Automated entries into contests and sweepstakes.

Contest and sweepstakes hints and tips #10.

Article September 2003 © Copyright Lots of Luck Advertising

Visit www.lots-of-luck.com for more contest and sweepstakes hints and tips, as well as access to lots of contest and sweepstakes entries.

The advent of computers and the Internet has opened up a new world of opportunities for contests and sweepstakes:

• To search for contests and sweepstakes online, and to gather information about them.
• To enter contests and sweepstakes online, and often they are made fun through interactive games and participation.
• To have various companies, organizations, or individuals enter contests and sweepstakes on your behalf.  The automated entries.

There are now lots of companies, organizations, and individuals, that for a nominal fee (some may even do it for free) will enter your name and personal information into vast numbers of contests and sweepstakes.  It is relatively easy for these companies to do this, as it is all done through computers and programming.  It is also relatively tempting for individuals entering contests and sweepstakes, to subscribe to this service, as what they are buying is someone or something else (the computer) to do the work of entering the contests and sweepstakes on their behalf (ie. filling in the personal information onto the online forms, and clicking 'submit').

However, there are a few potential pitfalls of this automated entry process:

• You don't have any control over what contest or sweepstakes you are entered into.  You may want to boycott some contests or sweepstakes due to personal, ecological, moral, religious, or other reasons.  Most automated entry process don't allow you to pick and choose which contests and sweepstakes that you do or don't want to get entered into.
  
  
• Read through the rules and regulations of numerous contests and sweepstakes, and you will find more and more of them state that any entries through automate means will disqualify the entrant.  Not to say that the majority of contests and sweepstakes have this rule, but there seems to be an increasing trend.

What sponsors of contests and sweepstakes want, are real people going to their web sites, and manually entering the required information.  In this way, the sponsor has half a chance that some of the people entering the contest or sweepstakes may check out more of their web site, and may become a customer, or a repeat customer.  If a computer program submits the entries, then the sponsor loses potential sales.

Use your judgment.  If you really don't have the time to enter contests and sweepstakes manually, and don't mind paying someone else to do it for you, and don't mind sometimes being disqualified from some contests and sweepstakes, then the automated process may still work for you.

These hints and tips articles are listed as guidelines only.  They are listed as information to help you to develop your own strategy in entering contests and sweepstakes. Click on a hints and tips article from the list below, and you will be taken to a more detailed page:

Contest and Sweepstakes Hints and Tips

1. Always read and follow all the Rules and Regulations of any contest or sweepstakes.
   
2. Keep a journal of your entries into contests and sweepstakes.
   
3. More important things to be aware of.
   
4. Where to find contests and sweepstakes.
   
5. A trend in rules and regulations.
   
6. Original entry forms only.
   
7. The best time to enter contests and sweepstakes.
   
8. Be aware of scams.
   
9. Dedicated contest and sweepstakes sites.
   
10. Automated entries.
    
11. The 'UPC'.
12. The four leaf clover.

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