Why You Should Use Unique Codes in Your Next Instant Giveaway

Immediate gratification…That’s what many of your customers are looking for. They want rewards, discounts, and prizes now, not in a month, week, or day.This is the power of instant win giveaways.Instant win giveaways reward selected participants with an immediate reward upon entry. Most commonly, these instant rewards are unique codes for discounts, special deals, or hidden prizes.By distributing rewards instantly, it satisfies the customer’s desire to win in real-time. That positive feeling of winning inspires people to take action right away. Increasing the chance that they will use the secret code they have just uncovered.However, when you run an instant giveaway, it’s not as easy as creating a coupon code and revealing it to all the winners. In fact, this approach lacks personalization and opens you up to fraud.Instead, you should aim to distribute unique codes to all winners.

What are unique codes?

Instead of using generic codes as rewards in your giveaway, such as “Discount20” for a 20% discount, the concept of unique codes allows you to distribute unique codes to all winners. Each code distributed is slightly different and designed to be for single-use. This means each winner has their own code that can’t be duplicated or shared - making them feel valued and special.Providing unique codes also allows you to easily offer multiple prizes, track redemptions and personalize the customer experience. As you can see in the example below, codes don’t necessarily need to be for coupons, they may be used for other prize redemption or tracking purposes.

Alternative use of codes.Starbucks recently ran an instant win giveaway for a lifetime of free coffee, but they also included a range of other low-cost prizes to excite their customers with unique codes for redemption:

Starbucks instant win giveaway.Why would you use unique codes instead of generic ones? Here are 6 reasons.

1. Minimize the chance of fraud

The major problem with generic codes is the chance that they will be used in a manner that you don’t intend. For example, if the code you choose is easy to guess, then people could redeem the reward without entering the giveaway and providing their contact information simply by guessing what it is.Or, even worse, people who receive the code could use it multiple times under different aliases, significantly affecting your margins and return on investment from the campaign.Single-use unique codes protect your business against their misuse.

2. Eliminate the ‘sharing’ factor

Leading on from the first point, generic codes are easily shared between friends, family, and even on coupon sites and other online forums. Of course, for some businesses this word-of-mouth marketing may be exactly what you are looking for. In that case, generic codes could be something to consider.However, for most businesses, instant win giveaways are used to generate leads and track the buying behavior of participants. By creating single-use codes that are unique to all giveaway winners, it eliminates the risk of them sharing that code with other people because each code can only be used once.

3. Heighten the customer experience

The first two reasons for using unique codes in your instant giveaways are more about risk management. But the real benefit comes down to the ancillary improvements these codes can have on your marketing efforts.For starters, the use of unique codes heightens the customer experience. Think about it, if you enter an instant giveaway and the prize is an obviously generic coupon code, how do you feel? It makes entrants feel like another cog in a machine. Alternatively, if each code is uniquely assigned to a prize and the participants know that only a certain number of each prize is available, they recognize that the code they have received is truly special.This sense of exclusivity and individual personalization creates a buzz with those that win, increasing their engagement with the campaign and the subsequent follow-up experience.

4. Lay the groundwork for marketing personalization

Personalized marketing experiences are on the rise. In fact, 80% of online shoppers are more likely to buy from a company that offers a personalized customer experience.Distributing unique codes enables you to track their redemption and the individual buying behavior of each winner. This information is extremely powerful as you attempt to personalize the marketing experience in the future. Whether that be with future giveaways, standalone flash sales, or marketing automation sequences.

80% of online shoppers are more likely to buy from a company that offers a personalized customer experience.

5. Track and assign code redemptions

Another issue with the potential fraud and sharing associated with generic coupon codes is the lack of trackability. It becomes extremely hard to determine who has redeemed each reward, where they accessed that code, and subsequently, where you should invest your budget next time around.With unique codes, you can track and assign every single redemption, tracing them back to the specific customer and campaign. This helps you improve the follow-up process to increase code redemptions and determine the return on investment from each campaign.

6. Better manage affiliate and influencer campaigns

It’s extremely common to promote an instant giveaway with social media influencers or affiliates and other partners. It makes sense, you are partnering with an already established figure that your potential customers trust and respect.Of course, tracking influencer and affiliate campaigns can be complicated. It’s hard to determine what is working and what isn’t. Unique codes provide an additional layer of segmentation and customization to your campaign. Not only can you personalize the experience for each individual partner and their audience, but you can also trace all code redemptions back to the source.

Getting started with unique codes

Ready to get started with unique codes and instant giveaways?The ShortStack Prize Manager will help you every step of the way.With the Prize Manager, you can:

• Award multiple types of prizes - instead of the same prize - to everyone;
• Distribute unique coupon codes to winners;
• Add, edit or remove prizes/coupon codes while your contest is running; and
• See who won which prize and when.

Check out this tutorial video on how it works on the backend:

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