We’ve not blogged about automated entry services for a while so we thought we’d get back on the bandwagon. We want to make sure compers and promoters are aware that they’re still around and that they’re still piling in loads of entries. Those who sign up to such services also need to be aware too! Last week one promoter complained to us that they’d picked up 15,000 “spam entries” – all disqualified – so these sites doing comps “on your behalf” are often not even getting into the hat. Surprisingly one site we were told via a marketing body was “being run down” is still running. No guesses for which one of the auto-entry services that is. Not only is it still running it’s even advertised on a comping “club” website. Perhaps when they reach 10,000 Facebook likes they’ll consider promoting it on there – we wonder how that would go down?
Win24 & Prizewise Keep Going
The others plod on as usual. Ideal World keep advertising Win24 (although the reviews are not exactly glowing) whilst 24Studio continue to push Prizewise. Despite emails to both catalogue companies we’ve not been able to illicit even an acknowledgement to our email of questions. Obviously both are happy to promote a product which in our view spams other websites based on the volume of entries each dumps on to an unknowing promoter. We’ve once again looked at the prize lists of some of the sites above and can reveal the names of the brands and sites that are still being targeted.
Sites Attracting Automated Entries
These sites are ones we think were targeted by this company. Tyrrells, Culture24, The NEC, Activinstinct, Eye of Horus, Designer Desirables, Jus-rol, Zavvi, MTV, Concord Extra, BTA Check In, Lifes A Pitch, GB Basketball, Coffechino, Travel Namibia, British Watch Company, Holiday Transfers, Pots and Pans, Lands End, Tesco, Finish, Edinburgh Bicycle, Go Ape, Visit Bath, Visit Durham, Hamleys, Animal Planet Magazine, Myla, Female First, V&A Museum, Jon Richard, Visit Norway, Elomi Lingerie, Idlewild, Butlins, Wahaca, The Tate, Colletts and many more! We think the below were targeted by these guys White Stuff, Instyle, H Samuel, Quality Meat Scotland, MetroSnow, Virgin Media, Cookeen, Woman and Home, The Telegraph, Saucy Fish Co, Teletext, Parents Lounge, Instyle, Boots, Superdrug, The Co-Op, Female First, Storm, Brides Magazine, Out & About Live, House to Home, Daisy Green Magazine, Good Homes, Pyrex, New Zealand Lamb, Sadlers Wells, Baxters Soup, Boots, Marie Claire, Activinstinct and again many more.
And There’s More
And this service went for these sites… Bill Plant Motoring, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet Magazine, Yardley London, Princes, Pocket Lint (?), Vogue (?), Female First, Family Fun Guide, Music News, Get Ready to Rock, Hamleys, Royal Academy, Finish, Music Radar (?), Real People (?) and sadly again many more. A couple of points – the lists are our best assumptions as we have to do a fair bit of cross referencing. However, we’re fairly confident that the above should be checking their databases and making sure their rules are up to date. Annoyingly some sites appear in the above list who should have had information from us about automated entries. Hopefully they’ve acted to disqualify bulk entries! We also hope the sites that we know who mention automated entries in their rules (e.g. Instyle, Woman and Home, House to Home etc) are disqualifying too. if you’re running online competitions and are unsure what to look for, then this blog gives you emails and IPs to watch out for!
Do People Win Using Automated Entry Services?
It’s important that we do a balanced article so are these paid for services any good? Assuming that they sometimes make up the bulk of entries it would be logical to assume that they’d be awash with winner announcements! Having plenty of happy customers can only lead to more happy customers (and more information for us to use against them – after all promoters do not like giving out prizes to people who can’t be bothered to visit their websites). According to Win24’s Facebook page their latest winners have received a “one year stay in a Spanish villa worth £18,000” and a “football weekend in Manchester for 2 worth £1000” – if anyone can shed any light on the competitions then do let us know! We’d love to email the promoter and give them some advice. This service does have a winners page – but it’s hard to determine what is a recent win and indeed which site the prize was won from!
Prize Draw Centre
A similar story can be found at the Prize Draw Centre where their list of winners is topped by Miss S.W. from Bedfordshire who has won a trip to Australia. Don’t get too excited though… she was also at the top of the list back in 2006 according to the web archive! Funnily enough Prizewise also don’t give away too much on their winners page, which has had a handful of additions since December 2011! Again using Wayback we can reveal that the winners page does show quite a lot of winners from – well – way back – in fact some as early as 2008! Of course they all rely on people telling them about their wins, but surely they’d be more happy customers stepping forward? And why are these services all relying on wins from years back? All questions potential new customers should be asking – but if you wish to spend your money then you take the risk!
Some Good News
Finally one piece of potential good news – we’re told that the marketing press may well be taking an interest in automated entry services – watch this space!! As ever we’d love to hear the views of compers and promoters – feel free to comment below – or drop us an email. Promoters if you’ve had bulk entries please help us help others by giving us details – we’d like to blog about your experiences too!