Questions Covered
Click on any of the links below to jump to the desired question:
- How is a reward chosen on entry?
- Is it possible to allow users to win the same reward repeatedly?
- Is it possible to show a 'Better luck next time' style message when they don't win a prize?
- Can I define a 'Congratulations' style message too?
- Is there a way to notify users that we have invalidated an entry (and prize)?
- What happens when I invalidate a user that won a prize?
- Why is my experience not issuing rewards to users?
- How do I review how many rewards have been won?
- How can I export the data for users who have won a reward?
- I have reward(s) setup as Custom Time Window (CTW) / Hourly or Daily, the reward(s) seem to be occuring too infrequently/frequently?
- What system is used to qualify a user as a winner using an Odds setup?
- Can you give me an example scenario of how the odds winning method works?
- Does the Winner Management tool manage rewards too?
How is a reward chosen on entry?
Rewards are distributed as follows. Note that each user can only receive one reward per entry.
Time-based Rewards
- Start with time-based rewards (i.e. daily, hourly or custom time-window rewards)
- Check if a time-based reward is available (i.e. if user is first to enter after a winning moment)
- If there is a time-based reward available, assign it to the user
- If there are multiple time-based rewards available, assign the oldest winning moment to the user
- If there are no time-based rewards available, move on to evaluate odds-based rewards (below)
Odds-based Rewards
- Order the odds-based rewards from least likely to win to most likely to win
- Start with the least likely to win reward
- Generate random number to see if the user has won. If so, assign the reward.
- If the user does not win, go to the next least likely to win reward
- Generate random number to see if the user has won. If so, assign the reward.
- Continue this process through all of the rewards
- If the user hasn't won an odds-based reward, move on to evaluate "Consolation rewards" (below)
Consolation Rewards
- If an "consolation" reward is available, assign the reward to the user
- If there are multiple "consoaltion" awards, select one at random to assign to the user.
Notes:
- We will exit this process as soon as a reward has been assigned (one reward per entry).
- By default, rewards are non-recurring (a user cannot win the same reward more than once).
- During the process outlined above, we will skip any non-recurring rewards that the user has already won during previous entries and continue looking for a new reward to assign.
Is it possible to allow users to win the same reward repeatedly?
Yes, open the Rewards screen in your experience and click Edit on the reward you want individual users to be able to win multiple times. At the bottom of this screen you'll be able to enable the option Grant this reward repeatedly. Remember to save the changes once you've set this at the top fo the page.
Is it possible to show a 'Better luck next time' style message when they don't win a prize?
Yes! Open Pages and edit your confirmation/thanks page. You should see the Rewards module present: click Edit and switch to the Copy tab. Here, you'll see the option to set a No Reward Granted message and image.
Can I define a 'Congratulations' style message too?
You can! Open Pages and edit your confirmation/thanks page. You should see the Rewards module present: click Edit and switch to the Copy tab. Here, you'll see the option to set a Reward Granted message and image.
In addition you can also set a Winner Confirmation Notification. This email notification is sent to entrants that are lucky enough to win a prize / reward / coupon. To help personalize the email, you can use tokens to add entrant details as well as describe the reward they received.
This is available in the Advanced > Customize > Entry Notifications area.
Is there a way to notify users that we have invalidated an entry (and prize)?
Yes, we have an entry notification called Entry Invalidated Notification. This notification email is sent to entrants that you invalidate from the Entries grid. This lets a user know that their entry didn’t meet the terms and conditions prior to prize fulfilment (In the case of a reward coupon, remember that the coupon will have already been displayed to the user on entry so should be considered "used").
The prize itself will still be marked as allocated by the platform, see 'What happens when I invalidate a user that won a prize?' below for more details on this.
What happens when I invalidate a user that won a prize?
Firstly, it's important to note that we do not alter the prize allocation in any way when you invalidate a user. The points listed below cover the main actions that occur:
- When an entry is invalidated, it is taken out of the ‘entry pool’ (and placed into an 'invalidated pool'), meaning it is no longer in the Experience Export.
- The entry will no longer be eligible for Winner Management draws.
- Any UGC submitted with the entry is moved to a rejected state and is no longer displayed (if it was previously published).
- Any UGC votes the entrant received will still be present in the system so can be seen from a Collection export that includes rejected content.
- If the entrant won a Reward, the reward will remain allocated, this means that it will remain deducted from the maximum count, but it will no longer be present on the redemption / reward export.
- If the reward needs to be made available again, you will need to increase the availability of the prize accordingly (typically via the maximum number of rewards value).
- If it was a coupon reward, a new coupon CSV file will need to be uploaded (containing a number of coupons equal to the number of coupons won and invalidated). When you upload new coupon codes, these are added to those already uploaded and available to be granted (it is additive).
- An entry invalidated email notification will be sent only if configured (not configured by default)
- Insights will remain unchanged, the entry, views and reward numbers will not be compensated.
Why is my experience not issuing one or more rewards to users?
There could be a number of reasons for this, we will cover this in a number of points:
| Issue | Resolution |
|---|---|
| The Form has no Email field or the Email field has not been set to Required. |
Without an Email field (or a required email field), every entry is considering anonymous which in turn means the platform will not be able to track and issue rewards correctly. Add an Email field and set it to Required on your form. |
| With a Custom Time Window reward, the Grant From / Grant To date range is not in-date. | Entrants will be unable to win a reward that is not available. Consider creating a new reward if you need to reward users in a different time window. |
|
With a Custom Time Window reward, the Winners during time window value has been reached. |
Consider creating a new reward if you need to distribute additional rewards in what remains of your chosen time window. |
|
The Uploaded coupons have been exhausted. |
You will need to upload more coupons from a CSV file to the reward (this is additive and will not replace any existing codes rewarded or otherwise available). Increase the Maximum number of rewards to adjust for the newly uploaded codes. |
|
The Maximum number of rewards has been reached. |
Increase the Maximum number of rewards as required. |
|
I have set Quiz Score Range value on the reward. |
Ensure that the score is possible by reviewing the score range shown within the results section of your form. This is an additional requirement setting meaning all other prerequisites must be satisfied also. |
|
Rewards are being given out at times that don't match my timezone or rewards appear to be under or over allocating an hour either side of the day. |
Ensure that the Timezone under Account Settings is correct. Also note that Daily distribution will be impacted by daylight saving, moving a day cycle between 23 and 25 hours depending on the daylight saving adjustment. Remember that daily and hourly rewards "rollover" any remaining rewards to the next time period which may impact the totals for each day or hour. |
How do I review how many rewards have been won?
- If you need to just check an 'at a glance' total for your reward allocations you can open the Insights area within the Experience and scroll down to Rewards to see the totals (this data is not provided in real-time). The date range slider will not affect the display totals in this section.
- For an an accurate view, up to the moment the report is generated, you can visit the Export area and scroll to the bottom section to Export granted rewards, from here you can click Export all to receive a list of rewards allocated with the basic entrant details. Note that you need to have data export permissions to see this option.
How can I export the data for users who have won a reward?
We keep a record of who has entered and who won what. If you need to fulfil prizes or further process the data collected, you can download the necessary records from the Export area. The reward details are also visible in the Entries area. If you prefer to use our Export REST API to export entry data for users with granted rewards, please visit the relevant documentation here.
I have reward(s) setup as Custom Time Window (CTW) / Hourly or Daily, the reward(s) seem to be occurring too infrequently/frequently?
Using the Daily / Hourly / CTW reward setup can give the impression that rewards are not being won or are being won all in a short period of time, this is normally caused by a low entry rate or by sudden spike in entries.
The platform randomly selects your chosen number of 'winning moments' throughout the time-period (e.g. 10 winning moments per hour).
If the entry rate is very low or stagnant, a number of 'winning moments' can pass without any entries in-between them. In such cases, the system will allocate these rewards to the next people to enter within the active time-period or will roll them over into the next time-period. When entry rates increase, it can appear initially as if the rewards are being allocated too quickly. Conversely, if there is an entry spike, the win-rate might appear to 'slow down.' In both cases, no adjustment is being made, the system is simply following the rules that were outlined in earlier in this FAQ "How is a reward chosen on entry?".
For Daily and Hourly, any rewards that are not granted by end of the active time-period will be rolled over to the next day or hour. The platform will then randomly select new winning moments for all of the rewards allocated to that time-period... including any that were rolled over. The platform will roll-over rewards across multiple time-periods, if necessary (e.g. from Tuesday, to Wednesday, to Thursday...)
What system is used to qualify a user as a winner using an odds-based setup?
A random integer (generated using a pseudo-random number generator) is picked between 0 and 1. This is a double number, with high precision. If the number picked is below the odds threshold for the prize in question then it results in the prize being granted. For example, in the case of having the odds set to 100:1, a number generated less than 0.01 would qualify the entrant to be a winner.
See the FAQ "How is a reward chosen on entry?" for more details.
Can you give me an example of how the odds-based winning method works?
Yes certainly, in this example, we have 3 rewards:
- TV, with odds of 1 in 10,000
- Mobile phone, with odds of 1 in 1,000
- $5 credit, with odds of 1 in 100
When the user enters the experience, we check against each reward in turn, starting with the reward with the longest odds (in this case, the TV, then mobile phone, then $5 credit).
For each reward, we generate a random number between 0 and 1, and review this against the odds.
So, in the above example:
- We generate a random number between 0 and 1 with high precision.
- If the generated number is 0.0001 or less (i.e. 1 in 10,000 entries), the user wins the TV
- If the user has not won the TV, the reward logic will move to the next prize, in this case, the mobile phone. We generate another random number and if the number is 0.001 or less (i.e. 1 in 1,000 entries), the user wins the mobile phone.
- Lastly, if the user has not won either the TV nor the mobile phone, the reward logic will move to the next prize, in this case to win the $5 credit. We generate yet another random number and if the number is 0.01 or less (i.e. 1 on 100 entries), the user wins the $5 credit.
- If this last random number was higher than 0.01, the user would have not won any prize at all.
Does the Winner Management tool manage rewards too?
The Winner Management tool and the rewards system are separate features with different purposes. You will not be able to review rewards via the Winners section of your experience. For more information on Winner Management and how to draw winners please see this article.