A sweepstakes is a simple way to get more out of the customers and programs you already have. It can run on top of your existing loyalty program and offers, and a sweepstakes management partner like IC Engage handles the official rules, winner verification and prizes in more than 30 countries, so there’s very little to build on your end.
You already have most of the pieces. A loyalty program your members log into, discounts and offers that bring customers in, and a database of people who’ve bought from you before.
A sweepstakes puts a prize on top of all of that and gives your customers a reason to do more of what you want them to do. Earn more points. Buy the product. Refer a friend. Come back next week.
The prize is the easy part to picture. The real work is everything that has to happen around it, in every market you run in, so every entry counts and every winner gets what they were promised. That’s the part a sweepstakes management partner takes off your plate.
Plenty of brands have tried to build that themselves and found it’s harder than it looks: the technology, the data infrastructure, the legal and compliance work, and the part nobody budgets for, which is running it live, in real time, when it has to work. That’s why it pays to have one partner and one platform, end to end.
Everything from the official rules written before launch to the prize arriving at the winner’s door. That includes:
At Home’s Design Rewards sweepstakes is a good look at the whole job. At Home was launching its new and improved Design Rewards program, and IC Engage designed and built the promotion around it, from the creative and the site through to the official rules. Once the draw is done, IC Engage verifies the winner and gets the prizes out the door.
At a bigger scale, IC Engage is the verified prize partner for Microsoft Rewards, so when a member wins, we’re the ones who confirm it and deliver the prize, whether that’s a gift card or the $1,000,000 grand prize Nate won in 2025.
Of everything on that list, the rules are where the most can go wrong, because they change from one market to the next. Canadian winners have to answer a skill-testing question before they can claim a prize, and Quebec has its own French-language requirements on top of that. It’s a big enough topic that we gave it its own piece: What Makes It Hard to Run Compliant Gamified Digital Promotions?
Handing all of that off is only worth it if the sweepstakes is pointed at something, and that starts with what you want your customers to do.
Every entry is one of your customers doing something you asked them to do. So the first decision isn’t the prize. It’s the behaviour you want more of. Start with the objective, and every dollar works harder.
Depending on what you reward, a sweepstakes can help you:
That last one keeps paying off after the promotion ends. Every entry is a customer choosing to share their details with you, and when entrants also get a clear, separate choice to hear from you again, the ones who opt in become an audience for your next offer, launch or promotion.
That data is first-party, durable and yours: a name, a preference, a behaviour or a purchase, handed to you directly and with consent. It feeds your CRM, your loyalty program and your next campaign. Advertising rents an audience. A sweepstakes helps you build one.
Whichever goal matters most decides what should earn an entry, and that’s what separates one sweepstakes format from another.
Here are the six common formats and what each one is built for.
| Format | Your customers earn entries by | Use it to |
| Classic | Filling out a simple entry form | Reach as many people as possible |
| Multi-entry | Purchases, referrals, profile updates or loyalty activity | Reward repeat actions |
| Referral | Sharing the promotion with friends and colleagues | Grow your audience |
| Purchase-based | Receipts, product codes, promo codes or transactions | Drive sales |
| Loyalty | Earning or redeeming points | Get members using your program |
| Global | Entering from any participating market | Run one promotion across several countries |
You don’t have to pick just one. In Microsoft Rewards’ $2,000,000 sweepstakes in spring 2025, members earned more chances to win by searching every week, plus up to 20 extra entries for sharing their link with friends entering for the first time.
A sweepstakes can also sit alongside a different kind of game. We helped Wild Fork with ‘Summer Sizzle’, which ran in 2023. Customers played an instant win match game for prizes on the spot, and anyone who didn’t win could still enter a sweepstakes for a $10,000 barbecue giveaway.
If you’re running a purchase-based sweepstakes, rebates are a natural partner. Customers upload a receipt to claim cash back or a chance at prizes, so the proof of purchase you’re already asking for can do more than one job. IC Engage has managed Bausch + Lomb’s Horizon Rewards rebate claims and payouts since 2017.
If you run a loyalty program, you already have most of what a sweepstakes needs. You have members, a currency they care about, and a reason for them to log in. What a sweepstakes adds is a prize worth spending that currency on.
Your members can earn entries by making purchases, collecting points, hitting milestones or redeeming rewards, so the sweepstakes rewards the activity your program already tracks.
Microsoft Rewards is the clearest example. In the Total Prize Drop, members could redeem 1,000 points for 4 entries, all the way up to 20,000 points for 60, and picked up another entry every day they searched with Bing. Points came off balances, and members had a reason to come back every day.
It works with experiences too. When Microsoft Rewards ran Rock Your Rewards, members turned their points into entries for a trip to see Gorillaz at Climate Pledge Arena, and one prize gave every member a reason to spend points that had been sitting idle.
Points can be the prize as well. In the #BingCrush sweepstakes, every approved video earned 500 bonus points, and five grand prize winners got one million points each. We broke down why that works in UGC as a Loyalty Promotion: The Mechanic Most Brands File in the Wrong Place.
A sweepstakes can also give a program a launch moment. At Home timed its sweepstakes to the launch of its new and improved Design Rewards program, and members could play daily for points, gift cards or more entries toward a $25,000 grand prize.
None of this means rebuilding what you have. IC Engage is built to work alongside existing loyalty programs, and the sweepstakes sits on top of yours. The bigger question is which member behaviours to point it at, and that’s the one we dig into in What Gamification in Loyalty Programs Is Actually Supposed to Do.
As big as your budget and your goal call for. A sweepstakes doesn’t need a seven-figure prize. It needs one your customers want enough to do what you’re asking.
The range is wide. Cash Drop gave hockey fans a shot at a $10,000 grand prize sweepstakes from their seats, across 15 teams and 78 events. Microsoft Rewards’ Total Prize Drop put a $1,000,000 cash grand prize and three Mercedes-Benz cars in front of members in more than 20 countries at once.
Whatever the size, the benefit works the same way. Every entry is a customer doing what you asked, whether that’s a fan checking in at the game or a member searching with Bing and spending points. A bigger prize can bring in more of them, but the reason to run one doesn’t change.
IC Engage builds custom prize pools to fit your budget and your goal.
Measure it against the behaviour you set out to change. If the goal was growing your database, look at qualified opt-ins. If it was sales, look at purchases and conversion. Total entries are a vanity metric: they only tell you how many people showed up.
Depending on the goal, the numbers worth tracking include participation rates, qualified leads, registrations and opt-ins, referral activity, purchase and conversion rates, loyalty program engagement, website traffic, CRM database growth and new customers acquired.
That’s what the reporting side of sweepstakes management is for. IC Engage tracks participation, engagement and customer actions in one place, so when the promotion ends, you can see what it did against the goal you set at the start.
Your customers will remember the prize. The work underneath it is the part they only notice when something goes wrong, like a winner who never gets their prize or a rule that doesn’t hold up where they live. When it’s done right, all they see is a promotion that worked exactly the way it said it would.
You already have the customers, and probably a loyalty program or offer to build on. What’s left is deciding what you want those customers to do more of. If you’re setting next year’s marketing objectives, now is the time to plan the promotion around them. Bring that to a sweepstakes specialist at IC Engage. Your brand brings the audience and the objective. We handle everything in between, from the official rules to the prize.
It’s worth a look for almost any brand with customers it wants to see more often. Start with the action you want more of, like purchases, sign-ups, referrals or loyalty activity, and build the prize around that.
Start with the objective, then match the format. To acquire new customers, use a classic or referral sweepstakes. To increase sales, use a purchase-based format with receipts or product codes. To build loyalty, use a loyalty or multi-entry format tied to points and repeat activity. To grow awareness, use a referral or global sweepstakes that reaches new audiences.
No. A sweepstakes can sit on top of a loyalty program, discounts or offers you already have, or be built from the ground up. Classic, referral and purchase-based sweepstakes don’t need a loyalty program at all.
Your sweepstakes administration partner. For Microsoft Rewards, IC Engage is the verified prize partner that confirms winners and awards prizes. Potential winners confirm their contact details, meet the age of majority and, depending on where they live and what they won, complete tax forms before the prize is delivered.
Yes. Members can redeem points for entries, or earn entries through purchases, activity and milestones. Microsoft Rewards members, for example, turned points into entries for the Rock Your Rewards trip to see Gorillaz.
Yes. IC Engage runs sweepstakes in more than 30 countries. Each market has its own eligibility rules and winner verification requirements, so a promotion running in several countries has to meet each country’s rules.
In the US, a sweepstakes picks winners by chance and no purchase can be required to enter, while a contest picks winners by skill. A contest that breaks a tie with a random draw becomes a sweepstakes at that point. In Canada, “contest” is commonly used for both, and winners of chance-based promotions answer a skill-testing question. Our compliance guide covers where these lines sit.
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