Contests and giveaways are an awesome way to generate buzz and grow your email list. But to make them really effective, you need a tailored landing page that convinces visitors to enter your contest and sign up.
These specialized pages are different from your everyday website pages. Their sole purpose is to get people excited about your giveaway and collect emails, not necessarily sell products (at least not directly).
Think of giveaway landing pages as the storefront for your contests. This is where you entice people in from social media or ads to check out the prizes and signup details. The better your store window display, the more visitors you’ll convince to come inside and enter their info.
Your contests may offer amazing prizes and have viral potential. But without an optimized landing page to direct traffic to, you won’t maximize entries and email signups.
That’s why a well-designed, strategically promoted giveaway page is crucial for contests to reach their full potential. Ready to learn how to create one that rakes in the entries? Let’s dive in!
What is a giveaway landing page?
Simply put, a giveaway landing page is a dedicated website page that promotes your contest or sweepstakes and collects entries so it has some similarities to event registration landing pages.
Unlike a blog post that briefly mentions a giveaway, these pages are 100% focused on getting visitors excited about your contest and convincing them to enter.
The landing page clearly spells out all the important details – the prizes up for grabs, how to enter, contest time frame, eligibility, etc. It uses compelling headlines, copy, photos, and calls-to-action to generate interest and urgency.
Visually, giveaway landing pages often feature bright, high-contrast colors, graphics spotlighting the prizes, and prominent entry forms. The goal is to highlight the value of the giveaway and make signing up super easy.
These pages are built specifically for contests, separate from your main website. Having a dedicated page allows you to optimize every element for generating conversions (email signups), without distracting navigation and content.
Giveaway landing pages are the hub for driving traffic to your contest from all other marketing channels:
social media
email
search
and paid ads.
Their sole conversion goal is to collect emails for future marketing.
So in summary, a solid giveaway landing page is the linchpin of any successful contest or sweepstakes. It’s specifically designed to sell visitors on the value of your giveaway and remove all barriers to entering.
Why Do You Need a Contest or Giveaway Landing Page?
Giveaways are naturally great for getting attention and driving viral traffic. But to fully capitalize on their potential, you need a tailored landing page to send all that traffic to.
Key benefits of having a dedicated giveaway landing page:
Drives targeted traffic to your contest – Social shares and ads are far more effective when they link directly to your giveaway page rather than just your homepage.
Build your email list – Landing pages allow you to easily collect emails for marketing purposes. Giveaways incentivize visitors to exchange their contact info.
Increases brand awareness – The page gives you a space to highlight your brand, products, and services to new audiences attracted by the contest.
Generates user-generated content – By prompting social shares, your contest spreads organically, and entrants help promote your brand for free.
Provides incentives for purchases – You can offer contest entries for sales or other conversions to sweeten the deal.
Optimized for conversions – Every element of the page focuses solely on enticing signup conversions rather than general website navigation.
Separates from your main site – Having a standalone page prevents your contest from detracting focus from the rest of your site content.
Allows testing and optimization – You can experiment with variations of the page design, copy, etc. to maximize email signups.
As you can see, dedicated landing pages are crucial for unlocking the full potential of contests and giveaways. They offer the perfect platform to promote your contests and capture leads.
Key Elements of a Giveaway Landing Page
Giveaway landing pages include several key elements designed to attract visitors and convert them into contest entrants. Here are some of the most important ingredients your page should contain:
Headline and Description – A compelling, benefit-focused headline and paragraph summary that sells the value of your contest and prizes.
Contest Details – All the key contest info and rules, like prizes, dates, entry methods, eligibility requirements, etc. This builds trust by being upfront.
Email Signup Form – A prominent, minimized form visitors must complete to enter the giveaway, collecting their email and contact info.
Social Sharing Icons – Buttons to encourage visitors to share and spread contest details on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
Legal Disclaimers – Fine print disclosing official contest terms and conditions, as legally required for sweepstakes.
Branding – Logos, colors, fonts that reinforce your brand identity and align with your regular site’s look and feel.
Call-to-Action Buttons – Links, buttons, imagery that prompt visitors to sign up for the contest with clear next steps.
Trust Symbols – Awards, certifications, testimonials, or security seals that establish credibility and assure visitors.
Thank You Page – A page confirming contest entry and next steps, cross-promoting products or offers.
Optimizing these key elements creates a seamless experience that persuades visitors to enter with minimal friction. Keep these building blocks in mind when designing your next giveaway landing page.
Steps on How to Create a Giveaway Landing Page
Creating an effective giveaway landing page involves carefully planning and executing several key steps. Follow this process to ensure your next contest page maximizes entries and email signups:
Choose a giveaway platform or tool – Services like Wishpond, ViralSweep and more provide templates and tools to build, manage and track giveaways.
Select your giveaway prizes – Offer popular and valuable prizes that will excite your target audience and incentivize sharing.
Set contest rules and eligibility – Be clear about entry requirements, number of winners, contest timeframe, etc. to prevent confusion.
Write compelling copy – Use persuasive headlines and descriptions that speak to what motivates your audience to enter and share.
Design page layout and elements – Plan structure and visuals that spotlight giveaway details, make entering intuitive, and align with branding.
Insert forms and integrations – Seamlessly embed email signup and contact collection forms, social sharing buttons, etc.
Add social sharing capabilities – Enable and encourage visitors to spread the contest through their social channels.
Include legal disclaimers – Consult a legal professional to ensure you properly disclose all required sweepstakes rules and terms.
Publish and test page – Make the page live and optimize through A/B testing until you achieve your signup and entry goals.
Following a methodical process allows you to maximize the impact of important giveaway page elements and boost conversions. Use these steps as a checklist when executing your next contest landing page.
10 Contest Landing Page Design Tips
Optimizing the design of your giveaway landing page is crucial for capturing visitor attention and signups. Keep these 10 tips in mind:
Use bright, contrasting colors – Vibrant, eye-catching colors and images make the page stand out and convey excitement.
Feature contest details prominently – Immediately highlight the prizes and contest timeline so visitors instantly see the value.
Include enticing visuals of prizes – Showcase prizes with engaging photos and videos that get visitors eager to win.
Make email signup forms obvious – Ensure signup forms are visible and can be easily accessed from any page area.
Use popups/slide-ins to collect emails – Slide-in forms and pop-up lightboxes capture emails from visitors trying to navigate away.
Limit required form fields – Only ask for essential info like email, name and birthday to reduce abandonment.
Ensure mobile optimization – The page should be fully responsive or have a dedicated mobile layout.
Make social sharing easy – Include share icons everywhere for maximum visibility and viral potential.
Use urgency and scarcity tactics – Countdown timers, limited prizes or contest duration build excitement.
Follow best practices for UX – Easy navigation, clear CTAs and minimal required scrolling optimize usability.
With the right page design and branding, you can pique visitor interest, convey trustworthiness, and remove all barriers to entry.
How to Promote your Contest or Giveaway Landing Page?
Driving traffic to your giveaway landing page is crucial for generating awareness and signups. Use these tactics:
Email marketing – Send dedicated emails, integrate the giveaway into your regular newsletters. Offer exclusive discounts or bonuses for current subscribers.
Social media posts – Craft engaging posts tailored for each network – videos for Facebook, image-based for Instagram, snippets for Twitter.
Social media ads – Run paid promotions to reach beyond your existing audience and get more viral sharing.
Cross-promotions on site – Link to the giveaway on relevant existing pages and posts on your website.
Influencer marketing – Recruit relevant bloggers, social media influencers to help spread the word.
Retargeting ads – Remarket the giveaway to visitors who already landed on your site to capture more entrants.
SEO optimization – Include key contest-related keywords in page copy and metadata to get found in search engines.
Press releases – Reach out to relevant journalists and reporters with media kits to secure earned media coverage.
Forum marketing – Share the contest on relevant forums, communities and groups related to your target audience.
The wider you can distribute the landing page link and raise awareness, the more entries your giveaway will garner. Test and refine your promotion strategy for maximum reach.
Test Your Giveaway Landing Page
Creating your giveaway landing page is just the first step. To maximize its performance, you need to rigorously test and optimize the page. Here are some tips:
A/B test different page elements like headlines, copy, layouts, colors, and calls to action. See which variants increase conversions.
Check mobile responsiveness by previewing on multiple devices. Ensure key info is visible and forms are accessible.
Monitor analytics to identify drop-off points where visitors exit the page. See where you can improve engagement.
Collect user feedback through surveys and polls. Get input on what they liked/disliked about the page experience.
Test submitting the forms yourself to confirm the signup process works smoothly. Fill them out on both desktop and mobile.
Check page speed and make optimizations so the page loads quickly. Slow load times increase abandonment.
If possible, segment traffic to test sending different page variations to each segment.
Make incremental changes and run new variation tests regularly to keep improving the page over time.
Properly testing your giveaway landing page is the only way to maximize email signups from your contests. Be sure to budget time and resources for thorough optimization.
Post-Contest Follow Up Strategy
Your giveaway landing page does the heavy lifting of generating buzz and collecting emails. But the contest is only the beginning – you need a solid follow up strategy to capitalize on all those new leads.
Notify winners and distribute prizes promptly. Send personalized email updates and shipping confirmations.
On contest close, send an email sequence to new subscribers welcoming them and delivering value like exclusive content.
Post a recap of contest results and highlights on social media, thanking participants for a successful giveaway.
In your email sequence and social posts, give subscribers a heads up about your next upcoming giveaway or promotion.
Use email segmentation to tag giveaway entrants. Create specific automations, offers, and messaging to nurture these leads.
Analyze giveaway conversion rates, engagement, and quality of leads to inform future contests.
Export lead contact info into your CRM to continue relationship-building after the contest.
Remind subscribers of other ways to engage like joining your community forum or following social media.
Having a plan to follow up on contest entries will allow you to build genuine relationships with subscribers and turn them into loyal customers.
Legal Considerations for Contest Giveaways
Running a giveaway comes with important legal obligations you must fulfill. Work with a legal professional to ensure you cover these bases:
Have official contest rules drafted that fully disclose all terms, conditions, restrictions, and eligibility requirements. Make these easy to access on the landing page.
Specify any age, location or other eligibility restrictions needed to enter or receive prizes. Common requirements include being 18+ years old and a resident of countries you ship to.
Include necessary disclosures, limitations of liability and mandatory local declarations. For U.S. giveaways, you must disclose that “no purchase is necessary to enter or win.”
If applicable, detail how entrants can alternatively enter without subscribing or following on social media. Such alternatives are required by law in some countries.
Specify taxes, customs duties and other winner responsibilities associated with prizes. Disclose who covers shipping costs.
Add a privacy policy detailing how entrants’ personal data will be processed, secured and potentially shared. Explain data retention policies post-contest.
Comply with social media platform guidelines for running contests on or promoted via those networks. Create platform-specific rules/terms.
Consult local gambling and lottery laws on contests involving entry fees, judging skill vs. chance, prize values and other factors that could classify it as an illegal lottery.
While giveaway legal requirements may seem tedious, properly disclosing rules and eligibility gives your contest legal coverage and builds entrant trust.
Common Contest or Giveaway Landing Page Mistakes
It’s easy to make missteps when creating your first giveaway landing page. Avoid these common mistakes:
Failing to optimize for mobile – If the page isn’t responsive, mobile visitors will bounce and not enter.
Overly complex or lengthy signup forms – Requiring too much info or steps kills conversions.
Forgetting a clear privacy policy – Entrants won’t trust you without transparency on how you handle their data.
Neglecting to promote the giveaway – No traffic will find the page unless you actively drive awareness.
Missing a followup sequence post-contest – Not capitalizing on new leads makes the giveaway pointless.
Excessively sales-focused copy – Too aggressive self-promotion looks off-putting and untrustworthy.
Poorly displaying contest rules and terms – Burying legal info raises skepticism.
Lack of social sharing capabilities – Visitors can exponentially spread awareness if sharing is seamless.
Not A/B testing the page – Without testing, you leave conversion improvements on the table.
Forgetting a thank you or confirmation page – This causes entrants to question if their entry went through.
Learn from the missteps of others when crafting your first contests. Analyze their giveaway pages to identify what works and what falls flat.
Additional Frequently Asked Questions
Some common reader questions about creating and optimizing contest landing pages include:
What tools do you recommend for building giveaway landing pages?
Popular options are Leadpages, Instapage, Unbounce, Wishpond, Rafflecopter, ViralSweep and Gleam.
How do you integrate giveaway entries with email marketing platforms?
Many page builder tools offer integrations or embed code for services like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, AWeber, etc.
What’s a good formula for crafting catchy giveaway headlines?
Include key details like the prize, hype emotional benefits, use “urgent” power words, and speak directly to the ideal entrant.
How much should you budget to promote a giveaway?
Estimate at least 15-20% of the contest’s prize values and production costs for a bare minimum promotion spend.
What’s better – more prizes with lower value, or fewer high-value prizes?
Generally more prizes generate more buzz as more entrants feel they have a chance. But mix in a few big-ticket items to attract influencer promotions.
How long should giveaways run?
1-4 weeks is ideal. Enough time to ramp up promotion and urgency without oversaturating your audience.
Let us know other giveaway page questions you have in the comments! We’ll cover additional FAQs in future posts.
Key Takeaways and Conclusion
Creating a tailored landing page is crucial for maximizing the impact of your next giveaway or contest. To recap:
Dedicated giveaway landing pages convert casual visitors into email subscribers by clearly communicating contest details and making entering frictionless.
Optimize every element on the page for generating email signups rather than general website navigation.
Lead with compelling prizes and benefits-focused copy to entice visitors. Make entry forms and rules very visible.
Promote the landing page across all marketing channels – email, social media, SEO, influencers, ads – to drive traffic.
Rigorously test page variations and follow up with new subscribers to get the most value from contest entries.
Avoid common pitfalls like poor mobile optimization, confusing sign up flows, and neglecting legal terms.
Giving your next giveaway a tailored landing page for promotion demonstrates professionalism, drives viral buzz, and enables you to build a highly engaged email list.
The effort to create an optimized contest landing page delivers immense rewards through new leads and brand awareness. Use this guide’s strategies to start maximizing entries and subscriber growth!
