Rewards

Rewards are a great way to generate interest and provide value to your users while building a personal connection.

There are a variety of options available to suit your needs, budget, and strategy, and this article aims to describe some of those options and suggest some common recommended practices when using rewards. Note that the information provided is not exhaustive. Promotions vary and therefore certain approaches outlined below may not be applicable or ideal for your particular circumstances. Please reach out to your Customer Success Manager if you have any questions.

Types of Rewards

Rewards can be classified based on their granting mechanic (odds based / always win / consolation), number and frequency (metering), and the delivery mechanism.

In addition, rewards are closely linked to certain safeguards such as entry controls and validation, and fraud and bot prevention mechanics. Let’s take a look at each of these aspects:

Entry Controls

You can control how many times a user is able to enter an experience in a given time period or overall. 

Entry Validation

If entering an experience requires the purchase of a promotional product, then the most effective means to protect against all types of attacks is code gating, wherein a unique code included on the promotional product pack or receipt is required for entering the experience. This helps ensure that only customers who have genuinely purchased the promotional product are able to enter. Code gating also marks codes as “used” to avoid the same code being used to  unloc multiple entries.

Another method is to use receipt verification which can be implemented by partnering and integrating with a third party that provides such verification services.  

Fraud Prevention

There are various means available to protect against fraud and abuse, from both human and computer-based attacks.

Captcha is an effective mechanism to prevent automated bots from performing actions. In addition, you can set up IP rate limits which make it difficult for fraudulent actors to perform actions repeatedly, as they need to generate new IPaddresses regularly.

Although the above settings prevent fraud by making it difficult for fraudulent actors, none of these techniques are fool proof. For example, an actor could use human Captcha farms to generate fraudulent entries. A key consideration for marketers is the cumulative value of multiple entries. Where reasonable value is guaranteed / likely for each entry (perhaps by giving away valuable rewards at extremely low odds or for all entrants), it can make the economics of using a human Captcha farm more appealing and increase the risk of fraudulent behavior.

IP rate limiting is another useful tool to prevent attacks from fraudulent actors. Although it can be bypassed by motivated actors, it makes it more difficult and cumbersome to do so. IP rate limiting can be enabled at both the account or individual campaign/experience level, and can be implemented differently for traffic from different countries. Please get in touch with your account manager if you wish to implement this or to find out more.

Reward Metering

To help distribute rewards more evenly across the time window of your promotion, you can specify the maximum number of rewards to be distributed in a given time period (hourly, daily or custom), and overall for the campaign. This can act as a safety net where unusually large entry volumes don’t deplete the reward pool unexpectedly, but bear in mind this may change the odds of entry and may need to be reflected in the terms and conditions of your promotion. 

In addition, you can set your promotion to allow an individual user to receive the same reward once or multiple times (during subsequent entries to the same promotion). 

Reward Delivery

Typically, instant win rewards are granted as coupon codes. The recommended practice for coupon codes is to use randomly generated coupon codes as opposed to using consecutive numbers, letters, or easily guessable patterns. Your Customer Success team can help you generate and upload random coupon codes, if needed.

If there is a reasonable risk of fraud, then it is better to deliver the coupon codes to the user separately after entering in an experience wherein a number of verification means can be used. So, instead of displaying a coupon code on the confirmation page, it can be delivered in email. This means that any fraudulent actors need to access the email inboxes used in each entry to retrieve the codes. If the rewards are physical then it minimizes fraud as they have to be posted to a physical address and fulfillment checks can take place to ensure the same address is not used excessively.

Reward Fulfillment

The fulfillment mechanic for rewards can be  an effective safeguard against fraud. The key thing to consider in the fulfillment mechanic is how easy it is for a person to obtain and then transfer the reward to someone else. If a reward can easily be sold or transferred by a fraudulent actor, particularly electronically, this can encourage fraud as these actors are motivated by the opportunity to sell these fraudulently-obtained rewards and earn money. If it is possible to link the fulfillment of the reward with your customers’ registered and verified accounts then that makes it very difficult for fraudsters to gain value from the promotion.  

Want More Information?

This article outlines some of the common considerations marketers need to take into account when they design an instant win promotion. If you have further questions or would like to discuss particular scenarios, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager who will be happy to help.

The information provided does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available here are for general informational purposes only.