How to Prevent Cheating and Secure Your Giveaways

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You’ve just launched your giveaway, and it’s looking promising.

In fact, you’re so happy because participants are rushing in to your giveaway.

You’re going to get thousands of followers.

You’re going to get thousands of leads.

Well, I don’t want to be a party pooper, but many of these participants may be bots or cheaters.

And if you don’t curb them, you can get many followers or leads that will be useless to your business in the future.

Or worse, they may even win your giveaway ahead of real people.

In this guide, we’ll talk about how to prevent cheating and secure your giveaways from bots.

I also show how you can use SweepWidget, my top recommendation for running giveaways, to execute these steps.

How to prevent cheating in your giveaways

1. Use entry requirements that are difficult to meet with bots

Let’s face it, some entry requirements are easy to game by bots and cheaters. 

For example, if people have to like your giveaway post and follow your Instagram account, you can have many bots do that.

If you use these requirements alone, your participant data may be muddled with many cheaters.

There are a few ways to combat this.

First, if you’d like to ask for a like and follow, you can also add another requirement, such as dropping a comment explaining why they want to win the prize.

This requirement will screen out many people trying to game your giveaway.

Second, you can go for entry requirements that are difficult to game.

For example, if you tell participants to create user-generated content (UGC) with a dedicated hashtag, your contest becomes much harder to game.

Here’s a Fender contest on TikTok where participants have to show their Fender gear and use the hashtag #Fender1MContest in their TikTok post.

The entries for this contest are likely to be human.

And this also leads to more publicity for your giveaway.

Although if you want participants to put more effort into your giveaway, you have to make your prize valuable.

Which takes me to the next point.

2. Offer prizes that will attract your ideal audience

If you see giveaways on Instagram or TikTok, one of the most popular prizes you’ll find is an iPhone.

I often tell people that this is a giveaway mistake.

A giveaway prize like an iPhone has mass appeal and will attract everyone.

While this can bring thousands of participants and boost your ego, it will do little for your business.

Will an iPhone prize attract people who will buy your duvet? 

Probably not.

But beyond having little positive impact for your business, a prize with mass appeal will also attract many cheaters.

How do you resolve this issue?

Use your products as giveaway prizes.

When you do this, you’re more likely to attract people interested in your products.

Here’s an Instagram giveaway by Aochuan to celebrate World Photography Day:

The prize is one of their gimbals, which means participants will likely be people interested in content creation.

If you capture leads from this campaign, they’re more likely to buy your product in the future.

3. Set up clear contest rules

Rules guide your contests, and they should state your approach to cheating.

Having clear rules will set expectations for anybody entering your giveaway.

Clear contest rules should provide information about eligibility, grounds for disqualification, and more.

They should also relieve you of any future liability.

Detailed and clear contest rules should include:

• Entry requirements
• Duration of the giveaway
• How the winner will be picked
• Winner announcement date
• Dissociation from social network platforms

If you’re struggling to create your contest rules, SweepWidget has a contest rule generator to help.

While entering the basic information of your giveaway, scroll to the Terms & conditions section and click Update terms and conditions.

You can either enter your terms and conditions or click Terms and conditions generator below the box.

All you have to do is enter details about your business and how you’d like to organize your contests. You can enter information such as eligibility requirements, age requirements, retail value of prize, and more.

After creating your contest rules, there are two common ways to present them.

If you run many giveaways, I’d advise you to have a dedicated contest rules page on your website.

This page will contain detailed information about your giveaways and contests. You can get an attorney to draft this page according to the laws of your location.

Here’s the giveaway policy page of Tap Cap:

On this page, Tap Cap provides general rules governing all its promotions.

But beyond that, you also have to list the most important contest rules in your giveaway post.

With clear rules, a cheater already knows the consequences of being caught.

4. Ban disposable email address (DEA) domains

Some email addresses are created for temporary purposes. For example, someone who wants a gated ebook but doesn’t want your emails.

People can also use these emails if they need an email address to enter your giveaway.

But there are two main issues with this.

First, people using temporary email addresses are more likely to cheat during your giveaway.

Second, even if they don’t cheat, they’re useless to you as leads because you can’t reach them after your promotion.

Whatever their reasons for using a temporary email, these people will offer no benefit to your business in the long run.

So, you have to block these emails from your giveaway.

Some giveaway tools let you ban specific email domains from your giveaway.

To do this, enter the disposable email address (DEA) domains into your tool. These domains include:

• Mailinator.com
• Guerrillamail.com
• Yopmail.com
• 10minutemail.com
• Temp-mail.org
• Maildrop.cc
• Throwawaymail.com

While this is not an exhaustive list, you can always update it as you discover more.

If you use SweepWidget, you only need to check a box to block high-risk email providers.

SweepWidget will check for disposable email services and check whether the participant’s email can receive emails.

Another way people enter giveaways multiple times is to create email aliases. 

These emails look like [email protected], [email protected], etc. All the emails will land in [email protected].

To prevent this, you can ban email addresses with the letter + in them.

Once you block these emails, you’ve reduced the number of fake emails that can enter your giveaways.

5. Restrict the giveaway to a location

While restricting giveaways to a location can curb cheating, it also helps your business in achieving its goals.

If I run a local business, I wouldn’t want people from the other end of the country in my giveaway.

Because these people are less likely to become customers.

The first step to restrict your giveaway is to specify the eligible locations in your contest rules.

But despite this, many people outside this location will still try to enter your contest.

This is where geo-targeting settings in your giveaway tool can help prevent cheating.

You can enable geo-targeting in SweepWidget in two ways. You either specify allowed locations or block some locations from entering the giveaway. 

For many of these countries, including the United States, you can also select the states or provinces eligible to enter your giveaway.

With this setting, people outside your location are unable to enter your giveaway.

6. Block entries from VPNs

Or can they still enter?

Geo-targeting settings will stop most people outside your location from entering your giveaway.

But if your giveaway prize is valuable, some people can get around the location restrictions by using a VPN.

The VPN is set to the eligible location, which gives them access to your giveaway.

Even if your giveaway is open to every location, you still don’t want VPN users in it.

That’s because a VPN user can enter a giveaway multiple times by setting their VPN to various locations.

So, I’d say it’s in your interest to block VPNs from your giveaways, no matter the eligible locations.

To block VPNs in SweepWidget, just check the box in the security section.

Once you block VPNs, you’ll eliminate some cheaters who are trying to game your giveaway.

7. Prevent a single account from entering twice

If you want multiple entries from participants, then this is irrelevant.

However, if you want a single entry from each participant, you need to take steps to ensure that.

This is especially important if you want to collect leads. This lets you clean up your list before it goes into your CRM.

But how do you do that?

One good way is to block multiple entries from a single IP address.

If multiple entries are attached to the same IP address, this is likely someone trying to cheat.

Of course, there are exceptions like people living in the same house or working in the same office. But these are rare.

To do this, visit the security section in your SweepWidget giveaway and check the Block duplicate IP addresses box.

Then, you can specify the number of emails a person can enter your giveaway with.

With this, you can restrict people trying to enter your giveaway multiple times for a better chance of winning.

8. Verify participant’s details

Bots may be good at typing names and email addresses to enter your giveaway, but they’ll struggle to verify their details.

Adding a verification layer helps screen out bots trying to enter your giveaway.

This way, only people who verify their entry become eligible participants.

In the security section, SweepWidget gives you the options to require email or text verification codes.

SweepWidget already has an email template you can edit according to your needs.

The participant will receive a verification code to enter on the giveaway page. 

Another way is to enable social media single sign-on (SSO).

This means participants can use their social media accounts to sign in to your giveaway.

Sweepwidget has social login options. 

If you want to make this option compulsory, require participants to log in with a social account.

While this isn’t foolproof, it will eliminate many bots and cheaters.

Verification may require an extra step from participants, but it makes your giveaway fair.

9. Use CAPTCHA to keep bots away

You’ve probably seen CAPTCHA on many websites.

You can also use it on your giveaways to prevent bots from entering your contests.

Captcha will rate each page visitor on their likelihood to be a bot and then trigger accordingly.

While SweepWidget doesn’t have a setting to enable CAPTCHA, it can automatically require a CAPTCHA if the user seems non-human.

10. Interact with winners before announcing them

Sometimes, fishing out a bot or cheater will require human judgment.

Some sophisticated bots can sneak through some of these security measures and emerge as the winner of a giveaway.

This is especially possible if you’ve picked a winner randomly.

However, before announcing the winner, you need to interact with them on the relevant platform.

If you’ve run an Instagram giveaway, the winner will likely have an Instagram account.

Visit their account to see what type of content they’ve published recently. Then, send a message to get some information about them.

If you’ve collected participants’ emails, send an email to the winner asking questions that a bot will struggle with.

It’s difficult for a bot to scale through this manual process.

If you find that the winner of your giveaway is a bot or a cheater, then you can pick another winner.

Once you confirm that the winner is human, announce them to all participants.

Conclusion

What is your goal when running giveaways?

Whether you want more Instagram followers or want to generate more leads, cheating will hurt that goal.

That’s why you should use the right giveaway tool to secure your promotions.

Of all the giveaway tools I’ve tested, SweepWidget is arguably the best.

Not just in terms of security features, but also in other aspects of running successful giveaways. 

But beyond using tools, a manual review can also tell you what a tool would miss. 

If you’re running giveaways today, plan for the bots and cheats because they’ll surely come.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs) about giveaway security

What are the dangers of not securing my giveaway?

Without proper giveaway security, there’s a great chance you won’t achieve your campaign goals. Because the bots and cheaters will crowd out the real people. But even more, a cheater might end up winning the prize, which would be unfortunate.

What are the most important ways to secure my giveaways?

If you’re not using a giveaway tool, set entry requirements that are difficult for a bot to meet. If you use a tool, you can require captcha, do email verification, block multiple entries from the same IP address, etc.

How do I detect and remove duplicate or suspicious entries?

Your giveaway tool can automatically detect suspicious entries. But even if it misses the entry, your manual review can fish the participant out. A tool like SweepWidget allows you to disqualify cheating participants. 

What giveaway rules can I put in place to discourage cheating without hurting participation? 

Put in rules that require human effort. For example, you can tell them to write a comment on why they want to win the prize. Another option is to create user-generated content (UGC). It’s difficult for a bot to meet these requirements. However, your prize must be valuable enough to justify the effort.

How do I choose a winner fairly when some entries may be fraudulent? 

As I explained in the guide, you’ll need to take an extra verification step. Even if you’ve picked a winner randomly, you need to visit their social media account or send an email to them. Apart from informing them about their win, you should observe and ask questions that reveal whether the account belongs to a human. You can then announce the winner after confirming they’re human.

Which giveaway tools have built-in features for detecting bots, fake accounts, and fraudulent entries? 

Most giveaway tools have security features. Two robust tools with solid security features are SweepWidget and Viralsweep. They have many security settings, including automated features to determine how likely a participant is to be a bot or engaged in fraud.