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New Update: Boost Social Proof with Reviews & Automation
I ran a daily giveaway on my WordPress site, thinking it would be an easy win for traffic and engagement. Small prize, minimal effort. What could go wrong?
Turns out, plenty. While traffic spiked, so did my inbox, setup time, and the number of people just chasing freebies.
So, should you host a daily giveaway?
It depends. If you go in with a plan, the right tools, and clear goals, it can absolutely work. But it’s not for everyone, and it’s definitely not set-it-and-forget-it.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through what I learned from my own daily contest, the real pros and cons, and how to make it easier using a WordPress giveaway plugin like RafflePress.
Table of Contents
Daily giveaways are contests that reset every 24 hours. People can enter once per day, either for the same prize or a new one each time.
It’s a format that encourages daily visits, unlike weekly or monthly contests, where people usually enter once and forget. With daily contests, the time limit alone creates urgency.
If you’re using a WordPress giveaway plugin like RafflePress, you can turn on daily entries in just a few clicks. No need to create a new campaign every day, simply let the entry window refresh automatically.
Daily giveaways aren’t for everyone, but they work well when you have a clear goal and the right setup.
Here’s when they make the most sense:
When planned properly, a daily giveaway can do more than boost traffic to your website, it can turn casual visitors into loyal fans. Here’s what I’ve seen work best.
A new prize every day gives people a reason to keep checking back. That regular exposure builds brand recognition and habits that last beyond the contest.
I’ve used this during holiday campaigns, and even on slower days, traffic stayed strong. That daily rhythm helped keep people engaged.
Axios Charlotte’s “31 Days of Giveaways” is a great example. They ran daily Instagram contests in December with a rotating list of sponsors.
The mix of fresh prizes and short entry windows kept followers coming back all month.
More chances to win means more chances to share. And when the prize changes daily, there’s always something new to talk about.
I always turn on the “Refer a Friend” option in RafflePress. It gives people bonus entries for each referral, and it’s driven some of our biggest traffic spikes.
Insurance Market ran a 20-day Messenger giveaway with a daily prize.
Their chatbot-based referral system brought in 6,000+ entries and 1,700 referrals, at just $0.15 per lead.
Daily giveaways let you quickly test what works. You can swap out prizes, headlines, or entry types each day, then check what converts.
I’ve used this to compare email signups vs. social follows. Tools like RafflePress and Google Analytics make it easy to see what actually moves the needle.
Pentanet’s “12 Days of Cloudmas” used a similar strategy. Each daily Instagram contest included a unique keyword and reminder via ManyChat. Over 90% of users opted in, and 87% stayed after the campaign ended.
You don’t need to give away an iPad to get attention. In fact, small daily prizes often perform better because the odds feel more realistic, and the reward feels closer.
Gift cards, digital downloads, product samples work just as well as bigger prizes, especially when they match what your audience actually wants.
It also keeps your budget under control without losing momentum. Quick wins make people more likely to come back tomorrow.
Daily giveaways can deliver big results, but they’re not exactly low-effort. Here’s what I wish I knew before running mine.
Even with automation tools, running a giveaway every day takes serious planning. You need to map out all the prizes, prep your entry actions, and schedule your promo content in advance.
The first time I tried it, I thought I could wing it. By day three, I was scrambling to get the next post live.
If you don’t plan ahead, it quickly turns into a daily stress loop.
Even the best prizes can lose their shine when every day feels like a repeat. That’s when giveaway fatigue sets in and people start tuning out.
On one campaign for the SeedProd blog, we used RafflePress and switched up the entry action each day. Instead of “Leave a Comment,” we linked to a different blog post daily.
That small change kept things fresh and spread traffic across more content.
One marketer on r/FacebookAds put it best: “You’ll get fatigue messages.” If your campaign looks the same every day, people will stop paying attention.
Some people join just for the freebies. They don’t care about your business, they’re just chasing prizes.
I’ve had daily contests that brought in thousands of entries, but most of those new emails never opened anything else.
Crazy Egg nails it: “It encourages freebie-seekers and treasure hunters… very few of whom have any interest in your company whatsoever.”
The more generic your prize, the worse this gets. Specific, relevant rewards help you attract real leads, but it’s always a risk.
If you’re managing daily entries manually, good luck. It’s easy to miss duplicates, count wrong, or accidentally reward someone who didn’t follow the rules.
I’ve seen it happen. And when it does, people complain. Loudly.
That’s why I use RafflePress. It handles everything from entry tracking to random winner selection, with fraud protection built in.
No spreadsheets. No stress.
Before you launch a daily giveaway, make sure you’ve got the right foundation. Here’s a quick checklist to keep your contest on track.
What You Need | Why It Matters |
---|---|
One clear goal | Focus your contest around a single outcome like email growth or traffic. |
A mapped-out prize plan | Plan prizes ahead of time to avoid last-minute scrambling or missed days. |
Entry actions that support your goal | Align actions like signups or shares with what you want to achieve. |
A daily promo schedule | Pre-schedule your emails, social posts, and banners to stay consistent. |
Clear rules and eligibility limits | Prevent confusion by setting expectations for how and when people can enter. |
This checklist doesn’t guarantee success, but skipping any of these steps makes it harder to pull off a smooth campaign. If you want your daily giveaway to feel easy on the outside, the planning needs to happen up front.
If you’re using WordPress, RafflePress is hands-down the easiest way to run a daily giveaway.
Instead of setting up a new contest every day, you can simply enable the daily entry option. That refreshes the entry window automatically, so people can come back and enter once every 24 hours, without any extra setup on your part.
RafflePress tracks all your entries in the background. It can also:
I’ve used it to run giveaways on both small blogs and large campaigns. It’s saved me hours of manual work and kept things fair, even when entries came in fast.
If you’re serious about testing a daily giveaway strategy, a plugin like RafflePress takes care of the hard parts so you can focus on the fun stuff.
👉 Here’s how to set up a daily giveaway using RafflePress
Daily giveaways can absolutely work, but only if they fit your goals and how much time you’re willing to invest.
They’re a strong option when you want to:
But if you’re hoping to set something up once and forget it, a daily format probably isn’t the best choice.
From my own experience, the key to making it work is planning everything up front. Know your goal, prep your prizes and promo schedule in advance, and use a tool like RafflePress to keep things running smoothly.
If you’re ready to try a daily giveaway, start here with RafflePress.
Still planning your strategy or looking for ideas? These guides might help:
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