Here are some great examples of What NOT To Do When Running A Blog Giveaway: 7 Tips
I enter, host and sponsor many blog giveaways.
Personally I enjoy using rafflecopter, as both a blogger and entrant.
It is easy to use and the basic version is free for the blogger.
There are other tools for hosting giveaways.
I am not overly experienced in other types of tools for hosting giveaways, but most of these points will still apply.
I might be being totally picky, but there are some things that I really don’t like to find when entering or sponsoring a giveaway.
Table of Contents
Not always have the giveaway open to Canadians
Many giveaways that are not open to Canadians.
I understand that this is sometimes the decision of sponsors and may have to do with regulations regarding shipping their products to Canada.
And I completely understand this.
I have a really tough time when it is simply because shipping to the Great White North ‘costs so much more’.
Yes, IF, and that’s a big IF, a Canadian won, shipping may cost an extra $10-$20, BUT you will have had the opportunity to reach many more people, which is the point of giveaways, isn’t it?
The chances of a Canadian winning will likely be 10 times less than an American winning, so likely you won’t even have to face this.
Let us enter, we make good fans, our economy is doing fairly well and we shop at the sponsors sites.
Not make it clear to whom the giveaway is open to
I cannot tell you how frequently I go to enter a giveaway and spend 5+ (precious) minutes scouring the page and links to see who the giveaway is open to.
I want it simple, easy to find and (obviously) open to me!
Give 10 entries for each task
It really bothers me when bloggers think they can fool sponsors into thinking there are way more entrants than there really are.
You may have 20,000 entrants on a giveaway, but that really only means 500 people entered.
Entrants may get excited to see that one simple task will get them 10 entries.
But they will likely get discouraged when they see how many entries the giveaway has in total.
It’s easy math, don’t underestimate people’s intelligence.
Make the winner pay shipping
For many professional giveaways, this wouldn’t even be considered an option.
But let me tell you, it happens!
I have seen a giveaway of a $4 hair clip, where the winner had to pay shipping.
The cost of shipping would have been $1.50.
So yes, the winner didn’t have to pay much, but they still had to pay in order to win something.
This just seems wrong and not the right thing to do and what not to do when running a blog giveaway
If you can’t afford to ship the item, or don’t consider the giveaway to be worth it if it includes free shipping, then don’t do it.
I know I am not alone when saying that out of principal, I will not enter a giveaway that I have to pay for.
Mix up types of entries within the entry form
Okay, this is just me being picky and maybe a little OCD, but take the time (likely only 5 minutes) to arrange the rafflecopter form to group together all the facebook entries, all the twitter entries and all the pinterest entries.
Some people (guilty) only enter some of the tasks and this makes it quick and easy to do this.
With the ease of Rafflecopter, you just need to drag and drop the entries into an organized list.
5 minutes, I swear.
I am not familiar with other giveaway tools, but I assume it is also fairly straight forward.
As a sponsor, I think it is professional to spend the time making the entry form look pretty.
Round up the value of the prize
$480 value sounds like an awesome prize, so don’t advertise it as $500.
I know this also sounds picky, but to me, and likely to other sponsors, this makes me question the integrity of the blogger.
Not ‘clean up’ the names of facebook tasks
*Rafflecopter only.
Now, you might not understand what I mean by this.
When inputting facebook pages to like, sometimes it adds dashes, like http://facebook.com/bundlesandbuzz will come out like “Easy entry for all bundles-and-buzz fans on Facebook.”
It only takes a minute to change it to “Bundles and Buzz” and looks much nicer.
This also makes a difference for sponsors.
I am really curious to hear what you agree or disagree with what not to do when running a blog giveaway.
Please tell me below.
Now (if you haven’t already) read this article, Tips to Run a Successful Giveaway.
Read similar posts like this How to Leave a Podcast Review on Stitcher and Check out! How To Change Your Ad Setting On Google AdSense.
When I sponsor a giveaway, I always include Canada. A lot of companies without Canadian bases will not, however, because of potential customs fees.
I get custom fees, they stink. I just am glad that bloggers like you will try to include us!
This is an excellent post, and you covered some pet peeves that I don’t often see addressed. I especially love your point about including Canadians. That is HUGE with me! So much so, that I will offer to pay the additional shipping for one of my sponsors to open the giveaway to both countries. I love my Canadian readership and want them to be able to share in the fun as well. Plus, wouldn’t companies in the US like to increase their customer base? I shop “north of the border” if it’s a product I love; I know my readers would, too.
Thanks Anne. I just replied to Suzi saying the same thing. I have, as a sponsor, offered to pay the difference if a Canadian won. I am glad even the USA blogs love the Canadian readership!
Thank you for this list! I’m OCD about having the Facebooks/Twitters/Pinterest entries put together. I wish that the sponsors I’ve worked with would be open to Canada, and that is something I will need to be more intentional about. This is a great reminder to take a few extra minutes to make our forms and giveaway posts clean, simple and easy for our readers.
Thanks again 🙂
Thanks Jenna! I am glad I am not the only OCD one!
I agree with the majority of these… however, I have to admit that for some things, I would be willing to pay the difference in shipping to have an item sent to Canada. It’s better than being completely left out!
you know Suzi, I agree. I wouldn’t pay for shipping in general, but if it meant the difference between being open to Canada or not, I would. As a sponsor (among a group of sponsors), I have offered this before. If the blogger opened the giveaway to Canada, and a Canadian won, I would pay the difference in shipping. It never happened.
I agree with most of these! I would love to be able to offer more prizes to Canada but seems like now more than ever since the shipping rates went up sponsors are saying US only 🙁
I know, its terrible! Sometimes though, its only a few dollars and LOTS more exposure….
I’d also add not having a bunch of entries that have absolutely NOTHING to do with the giveaway. Just following a bunch of people on twitter or Facebook is silly if it isn’t related to the giveaway.
Ugh! I won something and had to pay shipping. Worse – I won a $20 credit to a site. The item I chose was $30 plus almost $10 shipping. So I basically paid to win this thing. When it arrived, It was NOT worth even the $20 credit. I still like it but when I look at it I feel a twinge of bitterness about it.
I agree about grouping things in a rafflecopter. However, when entering I prefer options be grouped by sponsor. Sometimes I want to follow all of the options for one sponsor but maybe only facebook for another. That’s why I like it grouped like that rather than entry option. Just my thing, though.
I hate having to do a whole list of things to get entries, actually. I hardly ever bother. I’m thinking about doing a giveaway, though, and I get that it helps the exposure…what to do?
I agree with you on this. I tell you what drives me crazy is having to like multiple Facebook pages just to enter. I can like pages but it doesn’t mean the “like” will stay. I just want to enter….
Cat, great post! As a sponsor, I wish all bloggers could read this post! I would add one more thing to this post, and that is ‘not communicate with your sponsors.’ I don’t need a daily or even weekly update, but I think, as a sponsor, it would be great to get a quick email from the blogger before the post is published reiterating what was discussed just so everyone is on the same page. And for the shipping to Canada, Cat, you brought up something I hadn’t even thought of before. Most of my products are dropshipped, so I am not able to ship products to Canada. But, I could open the giveaways to Canadian, and test out having the products shipped to me first, then shipped to the customer. I hate to leave out Canadians! I mean I live in Michigan, how difficult could it be?! Thanks for a really great article Cat!
What really bothers me the most are when you have to follow a “group” of entries. For example, you click on a link and it takes you to a page where there are multiple twitter follows. I’m completely maxed out on twitter follows, so when I get to this page I see that I follow all but one of them. It sucks because I can’t get credit for that entry! Does this make sense?
Great tips, thanks! I was looking for something like this as I’m thinking of hosting a giveaway, except I don’t think I will be able to get a sponsor so I will have to buy the products myself!
SASHA x
I have a question about giveaways.
When a giveaways does say “Open to the U.S.” or “Residents of the United States” does that mean that Canadians are not welcome to enter, even if they have American shipping addresses? I live in a border town and do a great deal of my online shopping from American sources. It would be nice if I could enter these retailers giveaways. They wouldn’t have to deal with customs or shipping costs.
I would contact the host of the giveaway. Most of the time (in my experience) people just do not want to spend the extra money for shipping so they do not open it to internationals. On some occasions I guess the product could not go into the other country (for example if I were to run a giveaway for Kinder Eggs I could not allow US persons to enter as they are banned there). Best to check.
Thanks for this post. I do want to bring up a point about giveaways and why many of them aren’t open to Canadians. I was advised by my lawyer to exclude Canadians, but not because of customs or shipping costs. Shipping has NOTHING to do with it. It’s my understanding that Canadian law prohibits giveaways that are pure luck , regardless of purchase necessary. This means that most giveaways are considered illegal lotteries in Canada. There’s a way around it: including a skills test, but this changes the legal definition of the giveaway in the U.S., which can also land the blogger in hot water. It’s almost impossible to please all the agencies involved in an international giveaway.
My point is this: bloggers put themselves at risk for legal repercussions when they open a giveaway. So while you get your feeling hurt that you can’t get the freebie, they might deal with crushing legal ramifications for opening it to you. Trust me, they WANT to include you. Try not to take it personally if they get conservative with the giveaway rules. They have big agencies coming after them for their “little” giveaway.
I was going to comment this as well. I’m currently looking into running an international giveaway based on pure luck, and saw that it’s not allowed in Canada so I will probably need to exclude Canadians based on that. Nothing to do with shipping, I’d be more than happy to pay the cost of shipping to anywhere in the world if their countries laws allowed me to include them in the giveaway!
So I just (tried to) enter a giveaway that was not using Rafflecopter. When I clicked to like a Facebook page, I couldn’t even enter the giveaway because there was no scrolling! So I would add that someone should test out your giveaway to make sure that people can actually enter the giveaway. I realize it’s a giveaway, but you’re asking for something in exchange. It was totally frustrating.
My pet peeve is including non clickable links, I refuse to enter them!