How to Create a High-Converting Giveaway Funnel

Did you know that 79% of people who think about buying from a business never actually do? Often, this happens because businesses don’t have a good system for staying in touch with them.

But here’s a solution: a giveaway funnel can fix this problem. Instead of just letting interested people drift away, it helps turn people who enter your contest into potential customers interested in buying what you sell.

Think about it – everyone loves to get something for free. And that’s why giveaways are so popular.

But when you add a funnel to your giveaway, it’s even more powerful. You don’t just get a list of email addresses; you actually build a group of people who are excited to hear from you and are much more likely to buy from you in the future.

So, in this guide, I’ll show you how to create a giveaway funnel that really works. This way, you can make your giveaways much more successful at turning interested people into happy customers.

How to Build a Giveaway Funnel:

The basic idea is pretty simple. First, you attract people with an exciting prize. Then, you guide them through a few steps that help them get to know your business better. These steps might include things like following you on social media, joining your email list, or checking out your products.

But what makes a giveaway funnel really work? It needs three main parts:

1. Something valuable to give away – something your ideal customers would really want. This gets people excited to participate.
2. A way to stay in touch with people after the contest ends. Usually, this means collecting email addresses and maybe social media follows.
3. A plan for what happens next. This means having emails ready to send, content to share, and ways to keep people interested in your business even after the giveaway is over.

When you put these pieces together the right way, your giveaway does more than just give out prizes. It helps build real connections with people who might become your future customers.

Steps to Create a High-Converting Giveaway Funnel

Now that you understand what a giveaway funnel is, let me show you exactly how to create one that works. I’ll break this down into simple steps you can follow, starting with the most important part, planning your giveaway the right way.

Step 1.  Planning Your Giveaway

Before you jump into creating your giveaway, you need to do some basic planning. I know it might be tempting to skip straight to picking prizes, but taking time to plan now will make your giveaway much more successful.

Setting Your Goals

First, let’s talk about setting clear goals. Instead of just saying, “I want more customers,” get specific.

My favorite way to do this is with the SMART goals tactic. This means making your goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

For example, instead of saying “I want more subscribers,” a SMART goal would be “I want to add 500 new email subscribers to my list in the next 30 days.”

Or, “I want to gain 1,000 new Instagram followers by the end of this giveaway campaign.”

Having these clear figures in mind helps you know if your giveaway is actually working.

Defining Your Audience

With your goals set, it’s time to think about who you’d like to attract. If you sell fitness equipment, for example, you’ll want to attract people who care about health and exercise.

The people who enter your giveaway should be the same people who might buy from you later.

Choosing the Right Prize

The next exciting part is choosing your prize. But the best prize isn’t always the most expensive one.

Your prize should be something that your ideal customers really want, but also something related to what you sell. For example, if you’re a beauty blogger, giving away a popular makeup set makes more sense than giving away a generic gift card.

Check out this example from Luxury Helsinki. For Valentine’s Day, they gave their followers the chance to win Channel heart shaped earrings.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Luxury Helsinki (@luxuryhelsinki)

Not only does this keep with the romantic holiday theme, but it’s also a luxury prize that’s relevant to them and their audience.

For help picking the perfect prize, see my roundup of popular giveaway prize ideas.

Planning Your Budget

Of course, you’ll also need to consider your budget carefully. Remember to think about everything, not just the prize. You might need to spend some money on advertising your giveaway or using special tools to run it.

Speaking of tools, if you’re using WordPress, you’ve got an advantage. With RafflePress, you can set up your entire giveaway funnel right on your website.

It’s much easier than trying to piece together different tools, and it works perfectly with WordPress. Plus, it helps you collect entries, manage participants, and pick winners all in one place.

Step 2. Designing Your Giveaway Funnel

After planning your giveaway, it’s time to set everything up. This is where RafflePress helps by making it simple and straightforward to create your giveaway. 

And to make things even easier, you can follow my guide on how to create an online contest in WordPress.

How people enter your giveaway also matters a lot. And with RafflePress, you can pick from many different entry methods.

You might ask people to join your email list, follow you on Instagram, or share your giveaway with friends.

But here’s a tip: don’t ask for too many things. Pick 3-4 entry methods that match your goals.

For example, if you want more email subscribers, make signing up for your newsletter worth more points than other actions.

One of the best things about running a giveaway is that people love to share them. You can set up your giveaway, so participants get extra entries for telling their friends about it.

This means more people find out about your giveaway without you spending extra money on advertising.

Your giveaway needs to work with your email marketing tools. RafflePress connects with popular email services, so new subscribers go straight to your email list.

This means you can start sending them emails right away, instead of manually adding them later.

Your giveaway also needs its own special page on your website. Think of it as a spotlight, you want all the attention on your giveaway.

With RafflePress, you can create a clean, giveaway landing page that focuses on getting people to enter. No distracting menus or sidebars, just your giveaway and how to enter it.

Step 3. Promoting Your Giveaway

Creating your giveaway is only half the battle. Now you need to get the word out about it. The more people who know about your giveaway, the better your results will be.

Social media is one of the best places to spread the word about your giveaway. Share it on all your social accounts, and make sure to use eye-catching images, similar to this example from Cohorted:

GIVEAWAY ALERT: It's Freebie Friday!✨ WIN this luxury bundle of beauty and fragrance goodies, worth £212! To enter: 1)Like & Retweet this post 2)Follow @Cohorted Good luck! 🖤 Giveaway Ends: 28/02/25 #FreebieFriday pic.twitter.com/775HfF2mxw

— COHORTED (@cohorted) February 14, 2025

If you need help with this, you can see my guide on how to create custom giveaway images for free.

You can even pin your giveaway post to the top of your profiles so it’s the first thing people see when they visit.

Don’t forget about your email list. Send an announcement to your current subscribers about your giveaway. These people already know and trust you, so they’re more likely to share your giveaway with their friends.

Your website is another great place to promote your campaign. Add a banner to your homepage announcing your giveaway. If you have a blog, you can also write a post about it.

I particularly like this example from WPBeginner. To celebrate their birthday, they ran a high-value giveaway and one of their top promotion tactics involved detailing it in a blog post.

As you can see from the number of shares (918), this type of approach is a great way to promote your giveaway to your existing audience.

You might even want to add a popup that tells visitors about your giveaway when they’re about to leave your site.

And if you have some money set aside for promotion, consider running some paid ads. Even a small budget on Facebook or Instagram can help get your giveaway in front of more of the right people. Just remember to target your ads to people who match your ideal customer profile.

Remember to promote your giveaway regularly while it’s running. People might miss your first announcement, so sharing it multiple times gives them more chances to enter.

Step 4. Managing and Tracking Your Giveaway

Running a giveaway isn’t just about watching entries come in. You need to keep track of everything that’s happening and make sure it’s all running smoothly.

RafflePress makes this part easy with its dashboard. You can see how many people have entered, what entry methods are most popular, and even spot any unusual activity.

Keeping an eye on your entries is just as important. You want to make sure real people are entering your giveaway, not bots or people trying to cheat.

Most giveaway tools include fraud prevention features that help spot and stop suspicious entries automatically.

When it’s time to pick a winner, you want to be fair. RafflePress has a random winner picker that makes this simple.

Just click a button, and it randomly selects a winner from all valid entries. This means you don’t have to worry about choosing favorites or making complicated decisions.

Step 5. Engaging Participants

The end of your giveaway isn’t really the end – it’s actually just the beginning of building relationships with all your new contacts. What you do after your giveaway is just as important as running it.

Your first step is to follow up with everyone who entered, not just the winners. Send a friendly email thanking them for participating. You might even want to offer a special discount or bonus to everyone who joined in.

These new contacts are valuable because they’ve already shown interest in what you offer. Now’s your chance to show them more about your business and what makes it special. Share helpful tips, interesting stories, or exclusive offers that make them glad they connected with you.

Keep track of how well your giveaway worked for your business. Look at things like how many new email subscribers stayed on your list, how many used your special offer, and how many became customers. This helps you understand if your giveaway was worth the time and money you put into it.

You can use Google Analytics to track all these numbers easily. If you haven’t set it up yet, check out my step-by-step guide on how to add Google Analytics to WordPress.

Remember, building relationships takes time. Don’t expect everyone to buy from you right away. 

Instead, focus on providing value and staying in touch regularly. This way, when they’re ready to buy, they’ll think of you first.

Examples of Successful Giveaway Funnels

Want to see how giveaway funnels work in real life? Here are some real success stories that show just how powerful a well-planned giveaway can be.

Take WPForms, for example. They used a giveaway to grow their Facebook community.

Their strategy helped them add more than 11,000 new members to their group, creating an engaged community of WordPress users. 

SeedProd took a different approach with their giveaway funnel. By focusing on viral sharing, they managed to triple their sales.

Their success shows how a well-designed contest can turn participants into paying customers.

OptinMonster’s story is particularly impressive. One single giveaway brought them 3,500+ new users.

They carefully planned their funnel to attract people who would be interested in their product, not just prize hunters.

Smash Balloon focused on growing their email list, and the results speak for themselves.

Their giveaway helped them add 3,584 new subscribers, plus additional benefits like increased social media followers.

Finally, look at what Agile achieved for their client – a 52% increase in email subscribers through their giveaway funnel.

This shows how giveaways can work for agencies and their clients too.

Each of these success stories shows a different way to use giveaway funnels effectively. The key is that they all had clear goals and a solid plan for engaging with participants after the giveaway ended.

Bonus Guides for Building Your Giveaway Funnel

Now, if you’re looking for even more ideas for your next giveaway, these guides will definitely get you on the right track:

• How to Write Giveaway Rules Like a Pro (With Examples)
• How to Use Good Giveaway Copywriting to Drive Entries
• How to Use Contest SEO to Boost Your Website’s Rankings
• How to Use Contest Marketing to Grow Your Business

Grow Your Business with a Giveaway Funnel

Creating a giveaway funnel doesn’t have to be complicated. With the right planning and tools, you can turn a simple giveaway into a powerful way to grow your business.

And as you’ve seen from the success stories I shared, giveaway funnels really work. Whether you want more email subscribers, social media followers, or actual customers, a well-planned giveaway can help you get there.

Ready to create your own giveaway funnel?

If you liked this article, please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for RafflePress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.