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ViralSweep's Instant Win app allows you to increase engagement and reward your fans instantly with prizes. Instant Win is similar to a sweepstakes, however, users do not have to wait until the end of the promotional period to find out if they won; they find out as soon as they enter, hence the name: Instant Win!

Setup

1) Create the Instant Win

In your dashboard go to:

New Promotion > Instant Win

Start by filling out the Title, Description, and Duration of the promotion.

2) Configure winner selection method

Under Prize settings, you can award prizes to users in one of three ways:

Random Odds: Set the odds for each prize that you want to give away (e.g. 1 in 100 odds).

Unique Codes: Upload a file of codes that users can enter into our system that pertain to specific prizes that you are giving away. Entrants can also enter multiple codes if they have several of them.

Random Times: Depending upon the number of prizes you give away, we will randomly generate times that fall between the start and end date of your promotion. For example, if you are giving away 30 prizes between April 1 and April 7, we will randomly generate 30 "winning times" between those dates.

3) Configure additional prize settings

Once you figure out how you want to give away your prizes, you now need to configure the additional settings which are explained below:

# of times a user can win
This setting allows you to determine if a user can win more than one prize in your Instant Win, or if they can only win once. Set this to 0 if they can win over and over again, or set it 1, 2 or more if they can only win once or a few times.

Entrant can re-enter
This setting allows you to determine if an entrant must wait a specified period of time before they can "try again". If your campaign is allowing users to earn additional chances for completing actions, then you can determine if they must wait a period of time before they can use those chances or if they can immediately use them. If you are not allowing users to earn additional chances to "try again" then you can skip this option.

Message for losing entrants
This is the message someone will see on the post-entry page if they do not win a prize when they enter.

Send email to losers 
This is an optional, one time email that you can have the system dispatch to someone if they enter and do not win a prize.

Prize Wheel
Turn on our interactive prize wheel which will spin and show all of the prizes that can be won when a user enters.

4) Add prizes

Please note: Once you configure a prize and save it, portions of it cannot be edited. You will need to duplicate the prize and make your changes then delete the old one. To avoid this, please make sure that your prize is configured properly before saving it.

If you selected Random Odds
Then you will indicate the odds of winning for that particular prize, as well as the number of winners that there should be. You can keep adding prizes and setting odds for prizes that you want to give away. If you are awarding bonus entries to people for completing actions, those count as additional chances towards the prize odds, so keep this in mind.

If you selected Random Times
Then you will have the option of choosing how the user can win based on the time that is drawn. You have 3 different settings:

  • Within X min. of random time being generated
    After a randomly generated time comes up, you must decide how long after that time a user can enter and still win. For example, if the winning time is 3:00PM and you set it to within 2 minutes of random time being generated, then a user will win if they enter between 3:00PM and 3:02PM.
  • Immediately after random time is generated (30 sec window) 
    After a randomly generated time comes up, the user must enter within 30 seconds of that time in order to be deemed a winner. For example, if the random time is 3:00:00PM, and the user enters at 3:00:23PM, they will win.
  • Anytime after random time is generated

    After a randomly generated time comes up, the first person to enter after that time will win. For example, if the random time is 3:00PM, and the first person to enter after that time is at 3:30PM, then that user will win.

If you selected Unique Codes
Then you will have the option of pasting in codes that must be used in order for a user to win a prize. You can also determine how many times each code can be used.

Anyone who does not enter a winning code will automatically lose. If you only want people with codes to be able to enter, you can also add codes in the Losing Codes section.

Learn more about how losing codes work.


We automatically add an Instant Win Code field to the entry form when you select unique codes, so you do not need to make any modifications to the entry form.

5) Finish configuring prizes

Add your Prize Title, a message that users will see when they win, and a description (such as how users can claim their prize, and or what they won). You can also upload a prize image to be shown when the user wins a prize.

Finally, you can dispatch an email to the winner as soon as they win the prize. This email can contain more information on how the user can claim their prize.

Click Save Prize when you are done.

6) Award bonus chances

ViralSweep allows you to incentivize users to keep playing your Instant Win by giving them additional chances to "try again". By adding social actions to your campaign, users will be able to obtain these additional chances.

To award bonus chances, simply go to the Social Actions section of the campaign and add actions that you want users to complete, and how many chances they should get for completing those actions.

Please note: This option only works when your campaign settings are set to Random Odds or Random Times. When using Unique Codes, users can complete actions but they cannot earn additional chances for doing so, as we require them to use valid codes to 'try again'. 

7) Configure the rest of your campaign

The rest of the configuration options on your campaign will not be covered in this tutorial, however, once you are done filling in the rest of the options to configure your campaign, click Done.

8) Seeing your Instant Winners

While your Instant Win is running, you can always click the Winners button on the campaign to get a full overview of each prize, how many have been given away, how many are remaining, and who has won.

9) Drawing random winners (optional)

If you need to draw random winners in your Instant Win, you can also do this as well under the Winners section. Just scroll to the bottom of the section and input how many winners you want to draw.

The typical use case for this is if you are running an Instant Win, as well as a standard sweepstakes where you are picking overall winners. Another use case is if your instant win does not award all of the prizes by the end of the promotional period, and you want to randomly draw winners to award those prizes.

FAQ/Troubleshooting

How can I test my Instant Win before setting it live? 
Run an entry through your form and you will either win or lose. If you win a prize while testing, you can see this under the Winners section. To reset the prize, delete your entry under the winners tab AND the entrants tab.

I want to run my Instant Win at an event, is this possible? 
Yes. Simply set your campaign's spam filter to Events mode. This will allow you to have people enter from one device or one IP address at an event, and they can see if they won something. We automatically input a button on the page after someone enters that you can click on to reset the form. Typically you will not award bonus chances at an event, as you will not want people logging in and out of their social accounts on one device.

I have my odds set low, but people still are not winning.
If you have a prize set to odds of 1 in 50, and you only have 10 or 20 entries to your campaign, then you still may not have any winners. Keep in mind that the odds are entirely random each time someone enters, so it does not mean that just because you have 50 entries with 1 in 50 odds that someone will be a winner. If you're concerned that people are not winning and you have a lot of prizes to give away, lower your odds.

I want someone to win everytime they enter, how can I set this up?
Set the prize odds to 1 in 1 and a prize will be awarded each time someone enters.


We're here to help

If you have any further questions, please start a Chat. Just "Click" on the chat icon in the lower right corner to talk with our support team.