How to launch the perfect competition for eCommerce lead generation

Wondering about the most effective eCommerce lead generation techniques?

Then you’re in luck!

Competitions are a simple and effective way to generate leads for eCommerce brands.

By offering a free product or discount in exchange for signing up for a newsletter or entering personal information, eCommerce brands can acquire a large number of leads with a minimal number of impressions.

In fact, competitions generate 119% more leads than the average lead generation campaign.

While some people might only enter competitions for the chance to win free products, the quality of these leads can be improved by nurturing them and using them in targeted sales ads.

Additionally, the rise of platforms and devices that are killing tracking cookies and imposing strict rules on data collection makes owning your own audience an exceptional asset.

Let’s go over how you can launch the perfect competition campaign and generate leads for eCommerce brands like yours!

Why you should do competitions as an eCommerce

Competitions are the most effective way to do lead generation for eCommerce brands.

In fact, they are 119% better at generating leads than the average lead generation ad.

Other forms of messaging, such as talking about new products or signing up for a newsletter, perform 13% and 27% worse than the average, respectively.

Interestingly, simply offering something for free in exchange for signing up for a newsletter is the worst performing type of messaging.

This is probably due to the fact that there is a thrill in winning something, which is why “free” isn't exciting.

Also, people might also think that free isn’t really free, as they need to give up something (personal info, sign up, etc.)

Competitions are also a cost-effective way to acquire leads, as the other types of lead generation ads performed 38% worse than the average.

The quality of leads generated through competitions is difficult to measure on Facebook, but eCommerce brands should still consider running competitions to generate as many leads as possible with a minimum number of impressions.

This is because the quality can still be determined based on the prize being offered as well as how well you’re nurturing your leads after you get them on your list.

Were you able to convert them to a customer? Can you use those leads to drive in more leads? This can go very deep.

But by far, competitions are the best message to generate leads for ecommerce brands.

Text amount for lead generation competitions

When crafting lead generation for eCommerce campaigns, it is typically best to use a high or medium text amount in order to achieve the best performance.

However, when it comes to lead generation campaigns that are running competitions or giveaways, the amount of text in the content does not significantly impact performance.

In fact, you might even get a slightly better result when using a high text amount.

This is because we don’t need to over-explain the offer.

Just a few words paired with a visual is usually enough to show that this is a competition.

Now, in general, medium text amount is the best performing for lead generation campaigns, but for competitions specifically, medium text amount is the worst performing.

However, there is only a 10% difference in performance between low, medium, and high text amounts for competitions, so it’s important to consider the context of the competition when deciding the appropriate text amount.

High text amount is the best for competitions, followed by low text amount, while medium text amount is the worst.

Learn about: Using text in eCommerce ads or How text impacts different messages

Include a call to action in your content!

While it might seem obvious that including a call to action in your content would increase its performance, this is not always the case.

In fact, in most instances, a call to action actually decreases performance.

However, this is not the case for lead generation competitions for eCommerce.

Including a call to action in the content of a competition can increase its performance by up to 36%.

This may have something to do with the fact that people need another motivator to get them to sign up other than just the content and/or text.

So consider having a call to action, whether it’s click here, sign up, fill out, etc., to increase your lead generation rate.

SInce we’re on the topic of content, let’s talk about another popular topic when it comes to what to put in your content: models.

Don’t use models when doing competitions

Usually, including faces and models in your content is a good and effective eCommerce lead generation strategy.

However, when it comes to competitions, using faces actually decreases performance.

This might be because when people are trying to win something, they are more focused on the prize than on the faces in the content.

Either way, showing humans in your competitions content is not an effective eCommerce lead generation strategy and can actually decrease performance by 8%.

Customers do not seem to care if humans are included in the content of a competition, and they do not find content with humans in it to be more appealing.

To maximize the success of your competitions, you should focus on the prize and not include faces in their content.

Highly consider running more competitions to optimize lead generation for eCommerce

By now, we've clearly established that competitions are an effective way for eCommerce brands to generate leads for eCommerce.

They are 119% better at generating leads than the average lead generation ad and are the most effective way to acquire a large number of leads with a minimal number of impressions.

The amount of text in the content does not significantly affect the performance of a lead generation competition, but including a call to action can increase its performance by up to 36%.

ECommerce brands should consider running competitions to improve their lead generation efforts.

As a reminder, every ecommerce brand has different customers and are in different industries, so do your own testing and see what results you come up with!

And don't forget that customizing your Facebook ads to include relevant information like price, discounts, and logos can be a game changer when it comes to performance!

Best practices to generate leads for eCommerce

Now, before you go, let’s sum up what we’ve learned about effective eCommerce lead generation!

Competitions work! - Competitions are actually 119% better at generating leads for brands than your average lead generation ads. They are great way to introduce new prospects to your brand and create a bit of hype surrounding your products or services.
Competitions can be cheaper! - Running competitions can be a more cost-effective strategy for acquiring leads. From our research, we found that other types of lead generation ads performed 38% worse than competition ads.
There’s really no right amount of text! - There’s a sweet spot for how much text to include in your competition ads. Using a high or low amount of text generally performs better than using a medium amount of text. However, there’s only a 10% difference in performance between high, low, and medium text amounts. So always base your decision on the context of your ad. Some ads will require more information, others will be more straightforward.
You might need to nudge prospects in the right direction! - Generally, we recommend that you avoid using a call to action in your ads as they tend to worsen performance. But when running competitions specifically, including a call to action can boost your ad performance by as much as 36%.
Stick to the facts! - When you're promoting a sales or news campaign, using models in your ads is a great way to make them more relatable and compelling for your viewers. However, using models in a competition ad can actually decrease performance by up to 8%

Dataset

The dataset from this article is based on 944M impressions and 3.4K pieces of individual content on Meta (Facebook) platforms. It takes into account data from all countries and industries, with the campaign objective of Lead Generation or Outcome Leads. The period is from 1. September 2021 - 16. September 2022.

Numbers are looking at correlation only, not causation. Remember to check your own data: numbers for different brands, industries, and contexts will vary.

If you were intrigued about a specific insight, you can go in-depth into the various dimensions and how data can be segmented in Confect, here.