Giveaway Review: Widget Failures and False Entries

In the blogging world, especially the food-mommy-kitchen-lifestyle blogging world within which I reside, giveaways are a pretty common affair. Every blog has them at least once, and they tend to strike fear into the hearts of the uninitiated. I shared my very first giveaway experience with you all, and now I’m back to share the second. This time it wasn’t as simple, but it still went pretty well indeed.

The product: This time, I was giving away a tin of a spice rub made from dehydrated craft beer. I found the company on Etsy, and was immediately interested in the product. So, I contacted the owner, and he generously sent two tins of the rub. I decided to use one for personal use and review, and then to offer the second one as a giveaway item.

The interesting thing here is the total value of the product up for grabs. Since the spice rub retails at about $6 a pop, I was able to gauge the different responses according to general price value.

The details: So, I used Rafflecopter, created a recipe to go along with the giveaway, and advertised on about 3 giveaway sites. I allowed the giveaway to run for a week instead of the two I allotted previously, and I received a total of 420 entries. That compares to the first giveaway in which the item valued for $18, the giveaway ran for 2 weeks, and I received 694 entries.

Those numbers seem pretty comparable, especially for the diminished duration and price value.

How did Rafflecopter fare?

The biggest hitch to my giveaway success was the Rafflecopter widget! That was disappointing to me since I seriously love how they simplify giveaways in general. Well, the problem wasn’t really their widget, but another plugin I use (EasyRecipe). Apparently, EasyRecipe actually deletes the key part of the Rafflecopter code required to make the widget show up.

Having problems with your Rafflecopter widget? Click here for troubleshooting

Naturally, that sucked. I contacted Rafflecopter several times, and received a lengthy, personable, and authentic response from Rafflecopter in which they described this weird retro-deleting tendency of the other plugin. So, I moved the recipe out of the plugin, and reloaded the post. This time, everything worked.

You know what that means — I’ll stick with Rafflecopter.

[NOTE: I received criticism on some online messaging boards because my previous post seemed to be too supportive of Rafflecopter to be authentic. They claimed I appeared to have an affiliation with the company. I do not. I am not an affiliate of Rafflecopter, and they don't give me any money at all. I just really, really, really like the service they offer, and am eager to review my experiences wholeheartedly. If that comes out a little enthusiastic and excited, that's a good thing.]

What about falsified entries?

I was disappointed this time around to find more fake entries. In fact, the first winner I pulled was a fake entry. They said they’d subscribed to the email list, but the email address wasn’t to be found. The next winner I drew did everything they claimed to do, and responded within 48 hours, so the end result was pretty simple after all.

When’s the next giveaway?

Well, since my blog’s Facebook page is right at the 500 Like mark, I decided to host another giveaway to celebrate that milestone. I had two products to pick from — a handcrafted basket made for the blog and a high-quality coconut oil. Instead of assuming that my readers would want one item over the other, I polled them! I asked which item they’d like to see as a giveaway first, and the winning item (the basket) is the next one.

I really look forward to running this one, as the basket was made for my site and because the last handmade item I gave away was an enormous hit.

I’ll be sure to share the details with you when the time comes! In the meanwhile, what’s YOUR next giveaway?

Rachael is a loud and sometimes goofy blogger and cheesemonger who lives in the DC area with her father and orange scaredy cat. She lives for food, but shares her freelance and blogging stories with people right here. Why? Because she loves you.