Want to know the best sources of traffic for sweepstakes in 2021/2022? In this article, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of different sources so that you can choose what works best for you.

There are many different traffic sources that affiliates use to promote sweepstakes offers. Social media, push notifications, pop traffic, Google Display Network (GDN), e-mail marketing, domain traffic, and third-party chatbots are among some of the top choices.

Let’s go deeper into some of these traffic sources. 

Social Media Traffic

Social media is one of the top traffic sources for affiliates because you can target your audience where they are most engaged. There are many social media platforms to choose from - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, and many more. 

The most valuable thing about social media traffic for affiliate marketers is the ability to target accurately. You can put your ads in front of virtually any demographic you want, to see who will bite.

As fantastic as that sounds, social networks are very picky when approving ads, and as a whole, social media is no longer the lawless space it once was. There are lots of rules and regulations and they are constantly evolving. If you want to run ads on any social media site, it’s important to look at the rules and keep up-to-date with any changes or risk getting your account banned.

The good news is, that once you learn the rules and how to play by them, an almost unlimited volume of quality traffic will be yours. 

Push Traffic

If you’re not familiar with push traffic, it essentially allows you to target people with push notifications. These are the small boxes that appear to notify you of updates, messages, missed calls, etc. If you’ve ever had a notification pop up on your phone to tell you that you have a new message, then you already know what they look like. 

Push Traffic can be bought from networks or can be generated by collecting your own database. You can do this by using scripts placed on Landing Pages. Collecting your own data always works better, however, it’s a slow process and you’ll see far lower rates of traffic when you’re starting out.

When it comes to using push traffic for sweepstakes, aggressive promos tend to burn out very quickly, so if you want a longer-running campaign, it’s best to use milder tactics. Bear in mind that there is a lot of competition in this area and traffic is generally lower quality than on social media networks.

Pop Traffic

Pop traffic is generated through pop-ups, pop-unders, pop tabs, and exit pops. They are fairly inexpensive and work well for smaller campaigns. 

Pops open new windows on your computer or mobile phone screen to tell you that you have the chance to win the latest iPhone or $1000. Pop-ups are almost as old as the internet, yet they are still going strong and they still work.

Here are the 4 main types of pops

Pop-Ups: Pop-ups appear on top of the content that the user is looking at. 

Pop-Unders: Pop-unders appear under an open window, visible only when the user closes his windows and tabs. 

Pop Tabs: Pop tabs open a new window in the user’s browser. 

Exit Pops: Exit pops are created when a user tries to exit a page.

Pop traffic is often recommended to newbies as it is relatively cheap and you can gather a lot of data for optimization. Unfortunately, pop traffic has lower retention rates for advertisers, and the quality of the traffic tends to be poor. Many pop networks now have strict rules to contend with, making it more difficult to use aggressive angles promoting free prizes. 

Pop Tip

Blacklist your sources often, as many placements can burn your budget without bringing any conversions.

Google Display Networks (GDN) Traffic

Promoting sweepstakes on Google can be a little bit tricky, with nearly all affiliate campaigns using cloaking. This is because Google considers most sweepstakes to be misleading and offering false promises, which ultimately violates their advertising rules. However, GDN allows easy tracking and helps affiliates to predict the costs of promoting offers. It’s also relatively simple to set up. 

GDN gives affiliates access to a wide range of audiences and allows for retargeting, contextual, and interest-based targeting. Generally, GDN traffic for sweepstakes will be low-reach and, when you get traffic in larger volumes, it becomes much harder to control the quality.

Third-party chat-bot Traffic

Affiliates who run sweeps through chat-bots begin by setting up a group or page, usually on a social network, which they then promote. When people engage with these groups, they will be added to the chatbot’s database, allowing the bot to send PMs (Private Messages). These will usually be surveys that, once completed, send the user a link to the sweepstake offer page. This method essentially uses the chat-bot service as a prelander, to entice the end-user with their offer.

ManyChat is one of the most popular chat-bot services and it’s relatively cheap, allowing you to pay only based on the number of subscribers you have. They also have a free version that will allow you to test the traffic out to see if it works for you. 

There were some major changes to chat-bots and Facebook in 2020, reducing the amount of interaction you can have with your subscribers, so be sure to do some research so that you understand the limitations of the service.  

Domain Traffic

Domain traffic is often ignored by affiliates but it can bring a nice amount of conversions. 

This type of traffic comes from the user typing a URL into an address bar, and ending up either on an expired domain or a typo domain, resulting in them being redirected to a landing page. It’s easy to set up and optimize, and there’s less competition in domain traffic. On the other hand, there are also lower traffic volumes and fewer advertising networks.

Want more help to find the right offers for the right traffic source? Then check out this article How to choose the right sweepstakes offers for your traffic source or contact a member of our team