When a sweepstakes generates a million entries it is likely caused by the inclusion in many major online sweepstakes gaming sites. Sites of this variety have increased exponentially with the monetization of page views for online advertising purposes. An initial investigation of a recent sweepstakes turned up the following placements which is probably a small subset of the total number of sites where the sweepstakes appeared.

powersweepstaking.com; vacationstakes.com; freesamplesite.com; bigbigforum (blog).com.

Do we consider this good?

Yes, and it may be made better. Many of the entries came from borrowed interest from the prize offered. Although the initial interest was not in the product, is fair to conclude that each entry can be seen as an advertising impression for the product. The relative effectiveness of the impression is determined by brand messaging, logo and design elements on the registration page.

How do you take advantage of this?

To increase engagement from these large universes consider placing promotional advertising on these sites through display ads and paid search. These placements take advantage of the organic traffic the sites generate. Provide links to your home page instead of the promotion registration page or in some cases include home page navigation functions in addition to the sweepstakes registration information. This strengthens the brand messaging and also gives opportunity to add offers, product information etc.

Acknowledging this universe of “browsers” in structuring the promotion and the creative of the registration page can leverage this audience involvement and redirect it towards your brand messaging.