Random Tuesday: Giveaway Winners and Some Thoughts on Contest Formats
Giveaway Winners
Teresa of Teresa’s Reading Corner and Sarah Cruz were the winners of The Things We Cherished by Pam Jenoff.
Congratulations! Enjoy your new book.
Contest Formats
I’ve been using the Google Form instead of the comments section for my contest entries and in general have been pleased with the results. I get a nice numbered spreadsheet which makes it easy to draw a winner and comments don’t get lost between the contest entries. My wordpress template does not number the comments which made it a chore to pick a winner. I try to keep entries simple and limiting it to one per person and only asking for a name and email address. That’s what I like to see on other blogs when I enter a contest.
So, what’s my problem? Google forms does not let us log the IP number of the computer used to enter the contest making it difficult to eliminate duplicate entries. Using the comment section I can easily identify multiple entries by using the IP and time stamp. It doesn’t happen often, but I want the contest to be fair and give everyone the same chance to win.
One solution would be to require a mailing address but I hesitate to do that as not everyone is comfortable putting that in an online form. Another would be to require a comment only if one had never commented before. That would allow me to verify the entry. More work for me but better for privacy. So I ask…
Would you still enter a contest if an address was a requirement?
Any tips, suggestions or ways to make contests better?
Really Random Tuesday is hosted on random Tuesdays by Suko at Suko’s Notebook. It’s a way to post odds and ends–announcements, musings, quotes–any blogging and book-related things you can think of.
Under My Apple Tree 
I started asking for an address after I had trouble getting hold of a winner and haven’t noticed a decline in entries. I have had a few duplicates in Google Forms, because people don’t always remember if they’ve entered. Congratulations to Teresa and Sarah!
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Maybe I’ll try it in the future. It would make things easier. The duplicates aren’t the problem. I expect that to happen. I probably do it myself! What I had were eight entries withing 2 minutes, all email addresses and names that never commented before. My blog isn’t so popular that 8 people would show up within seconds so I suspect a few were the same person, different addys.
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Congrats to the winners!
I am not sure about the address issue you mention. As you surmise, some people may not wish to submit their addresses online. As long as I can find an email address, I feel confident that I will be able to contact a giveaway winner to obtain more information.
Thanks for doing RRT–I’ll add your blog to the post. 🙂
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Thanks for linking.
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I’m not usually confident in giving out my address. I would on yours and other blogs that I regularly follow, but not just anywhere. Looking at it the other way around, you’d maybe get entrants that know your blog, rather than random people (who don’t like to leave their address).
I’m not sure what numbers we’re talking about, but if you have under a hundred entrants, then the comments way should not be too cumbersome.
Otherwise, how about a form PLUS everyone has to leave a comment (so you don’t single out certain people). Then when you have a winner, you can check whether their IP address occurs more than once.
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Thanks for the thoughts. Entries are usually under 100. The big ones are the blog hops and I would definitely use the form for those. Mostly I’m trying to keep things fair and simple.
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I leave my address when I enter a contest. I visit bloggers that I feel I can trust so it doesn’t bother me.
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Thanks for the input.
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If its a new to me blog I will often leave the comment “Will Provide if Winner”. There are some that I will leave my information on. It’s all about comfort level. I’m not really sure how to combat the duplicate entry…
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Congrats to the winners!
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