How to measure ROI of your sweepstakes campaigns

See the real value of your giveaways – beyond likes, follows, and buzz

Sweepstakes always promise quick returns in terms of social buzz, customer engagement, a new audience, and a bigger email list. However, at the end of the campaign, you then need to answer a very important question: what is all worth it? In other words, was your budget really well spent, or should you have gone with a different strategy?

You can’t really answer this by simply looking at your social accounts, so you need to calculate the return on investment (ROI). This is essentially just what it sounds like (value for every dollar spent), but it goes beyond a simple formula, as there are different giveaway metrics.

In today’s guide, we’ll focus on the different aspects and show you how to calculate your marketing performance and the ROI of your sweepstakes.

Set clear goals for your campaign

Are you after leads, sales, engagement, or reach? ROI won’t mean much if you aren’t sure what success actually looks like, as you may focus on the wrong metrics.

So, start by focusing on the main purpose of the campaign. It may be:

• Growing your email list with new, qualified leads.
• Driving traffic to your website or a specific product.
• Boosting your social media engagement (follows, likes, comments, and shares).
• Creating user-generated content (UGC).
• Boosting your direct sales.
• Improving brand visibility in a new market or demographic.

Each of your goals should shape the campaign and determine the right engagement metrics. However, you should also avoid the common mistake of focusing on too many of these in an attempt to boost the ROI. One or two primary ones should be enough.

Track all costs involved

To improve the accuracy of your ROI math, you need to have a clear picture of what you really spent. However, since you’ll need to optimize future campaigns, focus on the costs of specific items (not just the total budget).

This should start with the direct expenses:

• The prizes
• Paid ads
• Landing page or giveaway platform fees
• Agency fees.

You can then move to other costs like:

• Design work
• Copywriting or email setup
• Software subscriptions
• Team time (planning, promotion, support, analytics).

Even if some of these weren’t billed directly (like team time), they are still a part of your campaign.

Track campaign-specific metrics

Once your campaign is live, you now need to track the giveaway metrics. However, you should be keen to ensure that the numbers you track align with the goals you set.

Some key metrics to track are:

• New Leads Collected – New email subscribers or contacts you gained. It’s the most important number if you are looking for lead generation.
• Cost per Lead (CPL) – This is the amount you spend divided by the number of leads. If it’s low, it shows your campaign was efficient.
• Website Traffic Metrics – Use analytics tools to see how much traffic came from your campaign. Here, you need to have the numbers for unique visitors, bounce rate, and time on page.
• Conversion Rate – Out of the visitors, how many actually completed a desired action? It may be signing up, redeeming a code, or making a purchase, and it shows how persuasive your campaign was.
• Social Media Engagement – Here, you need to look at the likes, shares, comments, and new followers. Great for measuring brand and product visibility.
• Promo Code Redemptions – If you offered a discount or reward, how many people actually used it?
• Hashtag or UGC Activity – If you encouraged people to use a specific hashtag, how many took part?

You can tag all campaign links with UTM codes to see exactly where your traffic is coming from.

Do the math: ROI formula for your sweepstakes

Once you have the data on the campaign performance, it’s now time to calculate the ROI.

The basic formula is:

ROI = (Net Return – Total Cost) / Total Cost × 100

However, not all sales from that month are directly from your campaign, so the return should not factor in your usual sales or traffic.

For example, let’s say your store makes an average of $1,000 a month. And during the sweepstakes month, you made $3,200 after spending $1000 on the campaign.

This means that your ROI = ($2,200 – $1,000 campaign cost) / $1,000 × 100 = 120%.

But if the sales were growing at an average of 5% for the last 12 months, you should also subtract this from the returns.

Measure Customer Value Beyond the Campaign

Naturally, not all benefits of a sweepstakes show right away. In fact, only metrics like shares and followers can be considered complete after the campaign. If your goal is to collect leads, your benefits will show up over the long term.

This means that you should continue tracking performance metrics over several months to see which leads turn into actual customers and which ones buy again.

Looking for real, measurable results from your sweepstakes?

At Promosfera, from launch to reporting, we help you focus on the metrics that matter, so that you can see exactly what your campaign delivered and how to improve the next one. Let’s make your next giveaway count!