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Also known as “limited time offers”, “fire drills”, and “while supplies last” promotions, giveaways aim to spark immediate action across consumers and drive brand awareness. Awarded on a first-come first-serve basis, they serve as a means to drive engagement, create awareness and keep your brand top of mind.  Before running any digital promotion, it is important to understand what digital promotion type is right for your goals. Consider the basic pillars of digital promotions as: Sweepstakes - A classic promotion type – by entering a sweepstakes users earn the chance to be selected as a prize winner at random. Instant Win Games - Instantly award consumers with smaller prizes. Instant Win games are great for driving repeat engagement. Users are randomly selected as winners as they play.  Contests - Drive interaction with consumers by calling on user generated content submissions. Winners are selected by your brand via judging or voting criteria.  Consumer Rewards - Directly reward consumer purchase behavior. Leverage receipt validation technology to verify purchase behavior and award prizes to eligible consumers.  Giveaways - Spark immediate action with while supplies last promotions. Prizes are awarded on a first come, first serve basis to consumers.  When putting together a giveaway it is important to keep in mind three key areas of excellence: User Experience Prizing & Incentives Targeting & Methods of Entry At Realtime Media we specialize in full-service support for digital promotions. Our in-house teams provide comprehensive and flexible support across development, project management, legal administration, player support, and fulfillment administration.  WHILE SUPPLIES LAST By positioning limited quantities of prizes behind consumer-action you are creating a sense of urgency to participate. Unlike sweepstakes, that allows all entries an equal chance to win the prize, giveaway prizes are awarded on a first-come-first-serve basis. Immediate action is the name of the game As previously mentioned, giveaways allow brands to spark high levels of engagement at a single point in time. With this short form engagement it is important to take two things into consideration: Do you already have an engaged user-base? Because of their short-form nature (only running as long as there are prizes remaining in inventory), giveaways work best when there is a pre-existing audience in place to broadcast the promotion to.  Do you have a plan to continue engaging users after the giveaway? Since giveaways are typically short, it is important to think about how you’re going to engage your audience after the prizes are awarded.  Oftentimes, as a means to create repeat engagement with a giveaway, brands will run multiple giveaways as a part of a series. Using a single microsite to run consecutive giveaways, it allows users who may have missed a rewards period to have another shot at earning a prize and in turn re-engage with your brand.  Realtime Media’s PromoPick™ platform makes building and executing giveaway series easier than ever. Our quick-to-launch templates make it easy to get up and running and our flexible development options make it even easier to run a series of back-to-back promotions.  PRIZING FOR GIVEAWAYS When looking to build the prize pool for your giveaway it is important to remember that it is the chance to win that is driving engagement. While sweepstakes and contests can leverage a single, grand prize to excite and activate users, with giveaways you're going to want to think small.  By using your budget to deploy a prize pool of lower-value prizes you can greatly increase the total number of users who can become prize winners. From the consumer perspective the chance to win is often a higher factor in participation than how high the prize value is.  Targeting & Broadcasting Your Giveaway Some of the most successful examples of consumer engagement happen when a brand understands not only how to engage, but also where to engage consumers. As the attention of shoppers becomes harder to capture, going to the shopper, rather than expect shoppers to come to you, is key.  Leveraging social media with giveaways is a great way to bring your promotion right to the consumer. As seen through most of 2020, one of the most popular social media sites to target consumers through digital promotions is Instagram giveaways. According to Sprout Social, the average shopper spends 53-minutes per day on Instagram - creating plenty of touch points for brands to engage with consumers.  CONCLUSION At Realtime Media, our ultimate goal is to help brands power engaging giveaways – with in-house teams supporting development, project management, winner administration, and fulfillment. We can guide your team through all phases, from navigating federal, state and local laws, to collecting email addresses, to prize notification. To get started, take a few minutes to build your quote today.

Full-Service Contest Management Creating or running a contest can be made easy with the help of a contest administrator or digital promotions company. When it comes to sweepstakes and contest administration, a contest management company takes care of all the details so you don’t have to. A contest agency provides a full-service solution to digital promotions, covering all aspects of the promotion to support your marketing goals and ensure a successful launch. Behind every successful digital promotion is a focus on three core areas: development, legal administration, and prize fulfillment.  The best contest company can utilize its expertise to fulfill all aspects of the promotion and deliver a seamless experience.  There are three core components that make up a successful campaign. With the help of a contest administration company, you can ensure all aspects of your campaign are taken care of: Contest Legal Administration, Judging, and Moderation Contest laws and regulations are at the core of every promotion. A contest administrator can help you meet legal requirements and help assist in the authoring of official contest rules. Unlike sweepstakes and instant win games where winners are chosen at random (i.e, games of chance) contest winners are selected via judging or voting. While voting is typically carried out by the public, judging and moderation is often performed by brands internally. Where contest administrators typically help is in initial rounds of judging and moderation, narrowing down the pool of eligible entries to a top 10 or top 20 list. From there, brands carry out the final round to ultimately select the winner(s) of the contest. As a one-stop-shop for legal coverage, compliance, and rules administration, Realtime Media will help your brand navigate the complications of state-by-state legal requirements. We provide in-house legal support for contests, sweepstakes, and instant win games. Additionally, our moderation and judging teams can your brand narrow down and screen entries for compliance to the official rules.  Learn more about Realtime Media’s legal administration services. Contests, Sweepstakes and Promotion Development  As a full-service contest management company we make launching a contest promotion as easy as possible. With full-stack development handled 100% in house, we help enable powerful data collection and consumer registration for digital promotions. With decades of experience, part of our job as a contest vendor is to guide your brand in selecting the best avenue and add-ons to accomplish your goals.  Brands can activate consumers with digital contests through different entry types and entry methods. Our flexible development allows for UGC aggregation with photo, video, text, or audio entries through methods such as uploads, social media pullers, or text-to-enter. Entries can be collected, screened, and judged in our admin portal to help control your brand image and displayed in five different gallery styles. At Realtime Media we help you build and develop your digital promotions campaign. With help the world’s biggest brands handle sweepstakes, contests, instant win games, and consumer rewards campaigns from start to finish. Our PromoPick™ Platform is a full-service solution to launch your digital promotions with speed and flexibility. “PromoPick™ has long been the leading full-service solution for quick-to-market digital promotions at a great price value,” said Robert Bernstock, President & CEO, Realtime Media. With our PromoPick™ Platform, we help you build your promotion in three easy steps, always pushing the boundaries of digital promotion technology and keeping flexibility in mind. Learn more about Realtime Media’s PromoPick Platform. Contest Prize Strategy & Fulfillment Contest fulfillment companies offer more than just prize fulfillment services. From shipping and handling to winner administration, a prize fulfillment agency can provide complete contest and sweepstakes fulfillment admin to guarantee your consumers a seamless experience. At Realtime Media, we help with prize strategy and winner management to construct the best winner experience. We can help you develop a worthwhile prize pool while also handling the fulfillment and shipping of prizes. Realtime Media covers aspects from timelines and logistics of procurement to trip coordination, providing every service needed to support your contest or sweepstakes. Learn more about Realtime Media’s prize fulfillment services.

If you’re wondering how to create or run a sweepstakes, it is helpful to seek the service of a sweepstakes company. When it comes to sweepstakes and contest administration, a sweepstakes management company takes care of all the details so you don’t have to. By providing a full-service solution to digital promotions, a sweepstakes agency covers all aspects of the promotion to support your marketing goals and ensure a successful launch. Behind every successful digital promotion is a focus on three core areas: development, legal administration, and prize fulfillment.  The best sweepstakes company can utilize its expertise to fulfill all aspects of the promotion and deliver a seamless experience. There are three core components that make up a successful campaign. With the help of a sweepstakes administration company, you can ensure all aspects of your campaign are taken care of: Sweepstakes Legal Administration Sweepstakes laws and regulations are at the core of every promotion. A sweepstakes administrator can help you meet legal requirements and help assist in the authoring of official sweepstakes rules. Registration and bonding can be a tricky part of running a sweepstakes due to state-by-state variance based on prize value. This makes it common for brands to avoid certain states by excluding consumers in those areas from participating. A sweepstakes legal administrator ensures that your promotion has a national reach without excluding states.  As a one-stop-shop for legal coverage, compliance, and rules administration, Realtime Media will help your brand navigate the complications of state-by-state legal requirements. We provide in-house legal support for sweepstakes, contests, instant win games, and consumer rewards campaigns, making it easy to protect your brand. Learn more about Realtime Media’s legal administration services. Sweepstakes, Contests, and Promotions Development  As a full-service sweepstakes management company we make launching a sweepstakes as easy as possible. With full-stack development handled 100% in house, we help enable powerful data collection and consumer registration for digital promotions. With decades of experience, part of our job as a sweepstakes vendor is to guide your brand in selecting the best avenue and add-ons to accomplish your goals.  At Realtime Media we help you build and develop your digital promotions campaign. With help the world’s biggest brands handle sweepstakes, contests, instant win games, and consumer rewards campaigns from start to finish. Our PromoPick™ Platform is a full-service solution to launch your digital promotions with speed and flexibility. “PromoPick™ has long been the leading full-service solution for quick-to-market digital promotions at a great price value,” said Robert Bernstock, President & CEO, Realtime Media. With our PromoPick™ Platform, we help you build your promotion in three easy steps, always pushing the boundaries of digital promotion technology and keeping flexibility in mind. Learn more about Realtime Media’s PromoPick Platform. Sweepstakes and Contest Prize Strategy & Fulfillment Generally speaking, sweepstakes fulfillment companies offer more than just prize fulfillment services. From bonding and registration to shipping and handling, to winner administration, a prize fulfillment agency can provide complete contest and sweepstakes fulfillment admin to guarantee your consumers a seamless experience. At Realtime Media, we help with prize strategy and winner management to construct the best winner experience. We can help you develop a worthwhile prize pool while also handling the fulfillment and shipping of prizes. Realtime Media covers aspects from timelines and logistics of procurement to trip coordination, providing every service needed to support your contest or sweepstakes. Learn more about Realtime Media’s prize fulfillment services.

Search Engine Optimization and the use of User Generated Content (UGC) have a unique relationship. UGC aids search engines by giving them more content and information to work with while improving the overall relationship your brand has with your audience. User Generated Content and SEO: What’s the Connection? User Generated Content is any content created by your audience and other online users. Most UGC consists of what we see across social media, including text posts, videos, photos, reviews, and more. It’s authoritative, as it impacts consumers decisions and works as a form of word-of-mouth marketing. In addition to those benefits, many marketers don’t realize that User Generated Content can be leveraged for Search Engine Optimization. Many of the nation's largest brands employ a user generated content strategy, as it serves a purpose to help rank the content of websites as relevant or useful to the searcher. By including UGC into your SEO strategy, you create an effective method for boosting your search rankings, generating awareness, and curating content for your brand. Visual Marketing Content Boosts Top-of-Funnel Shoppers Search engine optimization becomes a critical component for brands as users begin the discovery stage of their consumer journey. Nearly ⅓ of shoppers begin their experience within a search engine, rather than going directly to a brand’s website. In addition, they’re researching their purchases before buying, seeking content that is trustworthy and useful. As search engines often prioritize fresh and relevant content, having a stream of user generated content can help improve your search rankings. Not only is this improvement great from a technical perspective, but featuring user-generated content on your website can increase the likelihood of conversion. Driving sales online rely on having a strong mix of paid and organic search to draw quality traffic. Things can become more complicated as your users come in from many different sources - such as social media referrals. However, roughly one-third of product searches and discoveries begin with search. UGC Gives Search Engines Fresh Content Search engines prioritize content that is new (or “fresher”) and relevant. Therefore, it is beneficial to have a steady flow of user-generated content that helps attribute to your search rankings. Not only does UGC benefit search, but it also benefits on-page. Using UGC as a part of visual content marketing can increase the chances of conversions. Many consumers claim their purchases are influenced by the reviews and images posted by their friends and family. Many brands have taken advantage of creating content in-house to boost many marketing goals, including SEO. However, branded content has created a lot of clutter, lacks authenticity, and can sometimes become fatigued with consumers. Content strategies are most effective with a healthy balance of UGC and branded content. Not only does content from your audience deliver more authenticity, but it cuts down the resources needed for brands to create content and boosts your SEO efforts. UGC Supports Basic SEO Factors Naturally  Keywords, titles, and links are many of the basic attributes that help optimize sites for search engines. When consumers are encouraged to share reviews with rich details and images, they help shape SEO with relevant keywords and contextual links. For example, let’s pretend a consumer is writing a review about a new smartphone they purchased from you. In their review, they include phrases such as “best smartphone”, “durable smartphone”, and “affordable smartphone”. These phrases help with SEO by understanding search intent.  Now, when other users search for similar phrases, your brand will have more authority over others for that phrase. In addition, internal links and backlinks shared in this consumers review can also strengthen your SEO. Blogs that write about your products or services provide rich longform content search engines prefer. Generating User Generated Content Using Digital Promotions As noted in our blog about crafting a User Generated Content Strategy, a great overview to building a UGC campaign includes: Managing your UGC effectively right from the start. Monitoring the performance of your UGC campaigns. Plan the work of your teams involved in UGC campaigns. Minimize the risk of low participation in UGC campaigns. Digital Promotions are a great starting point to generating User Generated content. Sweepstakes and contests are great tactics to engage with your users and reward them for creating content on your businesses behalf. All of this content meshes well with search engines, improving your visibility. With our UGC promotions, we handle all of the nuances with launching a UGC promotion. This includes rights management and other legal steps that need to be secured before launching a promotion. We operate as a full-service sweepstakes management and administration company, so we handle every step from promotion development, to legal administration and prize fulfillment. Explore more of the benefits of UGC promotions within your marketing strategy. Get a free quote today.

Prize promotions require delicate management within the legal space of the United States. When preparing to run a contest, sweepstakes, or consumer rewards program, it’s important to comply with the many federal sweepstakes laws and regulations that exist to protect consumers. In addition, many social media platforms have their own social media guidelines in place to protect their users and businesses. To help you navigate this space, we’ve pieced together an overview of all of these parameters that are required to run a legally sound and compliant promotion. Please note that this guide is not a substitute for legal advice, however, our team offers legal administration services to ensure full compliance in running a legal contest or sweepstakes.  Giveaways, Sweepstakes, and Contest: Understanding Terminology Typically, businesses can choose between running two types of promotions in the United States; Sweepstakes and Contests. It’s important to understand the distinction before diving into sweepstakes laws and contest laws. Sweepstakes vs Contests - What’s the Difference?  The major difference between these two types of promotions is that sweepstakes are games of chance (based on luck) where prize winners are chosen randomly. Contests are skill-based games, meaning winners are usually selected on merit. Contest winners can be selected based on performance, judges, voting, or any fulfillment of criteria. What is a Giveaway?  Giveaways (or Instant Win games) technically operate as sweepstakes but usually have a deeper prize strategy that rewards a larger pool of entrants with smaller prizes. The FTC and FCC: An Overview The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are two governing bodies within the United States that regulate digital promotions. These two agencies will investigate any claims of malpractice within promotions such as sweepstakes and contests to protect American consumers. This includes advertising that may be misleading about a promotion. Most FTC and FCC investigations regarding digital promotions deal with illegal lotteries. Illegal lotteries are any promotion that violates No Purchase Necessary laws. What does “No Purchase Necessary” mean? No Purchase Necessary is one of the most important laws to take into account when running sweepstakes or contest. Typically, this usually applies to scenarios where winners are selected randomly - such as running sweepstakes. This rule serves to protect the consumer from for-profit businesses, forbidding them from requiring consideration (defined below) to enter a promotion. What is Consideration?  Consideration consists of two categories: Monetary and Non-monetary efforts. Monetary involves requiring any payment/entry fee (including purchases) for entry to a promotion. Non-monetary is the requirement of any activity that may take substantial time or effort that benefits the business or sponsor in a direct way. Contests and Consideration  There are exceptions to the No Purchase Necessary law. For example, if you run a contest where winners are selected on skill and/or merit of entry, you are free to ask for purchases and other forms of consideration. This example is why running Contests provide an excellent opportunity to generate User Generated Content (UGC). With a contest, you are open to ask users to take actions that require effort, such as photos or videos that can be used in your brand story-telling. In addition, you can run contests that require a purchase, however, there are a small number of states that prohibit it.  Alternative Means of Entry (AMOE Definition) Another way to permit promotions that require consideration or purchase is to include an Alternative Means of Entry (AMOE) or a free means of entry. An AMOE entry can include mail-in entries, phone calls, or email entries that provide information relevant to the official rules of the promotion. In any promotion, an AMOE should be disclosed clearly so that entrants are well-informed that there is a free method of entering. In addition, entrants that opt for AMOE should have the same, equal chances of winning that paying entrants do. State Laws Depending on what states you plan to run your sweepstakes in, there are sometimes state-level laws that forbid certain promotion practices within their respective state. We've written a detailed guide on state by state promotions laws that have a brief overview of state-level practices. As always, we recommend consulting a promotions legal administrator. Social Media Guidelines Twitter Instagram Facebook Summary In summary, when running a digital promotion such as a sweepstakes, contest, instant win game, or consumer rewards program, there are a lot of legal details to keep in mind. At Realtime Media we simplify the legal administration process so you can focus on your KPIs.  With in-house legal and a team of administration experts, we can take care of writing your official rules, Bonding & Registering, and handling your Alternate (Free) Means of Entry (AMOE). Take a few minutes to build your free quote today and learn how Realtime Media can help.

Today, most marketers rely on data collection to understand their consumers and reach the right target audience. Consumers are more likely to interact with a brand they feel a personal connection with. In order to give customers the personalized experience needed to encourage brand loyalty, brands rely on consumer data. Consumer data gives you a deeper understanding of who your audience is, what they’re shopping for, and what their preferences are.  However, data security is extremely important to protect consumer privacy. It is important for brands to remain CCPR and GDPR compliant in order to keep consumer data protected and secure. Consumers are now hyper-aware of the protection and safety of their data. They want to ensure that the information they are volunteering is protected and contains some sort of benefit, such as a personalized brand experience. Ensuring that consumer information entered into a promotion is kept secure should be a top priority for all digital marketers.  Types of Data Collection First-Party & Third-Party Data Collection is data that is collected through observation or input of a consumer’s online behavior. This includes everything from search history and transaction history to birthdays. By analyzing these consumer actions, brands are able to understand and segment their potential customers. Taking data collection a step further, Zero-party data refers to consumer data that is intentionally and proactively shared with brands. This includes any information the consumer deliberately shares with the brand, such as purchase intentions, rather than information that is inferred. Brands are able to collect data through their relationships with customers that go beyond observation of the consumer.  In efforts to acquire zero-party data, it is imperative to establish a direct relationship with consumers. In order to build a relationship, brands need to give consumers a reason to interact with the brand, such as sweepstakes and other digital promotions. This boosts consumer acquisition and brand interaction, allowing companies to develop a personal connection to their customers.  CCPA & GDPR An important part of protecting consumer data is remaining compliant with the CCPA and GDPR.  The California Consumer Privacy Act is a bill passed by California to enhance the privacy rights and consumer protection of California residents. The CCPA applies to any business that collects data from California consumers. This act provides those consumers with the right to know what data is being collected about them and have control over their personal data.  An article on data security from CyberSaint Security establishes that “we can expect to see calls for mandated standards emerge in order to protect end users’ privacy and security. Two outcomes will start to take shape in the coming months and years. State governments will follow California’s lead.” As data security becomes increasingly important to consumers, states will begin to follow in California’s footsteps and establish legislation to protect private data. The General Data Protection Regulation sets guidelines for the collection and processing of personal information from residents of the European Union. This law mandates that EU visitors must be given a number of data disclosures when entering any personal information. At Realtime Media, we build our infrastructure to remain compliant with the CCPA and GDPR to protect the personal data of your consumers. Learn more about our data security. Conclusion It is important for brands to establish trust with users over their data and privacy in order to to get the most out of their consumers’ data.. When it comes to data collection, Realtime Media integrates with the tools you already use to to easily collect and analyze consumer data and insights.  Privacy matters to us and to your customers. We go beyond the industry standard for security and protection of digital promotions to ensure the privacy of your consumers’ data.  CCPA & GDPR compliant infrastructure and processes are built directly into our promotional backend and promotions process. Fraud mitigation and bot protection is at the core of our PromoPickTM codebase. Through the use of industry leading site structures, tools, and protocols, we ensure that winners are valid and fair participants. With flexible support options and in-house teams for development, project management, consumer support, and fulfillment, Realtime Media is here to help launch your next digital promotion.