Giveaway Blogger Talk: To Advertise or Not to Advertise, that is the Question

A conversation came up on Facebook the other day about a fellow blogger not receiving thank yous like she used to with winners from giveaways. At first I felt sad because I usually get a thank you from giveaway winners on my blog. Just the other day I received a sweet email from a giveaway winner that warmed my heart and made me sad all at once …

While I won’t quote the person exactly without their permission; they informed me that they are one of the furloughed families so to have this prize arrive was a wonderful thing. She will set it aside knowing that her daughter will at least have this for Christmas if nothing else. The person went on to say thank you from the bottom of their heart.

This email made a tear cross my eye because never did I think of giveaways actually helping those families in need. I, of course, used to enter giveaways for this reason; not having ability to afford many gifts for holiday seasons so why would I not realize that my hosting of giveaways is helping people much like my own self?

I often get thank yous from people who have won a giveaway on my site and I host a lot of giveaways. So why is that some bloggers are not feeling that grateful response from their giveaway winners? What is different in one blogger giveaway winners versus the other blogger giveaway winners?

Ding. Ding. Ding. {a light flashed and my brain went aha}

Most of the bloggers that I see who are not getting as many thankful and grateful winners could be because one or both of the following two reasons;

1. They advertise and promote giveaways so much that their giveaways essentially attract “sweepers” who are people just there to win, win, win and have no real personal relationship to you nor your blog.
2. Maybe the winners do not realize that even if this is an online communication, we are still human and enjoy a bit of common courtesy of having the reader tell us they are thankful for winning. This is something that would happen in face-to-face interactions, the internet tends to lose the sweetness of face-to-face interactions.

I am not a professional advice giver here, but based on my evaluation of other bloggers who have questioned why readers no longer say thank you when winning an item could be due to the insane level of sweeper sites out there. Sweeper Sites – websites designed to allow bloggers to advertise their giveaway to the members who are interested strictly in entering giveaways.  These sweepers are not interested in your content, they are there visiting your giveaway for one reason only; to attempt to win a prize!

Sweepers have a low rate of ever coming back to your blog again, unless you host another giveaway that they are interested in.

This begs the question; To advertise or not to Advertise our blog giveaways?

 When you work with a brand they are hiring you based on your current blog traffic stats. With that being said, some of your stats may not really be that of those who would come over to your blog to enter a giveaway, but some might. To advertise your giveaway(s) you would essentially be bringing in new, high volumes of traffic to your blog giveaway post. When you run various ad networks, it’s always a great revenue boost to get traffic spikes for whatever reason; advertising your giveaways may provide you with traffic spikes which in turn could earn you more money.

The downfall to attracting more sweepers than readers? Your site bounce rate goes from decent or good to bad. Sweepers are only coming, entering that giveaway and leaving. This type of in and out visitor will affect your bounce rate and thus create less quality traffic to your blog. If you don’t care about your bounce rate and do not work with PR or brands that are not worried about whether your traffic is legit readers or not, then this doesn’t matter.

It’s a personal decision as to whether or not you want to heavily advertise your giveaways, but let me ask you this; did you start hosting giveaways for more traffic or to allow your loyal readers to have a chance at winning something?

My answer – I started hosting giveaways for my loyal readers. I do advertise in a few select places for giveaways but because I only choose a select few places I tend to attract real people who 9 times out of 10 come back and read more on my blog. For me, I don’t want to heavily advertise because my bounce rate and quality of blog visits matters to me. I personally would rather have a lower traffic base if it’s loyal and in turn I get more thank yous and appreciative giveaway winners by making this choice.

The choice is up to you. It’s your blog.