Many siteowners want to use competitions to earn revenue from their site. Many see sites like MyOffers and Win4Now and hope to replicate their success by running competitions, but is it possible to earn money from running competitions?
Competition Sponsorship
You could ask for payment to run a competition on behalf of a sponsor. However, note that a sponsor, or PR company may donate a prize and regard that as part or all of your "payment".
Data Collection & Selling
Payment for leads is popular for competitions! You run a promotion and get paid per qualified entry by the sponsor. You may have to provide the prize, so make sure you figure your costs versus entries! Alternatively you could collect data and try and sell it - but you'll be competing with the likes of MyOffers!
Co-Registration Competitions
Data collecting sites like Plum Offers and Clash Media use co-registration to generate revenue from their prize draws. Entrants fill in their details and are then shown offers and promotions. If they sign up - you get paid.
You can pick up co-reg deals via affiliate networks! Another option is to use Easy Co-Reg which offers you lifetime revshare too!
Affiliate Marketing
We use affiliate marketing in our competitions. For example asking users to visit a site to check a price. This is a useful tool for merchant promotion, but doesn't always generate instant revenue.
If you're working closely with a specific merchant you might be able to get extra commission or payment from them in exchange for your promotion.
Adsense
Some siteowners use adsense or similar on their competition pages to try and generate revenue. Remember though that you can't force or ask users to click on the ads!
Remember though that your competition can also be used to (1) promote your website and (2) build a mailing list. You may not always generate revenue directly from a competition but it could be generating added value in other ways!
