Featured image by Sandor.
Using WordPress contest plugins is the best way to show your community how much you appreciate them. People adore contests. They like winning cool prizes even more! Running contests on your WordPress site can bring you the desired boost in the public engagement, as well as increased chances of the efficient brand promotion on the worldwide web.
Although just the thought of running contests on your site can be daunting, no worries! There are plenty of WordPress contest plugins available in the community. 8 of the most popular free and premium solutions are our focal point today.
Top Reasons to Use WordPress Contest Plugins
There are so many reasons to run competitions on your site. First of all, they are fun. These are also a great way of attracting a wider audience and growing your community. The terms and conditions of contests may vary. Depending on the type of the contest that you pick for your site, you can expect the web users to subscribe to your email list, share the contest with their followers on the popular social media networks, encourage your visitors to check out the web page revealing your new product/service (thus driving more traffic to your site), etc. Whatever path you choose, you can expect online contests and giveaway to bring you the following rewards:
- social media promotion;
- better brand awareness;
- site traffic boost;
- the growth of the user engagement;
- increased leads;
- sales rates growth, etc.
Best WordPress Contest Plugins for Your Site
When looking for the best tools for your site that can bring you the desired results, it's always a good idea to ask for the expert advice. So I did. These are 8 of the most popular WordPress Contest plugins about which I was advised within the community.
Rafflecopter
This is one of the quickest and easiest ways to run giveaways for any brand and on any WordPress site. There is no need to be a coding pro to work with the plugin. Simply copy and paste your content. Use Rafflecopter settings to set the beginning and the end of your contest, upload and adjust the image of the prize, integrate ESPs and social media platforms, etc.
Price: $13/mo and more
Features:
- Simple installation;
- Integration with all the major social networks;
- Supports 6 languages;
- Integration with all the major ESPs.
Recently, our blog took part in a giveaway along with other blogs in the millennial space. We teamed up to give away $200 to a lucky reader. We used Rafflecopter in order to run the contest - which worked great with our WordPress.com page. As we are not self-hosted, plugins (contest plugins and non-contest plugins) can get tricky - and Rafflecopter wasn't tricky at all. We installed a code specific to our giveaway in the HTML portion of a blog post, and we didn't even have to install any additional plugin on the blog. Rafflecopter kept track of all entries - for us, and for all of the other blogs that were involved in the giveaway! The best part? Other than our contribution to the $200 prize, it cost us nothing! Mary Grace Donaldson
Founder, Editor-in-Chief, Not Another Millennial Blog
KingSumo Giveaway
KingSumo Giveaway plugin lets you set up any contest on your WordPress site in less than one minute. Simply enter your copy, show the prize, set the beginning and the end of your contest, and bring it live.
Price: $198/$594
Features:
- Give away whatever you wish;
- 100% optimized for MIT engineers;
- Scheduled giveaways;
- Buy once, use for a lifetime.
It is the BEST tool to capture email addresses when you're trying to build that email database. The plugin lets you easily create a contest where you can brand a page, ask a simple question, and then have contestants enter an email address to be eligible to win a prize(s). No to the Quo has run multiple giveaways using this plugin and each time we have received literally thousands of entries (you can earn more than one entry when you share the contest and get others to sign up. Our email database is now a few thousand people strong and the majority of that has come from KingSumo giveaway.
Kyle Willis
Founder, N2Q Consulting
WP Contest Creator
The plugin will be an optimal solution for the businesses of any size and covering any niche. The features included in the plugin range from automated and scheduled contests, social media competitions, and integration of the email list with the popular providers. The tool also provides analytics to make it possible for you to track and manage contests and collect leads.
Price: $69+/year
Features:
- Multi-language support;
- Flexible online contest software with API hooks;
- Integration with the popular email list providers;
- Standalone or embedded contests;
- Automated/scheduled contests;
- Mobile-ready;
- Social sharing customization.
I have previously used WP Contest Creator which was a great contest plugin. It was easy to use and their support was responsive. I speak in the past tense about it, though, because a faster website with less bloat is more important than housing everything on one site. Using a dedicated contest website rather than a plugin for it is important to how the most important functions of your website work.
Moving away from housing everything under one website is a must for the future even though keeping it in one website sounds like a good idea.
I know this is a bit off the specific topic but it's something I as a digital marketing agency have come to the conclusion is extremely important. There needs to be a line drawn for what is done in WordPress and what is not.
Nick Leffler
Owner, Exprance
Contests by Rewards Fuel
Install this plugin to run contests right from your WordPress site. With its help, you can not only increase traffic to your site but also build your social media following, boost comments on your posts, grow your newsletter list, boost shares, etc. Here is how it works:
Price: free
Features:
- Give away tickets, software, videos, audio links, photos, gift cards and anything else that is uploadable (up to 100 megabytes);
- Insert the contest anywhere into your blog post, no need for coding;
- Target or block certain countries from entering your contest;
- Schedule your start and end dates, set-up automatic notifications, and allow Rewards Fuel to pick your winner(s) if you choose.
- Integration with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google Analytics, YouTube, and more.
This is currently the best content plugin on the market. The free version includes plenty of functionality and works reliably for hosting social contests. Some users don't like the presence of an upgrade, but it's still more useful than the majority of other free alternatives. If you choose to upgrade, the paid version is extremely comprehensive and cheaper than other paid alternatives like Gleam. The Contests plugin works best for growing your social following whether that's on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Youtube. Also, I'm a big fan of the Digital Prizes feature which lets you grant the winner(s) access to whichever digital downloads you want.
Ben Sibley
Pick Giveaway Winner
The plugin selects a winner/winners of the contest that you run on your site from comments of giveaway posts.
Price: free
Features:
- Picks winners at random;
- Uses MySQL's random function RAND();
- You can disqualify users who entered the contest more than once.
The Contest plugin that I like and use on my WordPress-based site https://yalujailbreak.net/ is Pick Giveaway Winner. Although there are many feature-rich plugins for running contests out there, this one is perfect for me.
It is lightweight and works just as expected. It comes with a simple and easy-to-use user interface that any WordPress newbie can use. Apart from that, it has no upgrade options that other plugins often offer to unlock better features.
I would recommend this plugin to people looking to run contests on their WordPress site for free.
Luca Romano
Contest Friend
This is one of the easiest ways to run contests and giveaways on your WordPress site. With its help, you will grow your email list and build a network over the short term. This is a fully customizable element, which lets you reveal your creative approach to running viral sweepstakes.
Price: free
Features:
- Fully integrated with Google Fonts and Typekit API;
- Social sharing buttons;
- URL shortening built-in;
- Mailchimp, AWeber, CampaignMonitor and GetResponse integration;
- Easily sort, filter & export email lists to Excel
- Custom fields, entry notifications, add your own background image or video
- Unlimited contests and entries.
For the competitions, we plan on gift cards for variable services we plan on using this plug in - Contest Friend. It is a winner because it has its own algorithm to give additional privilege to people who share the content. If they really want to win they will have to click that share button because some one will! It has its own social media buttons and the option for a full customization. What else could you want?!
Daniel Thompson
Head of Marketing Tom's Junk Collectors
Wishpond Social Contests
Wishpond Social Contests is an all-in-one WordPress plugin intended to run promotions and contests alongside with other marketing services. Additionally, Wishpond offers tools to run in-depth analysis and split-testing of content variations. By doing this, you can better learn what resonates better with your audience.
Price: start from $49/mo, 14-day free trial available.
Features:
- Social media integration;
- Single/multiple winners;
- Drag-and-drop builder with multiple templates;
- Email notifications of new leads;
- 100% responsive.
WordPress InviteBox Plugin
This is a social referral program that also includes the opportunity to run contests on WordPress sites. With its help, you can set custom rules for your contests and provide various incentives like goal-based rewards, giveaways, sweepstakes, etc. In order to increase competition among the participants, you can also display the top referrer's leaderboard.
Price: free
Features:
- Instant Reward Referral campaigns.
- Referral Contest campaigns.
- Goal-Based Referral campaigns.
- Sweepstakes Referral campaigns.
Final Thoughts
When contemplating the best WordPress Contest plugin for your site, think about the goals that you pursue and the results that you want to attain. Consider your audience and the channels through which you'd like to attain the greatest boost of the user engagement. As soon as you have your competition objectives clear in your head, it will be so much easier to pick the best tool for your own project.
Now, I would like you to speak up. Have you ever run contests on your site? What plugins did you use? Did they help you achieve your goal? Please share your experiences in the comments section.
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