This article was initially published in March 2020, but it’s been updated in July 2023, due to accuracy reasons. All the info in the article is applicable to Sweepstakes 2023.

In the affiliate world, Sweepstakes offers give you a great opportunity to build engaging campaigns and generate a pretty penny, if you know what you’re doing. 

And, even though the competition is fierce, successfully promoting a sweepstake contest is an achievable goal for seasoned affiliates as well as marketers that are just getting started. 

Here is how to promote Sweepstakes offers!

As with other verticals, one of the most important parts of building a successful campaign is choosing the right offer. For this reason, we’ve put together a basic checklist to help you select the best sweepstake promotion for your next campaign.

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What are Sweepstakes?

Sweepstakes are contests where the winner or winners are selected by chance, but with no any contribution for participation by the users. Sweeps (shorter for sweepstakes) have hundreds of different variations, but they tend to follow a linear conversion flow and the prize is usually the product being promoted – although you’ll also find many exceptions to this rule.

The most important thing to remember is that sweepstakes winners are chosen by luck. Therefore, our job as marketers is to engage visitors by reminding them about the awesome chance that’s sitting right before their eyes.

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Sweepstakes affiliate program: Tips & Tricks

Here are a few things to bear in mind when starting a Sweepstakes campaign that will help you succeed and thrive in this niche:

• Sweepstakes offers are profitable at every time of the year, so there is no wrong moment for you to start this type of campaign; BUT tying your campaign to some events, like the new cell phone model release, can only increase your profits (under the assumption the product promoted by the event will be the main prize)
• The range of average payout in Sweepstake offers is from $0.5 to $3, and it depends mostly of GEO you choose
• SOI (single opt-in) offers usually have the lowest commission compared to others, but they are much easier to convert – even though the payouts are not too high, the simplicity of the flow brings more conversions
• It’s recommended to start your sweeps campaign with Push traffic, especially if you are launching your first one

• Pre-lander is one of the most important elements within Sweepstake offers that will determine its success; you need to be creative with your pre-landers in order to make your audience wanna engage
• When setting up your campaign test device and OS targeting; bear in mind that there is more Android traffic worldwide
• The combination of Tier1 traffic and iOS devices is the most demanding and can be challenging and expensive for newbies
• Use language targeting for multilingual countries and make sure to translate your creatives to all local languages (e.g. Canada – English and French); your CR will probably be higher (you can always test them and see)

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Our checklist for choosing a Sweepstake offer that works for you

The basic idea behind a sweepstake contest is easy to grasp – there can be one or more winners that are selected randomly. The difficult part is understanding all the other elements that influence your sweeps campaigns and how they affect your ads’ performance.

But fret not, we’re about to show you everything we’ve got!

Here’s our essential checklist on how to choose a Sweepstakes offer.

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1. Select the right conversion flow

For starters, remember that Sweepstakes offers can have slightly different conversion flows. These are the types of Sweepstakes offers based on an action you require users to perform:

• SOI (single opt-in) – users need to engage in simple actions, like filling the form
• DOI (double opt-in) – here, two-step authentication is a must, usually through email verification; CR is a bit lower, but these offers have higher payouts 
• IVR (interactive voice response) – very rare type given it takes a lot of work convincing people to make a phone call to a computer-operated system; payment here is based on Click2Call model, with payouts being fixed or dependent on call duration 

Beginner affiliates should probably choose single opt-in offers that don’t require huge budgets but can still make a significant profit. These also allow you to perfect skills such as image sourcing and CTA crafting.

Experienced affiliates can usually maneuver most formats, but double opt-in models tend to produce the best results. 

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2. Find the best GEO for you

When it comes to selecting GEOs, affiliates that are still learning the ropes should stick to Tier-3 countries, South Africa, for instance, because they are easier to convert. But these also have a lower payout. 

On the other hand, Tier-1 countries are harder to convert but have higher payouts, which is ideal for seasoned marketers. In these countries, even single opt-in formats have a high-profit margin, but only well-optimized offers will pass with this crowd.

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3. Select the right ad format + learn how to prepare creatives 

Ad formats we at PropellerAds recommend for Sweepstakes campaigns are Push notifications and Popunder as the most common and most efficient options.

• Push notification ads will make it possible for you to create a more personalized campaign when reaching your users; Push works equally good for desktop and mobile phones

Push funnel: Targeted notification revealing the possibility to win something → interactive pre-landing page → landing page

• Popunder ads is another great solution for Sweeps; due to its large format it can be hard to ignore, and with the right pre-lander it can bring a lot of conversions 

Popunder funnel: Either a pre-lander right away or a landing page

Note: Multiformat campaign can be a winning option as well – you will be able to launch three campaigns at the same time (Pop, Push and Interstitial), you will get more traffic, and you will be able to test and see what format works best for your offer. 

But bear in mind that we have a brand new and exclusive ad format called Survey Exit you could find to be a very suitable solution for your sweepstake affiliate efforts. 

Survey Exit has a very high conversion rate due to the fact it delivers an already warmed-up audience that was previously engaged in different types of surveys (Giveaway surveys, for instance). This audience is probably already interested in your offer, but you should test all of them anyway. 

Basically, Survey Exit serves as a pre-lander, so you can get a warmed-up audience without complicating your flow. So instead of creating your own pre-lander (because pre-lander also warms up the audience), you can just launch a Survey Exit campaign.

Here is how Survey exit compares to Push and Popunder:

And as for Sweepstake creatives, we suggest using pre-landers to engage your audience and increase conversions. But make sure to test it first and check if everything’s working – if the CTA button is in its place, if the pre-lander is loading right and fast. You can use quizzes, roulettes, surveys, fortune wheel, lottery, etc. Keep it simple and adaptive to both mobile and desktop.

Additional tip: Rely on bright colors, and make sure creatives are noticeable.

For Push notifications, we recommend using classic ad message or notification that slightly reminds a message, but try making them more personalized, and interactive.

You can also use the dynamic content inside based on a token that will display the data that the user already possesses.

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4. Choose the offer based on the quality of the product

The prize or reward that’s being offered in the sweepstakes will also determine how successful it is. Instead of simply picking an offer with a cool prize, look at the GEOs you’re going to target and figure out what people in this area are interested in. 

For example, new mobile device releases and other gadgets are great prizes, but you can also opt for an offer with famous brands products, a gift card offer, trending products offer, and a travel offer as prizes.

And when on the subject, PropellerAds Audiences is a super useful feature that will help you engage the most relevant people within your campaign and improve its performance. It allows you to select the gender and the age group, aside from audience interests (which in this case are only Giveaways), so that the right people can start seeing your ads.

Check out some experiences our customers had with this demographic targeting and see how much you can benefit from it:

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5. Review the conditions

Like with any other type of offer, you should pay close attention to the terms and conditions. It’s important to review all parts of the Sweepstake affiliate offer, but focus on:

5.1. Checking the capping (if any)

Verifying the capping on the offer you choose will help you maintain costs as low as possible. Not all offers have capping, but if you choose one that does, you should also cut off traffic after you hit the daily limit and avoid paying for traffic that won’t generate any profits.

5.2. Identifying mobile vs desktop Sweepstakes

There are many differences between mobile and desktop campaigns you should keep in mind. That said, the most important one may be that mobile requires more optimization than desktop because users tend to be more engaged. 

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Trending Sweepstake offer examples

The Rewardis offer is exclusive and it comes from the Zeydoo CPA network. It’s super fresh, so feel free to run it if you like what you see. 

It targets Tier-3 countries, it’s a single opt-in offer, so very easy to convert, and it targets Android mobile users (all from Android 4 operating system to most recent models) who use Google Chrome, Samsung browser and Facebook browser. Which means the audience is super wide.

The conversion price was not expected to be high given the conversion flow – it’s highest in Mexico ($0.32), but the rate actually went from $0.12 to $0.20 in just two weeks, and it’s getting a constant traffic volume.

Here is another example of a Sweepstake offer you might find interesting. This one is focused only on one GEO, it has the same opt-in as the previous one, but it is targeting both desktop and mobile, and all possible platforms – MacOS, Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, Symbian, etc.

• Offer link: https://app.zeydoo.com/offers/9455
• GEO: Canada
• Payout: $1.76

Many popular Sweeps offers have a latest cell phone model as a main prize, just like this one. It’s a single opt-in offer (you can see the form on creative), and it targets both mobile and desktop users. The GEO of choice is Portugal.

• Offer link: https://app.zeydoo.com/offers/8627
• GEO: Portugal
• Payout: $1.60

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FAQ regarding online Sweepstakes

What are the best traffic sources for Sweepstakes?

Best traffic sources for Sweepstakes are advertising networks and social media. Bear in mind that PropellerAds, as a multisource ad platform, offers exclusive traffic sources as well as partner traffic from its supply partners.

What are Sweepstakes in marketing?

Sweepstake is a marketing tool that allows you to generate leads. It’s helpful with promoting products/services through building a loyal audience, for driving sales, and increasing brand awareness.

What are the most common prizes in sweepstakes?

Mobile phones, especially the flagship models of manufacturers, gift cards for popular markets and supermarkets like, cash prizes, etc.

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Improve your chances of success by choosing the right Sweepstake offers

Although they are among the oldest types, Sweepstakes offers are still a great option for affiliates of all levels. That said, remember to take your time and choose the right offer based on your budget and experience levels. You can discuss Sweepstake offers on our Telegram chat.

To learn more about choosing the best Sweepstakes offers, contact PropellerAds and we’ll be glad to help.