will be disqualified. When you use one email address to subscribe to blog newsletters, you can quickly confirm that you have already subscribed to a newsletter.
Tip 2: Create Social Media Accounts
You will want to create accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. You should be active on each account. Do not create a fake Facebook account just for giveaways.
Tip 3: Complete Daily Entries
Some giveaways include entry options that can be repeated every day during the duration of the giveaway. Look for the option to tweet about the giveaway daily or to write a new blog comment daily.
Tip 5: Be Thoughtful
When you are asked to leave a comment on a social media page or blog, take your time and write something thoughtful. Be sure to respond to the question or topic mentioned in the giveaway instructions.
Be Patient and Organized
Tip 1: Read blog newsletters and skim social media posts.
Sign up for blog newsletters and follow them on social media. You'll be in the loop when future giveaways are announced. Completing daily entries for the entire period that the giveaway is live will increase your chances of winning.
Tip 2: Keep a spreadsheet of the giveaways that you have entered and include the following:
- Blog giveaway URL
- Giveaway end date
- How winner will be announced (email, social media page, blog post)
- Options for daily entries
You may also find it helpful to include how you are following blogs. Using your list, you can see at a glance that you are following by email, Twitter, Facebook, etc. This will speed up your process of completing giveaway entries.
Join for free today!
Use Trello to complete a workflow for entering and managing giveaways that you have entered.
* This is an affiliate link. That means that Family Giveaways Today will receive a small percentage of the sale if you choose to upgrade your membership.
Tip 3: Make sure you don't miss an announcement that YOU won.
Notifications may be posted on their blog, social media page(s), or sent via email. You will likely be required to respond to the notification within a set number of days so the giveaway host can make arrangements to send your prize. If you miss the deadline, they will pick a new winner!
Tip 4: After you win a prize, wait patiently for your delivery.
After you have provided your shipping details to the giveaway host, it may take 4 to 6 weeks for delivery. You will not always receive tracking information on your prize, so it can be helpful to follow incoming deliveries online using these tools: