So, before you run a Facebook competition – just have a quick read through – as we explain just some of the things that can crop up.

1. The Guidelines

Facebook does have guidelines for promoters who want to run competitions. It’s worth noting them “just in case”. For example the guidelines say that “the act of liking a Page or checking in to a Place cannot automatically register or enter a promotion participant”.

It also says that “you must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or pages” but again many brands do because they’re using likes and/or not using a third party application such as Easypromos.

The “just in case” part is for if/when Facebook ever decide to turn the screw and actually apply their guidelines. A lot of pages still offer prizes at X number of likes and winners are contacted by Walls and messages etc. To be honest it’s a surprise that Facebook haven’t created their own forced contest app for pages – imagine the data collection they could be doing with such an idea.

Top Tip: Just be aware that there are guidelines… you never know when Facebook will enforce them!

2. Voting Competitions

We’ve been involved with online competitions for 14 years now. We’ve watched Facebook evolve, we’ve seen good and bad things when it comes to competitions. So, when we (Loquax) say “voting competitions are a really stupid idea” – that means they’re a stupid idea! A voting competition will not result in the best entry winning – it will result in the person who can “cheat” the most winning.

Voting competitions attract groups of people who swap votes, pay for votes, have multiple Facebook accounts for votes – in fact pretty much do anything whatsoever for votes. Grand Marnier for example recently ran a competition for a “Sunset Photo”. The winner was to be determined by most votes. It took them until 3 days before the closing date to realise that what they were told at the start was true…. it wasn’t a “best sunset” competition but a “most clicks” competition.

In the end they got a judge in to decide the winner.

Similarly, a charity were offering 4 iPads in their Facebook competition. Towards the end of the promotion they realised that the winning “stories” were pretty poor – in fact so poor they would have gained no PR by using them (one of the aims of the competition). The top entries were simply using vote sites not “asking friends and family” as so many promoters ask. In the end they also changed their rules and went to the judge it yourself option.

If you do go down the public votes route, try and mix the prizes up. For example offer a token prize to the most voted entry, and the biggest prize to a judged entry.

Top Tip: Avoid voting competitions! Get an independent judging panel and pick a winner that way.

3. Photo Competitions

I like photo competitions as they give an added challenge to using your camera (mind, I really wish I’d not drowned my camera in the sea yesterday – that’s another story). A lot of Facebook promoters like photo competitions too. But if people cheat on voting, guess what… they’ll cheat with photo competitions too! It’s not unknown for images to be lifted off Google and entered into a Facebook competition.

Thankfully there are eagle eyed entrants who like to spot cheats. Photobox for example almost awarded a prize to a photo of a “Royal Toilet” lifted from The Daily Mail. They were alerted to the problem by another participant and acted swiftly to disqualify the “winner”.

On The Beach Holidays have encountered a similar problem. However, despite being told that a couple of their winning photos are plagarised they’ve awarded prizes. They’re now saying they’ll investigate any issues, but the damage has been done.

Top Tip: Use reverse image search sites like Tineye.com to check validity

4. Sob Stories

“Tell us why you should win” is a very bad competition question. If you choose this route you will get a rollercoaster of emotional answers that will pull on your heartstrings. But are they genuine or just sob stories. This is a real tough one for competition promoters. Therefore try and avoid questions that generate answers that range from “i have man-flu” to “i’m suffering from the recent loss of a family member”…. and much more beyond that.

Top Tip: Keep your competitions fun and light – it will make picking a winner a lot easier!

5. Listen To Your Wall

Not listening is a massive problem for many a promoter. If you announce your great prize promo on Facebook and it results in negative feedback (e.g. voting competitions attract cheating or that photo is borrowed) then act upon it. Don’t decide you know better.. because you probably don’t.

The great thing about Facebook is that it opens up transparency in a lot of competitions. It shows up cheating by entrants and it shows up errors by brands. You need to be on top of things and you need to act swiftly. As above, Photobox were very good at dealing with a problem – which left could have damaged their very successful (and enjoyable) 24 Hour Live Photo Challenge.

Top Tip: If you’ve encountered a problem head to Loquax and ask us for help!

6. Stop And Think

This is the biggest error of them all when it comes to brands running a Facebook competition. No one stops and thinks it through. It’s not just the voting and photo competitions mentioned above, it’s the smaller ones too. A “share this post and like it” competition can result in 100s of posts appearing on your wall… great for your competition, but what about your customers?

If you go to a brand’s page and see “Liked This” or “Enter Me” right the way down the page that doesn’t look great. If you see long arguments about cheating or vote rigging then that doesn’t look great either. You can run a promotion sensibly, fairly and also gain the social advantages you’re after. You just need to stop and think a little bit.

Top Tip: Look at other brands on Facebook and see how their competitions run.

Should You Be Running A Facebook Competition?

If you want to pick up numbers on your Facebook pages then “yes” running a competition is a great idea. Done properly it can be a good way to pick up followers and interact with them. The Photobox 24 Hour Live competition was in my view one that was done properly and a lot of brands could learn from that.

The trouble is many won’t learn… they’ll still be vote cheating, walls plastered with unnecessary comments, photo cheating and what have you. It’s easy to point the finger at the people cheating and/or complaining about compers – but actually the responsibility of your promotion comes down to you. If you do things right, create proper rules, adhere to them and listen to your users – then cheats can’t prosper.

Next time you’re in a social media seminar and someone says “use competitions on Facebook” ask them what the pitfalls are… if they don’t know the above, then they’ve probably never looked much beyond their own wall.

Reasons for the belief that “it’s our fault” stems from the issue of referrals from a competition listing site and concern that entries are deleted because they may be deemed from a “professional comper” (*).

In our experience only a handful of sites have ever really got the hump with people who like competitions, or enter them as a hobby, visiting their site. Usually this is because answers have been given out and occasionally it’s because the person running the competition is a bit naive. A handful over the years doesn’t suggest a major issue though.

By the way the term “professional comper” is total nonsense. I like taking photos, but I’m not a professional photographer. By the same token, aome people like entering lots of competitions, but that doesn’t make them professional. I really wish media people would get their head around this!

Anyway the purpose of this blog!

What I’m hoping for is some blog comments or private feedback about compers and how you, if you run or have ran competitions, perceive them. Do you embrace them as “well it’s traffic” or do you actively monitor them perhaps via referrals in your logs or check popular sites and forums to see if people are trying to circumvent appearing on your radar (using non-referral tags).

Another question that crops up is what is cheating? Do you mind that answers to your questions are posted freely, essentially turning what you’re offering into a quick and easy send in your data prize draw format.

Finally do you remove entries? Automated entries (where a bot will deliver a lot of competition entries without those people ever visiting your site because they’ve paid a service to do it for them) have already been mentioned here on OLD and I’m all for those kind of entries being disqualified. But do you (or have you) ever disqualified people because they’ve clicked from a comping site?

Hopefully they’ll be some replies. I was going to do a survey for siteowners who submit competitions via Loquax, but that’d probably be targeting those people who don’t mind competition people.

If you do want to make anonymous comments (or at least not reveal your site’s identity) then fair enough, but please use a valid email address.

Please post via comments or send via the contact form. Thanks!

Here are a few examples of what I mean!

“Continue Shopping” isn’t a great call to action. This page could show some special offers, a one off deal or perhaps even a discount code with an option saying “email this code to me”. There’s nothing here to make me want to stay on site.

Play.com don’t fair much better!

Now some sites direct link to their pop up competition pages, so if they do this what will the visitor see in terms of deals, promotions, and latest offers? Nothing! Now many people will say “ah, but competition people won’t buy anything” and that’s fair comment but the odds of them doing so must increase slightly if they see something other than a blank page?

Nothing means they could just go for a Burton!

“Start Shopping Here” is fine, but would you click? These page needs related film goodies or something to capture the visitor’s interest. Marketing people need to get the person who codes the site to automatically put the same details on the thanks page that they put on the rest of the site.

Don’t let them say “it can’t be done” – it can be done! If you can pass out offers to affiliates you can put details on these pages.

Hallelujah! Well done Firebox – this is good!

Although to be a tad critical it doesn’t quite go far enough (I know I’m harsh). I’d like to see something like “as a thanks for entering the competition we can offer you XYZ discount or Putty Monsters, the winner of our Invention competition, at a special price”.

Now I don’t know if it’ll improve our conversion rates with merchants. It can’t hurt it anyway as for many we have Yazz Stats (the only way is up). However, all merchants and siteowners running competitions should be thinking about the journey of their users through competitions.

They do the nice landing page, they might even remember the “thanks for entering email” (none of the above do), but very few people bother with the “thanks for entering page”.

In fact by putting nothing on it, you might as well automatically close the site down once someone’s filled in their details to enter your carefully crafted prize draw. With nothing offered to encourage them to stay (or revisit without that thanks for entering email) you’re essentially shutting the door on them.

OK, Red Nose Day is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s an opportunity to have a laugh and raise a few quid for charity – and in these credit crunch times we could all do with something to brighten up the gloom!

It doesn’t take 5 minutes to create a fun logo and there’s a whole bunch of images you can use at Red Nose Day 09. Or you could simply put up one of these Red Nose Banners. iTunes on Tradedoubler have a number of special Red Nose banners too to promote their Music Relief event meaning you could earn commission! Even better give it to RND 09!

If you’re not that way inclined why not get a digital red nose and add it to your blog photo?

How cool would it be to see a whole gallery of affiliate bloggers (or just affiliates) complete with red noses!

And let’s face it, a couple of images on your own photo or website logo has got to be a lot less painful than having a Hpops tattoo to raise money!

Finally if you’d like a nice new premium wordpress theme then Peter Coles is giving away his new Tempest theme to the next handful of people who make a donation. Well worth a look!

Big brands adopting affiliate marketing isn’t new! Last year for example every brand and their dog was opening up a white label bingo site. Bingo providers were falling over themselves to sign up brand after brand. From Woolworths to New Woman Magazine – branded bingo was plastered every where. The frenzy for this “must have” has subsided in recent months, indeed several white labels have fallen by the way side (for example lastminute.com).

Shopping and cashback are now the current flavours of the month. Sky are the latest company to take on a “Shop Window” in association with Affiliate Window. They are following in the path of Metro and The Sun, who have sinced dropped “Shop Window” in favour of a white label cashback site (ask yourself why!).

So should affiliates be concerned by the rise of the big brand affiliates?

Of course there are more competitors squeezing into the affiliate marketing boat but big brand doesn’t always equate to big affiliate business. Ask anyone what Google does and they’ll probably say “search”. Ask them what The Sun does and they’ll say “newspaper”. Ebay is “auction”. Facebook is “social network”. In other words, brands become pigeon-holed and they, just like any traditional affiliate have to constantly promote and push their marketing channels that are outside the “norm” for the majority of users. That is not always easy whilst focusing on your core USP.

Flavours of the month are also just that! When the next “must have” addition to these ever growing big brand portals is bandied around, the previous incumbent will get shunted down the list or even booted off if it turns out to be a poor revenue stream.

We also need to remember that new cashback sites have to compete with those already established in the sector, so let’s see how two well known cashback sites doing in comparison to say the biggest 100% cashback site, a popular deals site and let’s say the infamous voucher code site (Google Trends)

You can’t glean too much from the above, but it does show vouchers on the up (orange), deals looking good (dark blue) and cashback (100% is light blue, the others green and yellow) looking a bit stagnant (this may not be reality of course in terms of revenue – but it’s an interesting graphic)! Big brands may well breathe life into the cashback sector, but I still don’t think their presence is sufficient reason for traditional affiliates to think their end is nigh.

Online shopping isn’t some new phenomena and cashback has been featured in many a publication and also by internet media celebs like Martin Lewis for several years now. This means that The Sun et al still have to get in there and convert new people to cashback because most of those who already know about it will probably be getting 100% elsewhere. On top of that they have to retain them and make sure that they (The Sun) are earning revenue from the channel.

Will they be successful? Only time will tell!

Granted “media muscle” (lol) will be a factor, but there are still plenty of opportunities open for traditional affiliates. Remember you have the advantage of working for yourself, being swift and nimble in your promotions and can also gain from the exposure online shopping will receive from big brands. Watch what they’re promoting – use their advertising spend to your advantage!

You also have to remember that big brand affiliates will still face the same issues those of us who have been doing affiliate marketing for a while have to face – users not using your affiliate links, shoppers picking up voucher codes elsewhere, users forgetting to go via your cashback, tracking problems, cookie issues etc. – and they may not be as forgiving!

Whereas a traditional affiliate may be able to adapt to changes in the market place, big brands tend to have a habit of reducing or even dropping channels that don’t earn them money… like their bingo white labels!

Be concerned, but the end is not nigh (well at least I hope not)!

… unsurprisingly it’s a competition but this time it was to run via our Loquax Blog instead of our usual prize draw type pages. On the blog the user is asked a question about Gone Digging and they have to respond via the comments.

Now remember the prize is worth £20!

For that there’s promotional content (which will remain on site), traffic, brand and site awareness and come Thursday the competition will also feature in our newsletter. Plus they get a plug on OLD! Not bad for a prize worth just £20, eh!

We’d love to see more entries (and expect them) – although it does seem the blog mechanic has an impact on entry levels compared to a standard “join our mailing list” prize draw promo. However, just as a comparison we’ve seen a £200 of Star Wars toys competition with just 49 blog comment entries, and a High School Musical 3 Mobile Phone prize with just 35 entries!

Most certainly we’d love to see the traffic generate sales for Gone Digging (and any other prospective sponsors) not just now but in the future and we’d also love to run more of these competitions via our Loquax Blog! So we are keen to hear from merchants who would like to sponsor a giveaway or two – it doesn’t have to cost you a lot either (although the better the prize, the more interest it will generate).

If you’re interested then just contact OLD. Please note UK only! Thanks!

I wasn’t against v3, I just preferred v2 as it was much easier to pick up links and banners. There’s of course familiarity issues, but I also found the upgraded version did make moving around Buy.at a little bit more cumbersome. Some issues still remain in v4. For example I can click on “My Programmes” and select a merchant, but at neither pages is there a link offering me access to creative.

To get creative I have to choose “Content & Creative” – that does make sense – but I like to be able to click around from section to section without always using the set navigation.

One useful tip for getting banners is choose “Graphic Links” option. Don’t go near “Creative Overview” – I’m not sure if it’s just me, but at times the loading is terrible. It took almost two minutes for 14 3mobile banners to appear. Similar issues put me off v3 too!

Another element I’d like to see changed is the pagination. Instead of Pages 1, 2, 3 etc I’d much prefer A, B, C etc so that I know exactly where the merchant I’m looking for is hiding. You can choose to see “All” on a page (e.g. “My Programmes”) but then “All” means “Warts n All” as it lists programmes you’ve been rejected from or not applied too.

These are all minor issues which aren’t going to hinder usability (although I’d like Buy.at to look at their loading issue) and having spent some time looking around whilst writing this blog there’s some nice bits and bobs in the system.

One thing that’s good to see is a place to list your websites. Having wanted to add Buy.at’s insurance merchants to an insurance website, only to be rejected by most of them, this facility should remove these issues in the future.

ContextEngine is also new. ContextEngine “detects which merchant programmes you are approved for, identifies their brand names in your copy, and then turns them into affiliate links”.

This could be quite useful in terms of blogging – especially when away from the office. For example, let’s say I’m at A4UExpo later this month and hear that Thorntons have a special offer. By quickly typing up a post via mobile and firing it off to appear on our Offers Blog the link should appear around “Thorntons” without me having to worry about including it in the copy.

To see if this works the code has been put in place on this blog – meaning the links for the chocolate company which weren’t included get put in place – that’s quite a neat innovation.

So it’s goodbye to v2 and hello v4, now all Buy.at need to do is sort out their homepage ;o)

So that’s 20,000 people totally ignoring your promotion, your website, your sponsors and hoping to blag a prize with an email account that they’re not using – so they’ll ignore your marketing messages too!

You can avoid this kind of issue by taking a few simple steps, being vigilant, adding a line of text in your rules that says “no automated entries” and then disqualifying them if required.

However, if a company can generate 20,000 competition entries at the drop of a hat, does this mean that similar methods are being employed in affiliate marketing.

Take a Random Scenario

A merchant sets up a program offering 50p per lead for name, address and email fields. There’s no CAPTCHA involved and no double opt-in confirmation required. What’s to stop an affiliate running a script, taking their mailing list, and plugging it in to that merchant’s system? Has it happened? Is it monitored? Can it happen?

In the competition world few promoters are vigilant to automation – it does make me wonder whether the same issue is a problem in AM?

Win a £500 Shopping Spree!

To celebrate the launch of House of Fraser’s affiliate programme on Commission Junction, the well known store is giving away the chance for one lucky publisher to win a £500 designer clothes shopping spree assisted by your own personal stylist.

Commission Junction has been brought in from 23rd June to further strengthen House of Fraser’s affiliate programme. House of Fraser will be working with a whole range of affiliate business models to ensure a balanced and broad approach to the programme, including paid search, content, social communities, cashback and reward/loyalty sites.

To kick start proceedings, Chris Bishop, Online Acquisition Manager, will whisk the lucky winning affiliate to London’s Oxford Street store, with a stylist for their designer brand shopping experience. Plus, in true affiliate marketing style, the referring blogger will also win a gift courtesy of House of Fraser.

To enter, affiliates need to answer the following questions by 31st July, 2008.

1. When was House of Fraser’s transactional website launched?
2. Based on House of Fraser’s launch 5% net commission, how much would the sale of a Hugo Boss, formal single-breasted stretch wool suit earn an affiliate?
3. Which famous female singer currently has her luxury bed linen and bedroom collection stocked on the House of Fraser site?
4. How much would an affiliate pay for the Prada 80ml eau de parfum deluxe?
5. Which blog did you see this competition on? Answer: One Little Duck

To enter, email affiliates@hof.co.uk with your answers, name, address and contact details plus a link to a fully-working website (the details of the latter can be kept confidential if preferred) and the blog (One Little Duck) you noticed the competition on. The competition is open to all UK based affiliates.. so go give it a go!

What’s on Offer?
The House of Fraser affiliate programme offers 5% of the net sales value (*), 28 day cookie and a free Product Feed (available upon request). You should see high average order value – currently £90 and there are strong offers, incentives and promotions.

* Excludes gift vouchers, P&P and non commissionable items (non-basket brand links – these are Arthur Price, Coast, Dorma, Karen Millen, Montgomery, Principles, Shoe Studio Group, Kurt Geiger, Carvela, Oasis and Wedgwood).

With Chris at the helm you’ll have a dedicated account management team to help you maximise your revenue and provide updates on strong offers, incentives and promotions advertised with a strong creative suite.

Chris Bishop, Online Acquisition Manager at House of Fraser said “We’re excited to have brought Commission Junction on board to scale our affiliate marketing programme. Having launched our first transactional website in September 2007, our absolute focus is now to educate and work with the publisher community on what we can offer, which will drive new customers and therefore revenue increases for both them and us”!

If you have a query about the affiliate programme contact Chris directly at House of Fraser.

The Competition Terms and Conditions
1. An entry into the competition constitutes acceptance of these terms and conditions.
2. The competition is open to all UK based affiliates over the age of 18.
3. One entry per affiliate, company or household.
4. Correct competition answers and prerequisite information detailed must be verified to enter the prize draw where one winner will be selected at random. The judging will be independently supervised and the judge’s decision is final.
5. Competition closes 11.59pm on 31st July 2008.
6. The prize consists of £500 shopping spree with House of Fraser gift vouchers and personal stylist at House of Fraser, Oxford Street. Travel to and from the store and any additional expenses are not included.
7. The prize must be taken no later than 31st October 2008.
8. Prize is non-negotiable, non-transferable and non-refundable. There is no cash alternative.
9. The winner will be notified within 1 week after the closing date by e-mail.
10. House of Fraser reserves the right to reclaim the prize awarded if affiliates are found to be tampering with or abusing any aspect of this promotion, as determined by House of Fraser. In such instances, House of Fraser will terminate the affiliates’ eligibility to participate in the promotion. House of Fraser reserves the right to cancel, reclaim or refuse this promotion at its own discretion.
11. House of Fraser cannot accept responsibility for illegible, incomplete, delayed or lost entries.
12. Employees of House of Fraser (Stores) Ltd, their families, agencies, or anyone connected with the competition are not eligible to enter. The name and county of the winner will be made available upon written request to the following address: £500 Affiliate Shopping Experience, eCommerce, House of Fraser, 27 Baker Street, London W1U 8AH.
13. Promoter: House of Fraser (Stores) Ltd, registered office: Granite House, 31 Stockwell Street, Glasgow G1 4RZ Company Number: 10677 Registered in Scotland.

So there you have it… a chance to win £500 of House of Fraser vouchers… you gotta be innit to winnit!

Now we could wait until December to run an advent competition for them or do a straightforward prize draw – but with the financial doom, petrol gloom and horrible weather around we decided that everyone could do with a bit of sunshine and therefore used our advent template to create a summer “advent” style competition!

It’s essentially a daily giveaway, but all we’ve done is take something we know is popular in one month (advent competitions) and given it a twist – by calling it a summer advent – it creates a buzz for the users and gives us another unique angle.

The initial feedback from users has been quite positive. The picture brightens up the day and offers them the chance to win the most coveted prize on the internet!

For us it means that we’ll get regular visits during what is a quieter month, and gives visitors to the site another way of remembering the brand “ah, yes that duck competition site with the bright summer advent prize draw”!

So Why Is This Useful To Know?

Essentially, don’t ever underestimate the impact, what may seem, “daft ideas” can have for your site. Developing brand and community are a good way of avoiding a kick in The Achilles’ Heel – and simple, fun ideas can help you build!