Giveaway & Digital Marketing Glossary

Abandonment rate measures the share of entrants who start a giveaway's entry process but leave before finishing it, often because the form is too long or asks for too much information too soon.

Completion rate measures the share of people who started a multi-step entry flow (such as a quiz or a form with several screens) and actually finished it, as opposed to those who abandoned partway through.

A contest rewards the best entry among participants, best photo, best answer, best video, judged against an objective criterion or by a panel.

Contest rules (or official rules) is the legal document defining every aspect of a promotion: eligibility requirements, prizes, how winners are determined, dates, and entrants' rights.

Conversion rate measures the share of a page's visitors who complete the desired action, here, actually entering the giveaway after viewing the page.

A creative contest is an operation in which entrants must produce original content (text, drawing, slogan, idea...) to try to win a prize, with the winner chosen based on the creativity or originality of their entry.

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the software tool a business uses to centralize, organize, and act on all information about its prospects and customers.

A digital scratch card is a giveaway mechanic in which the entrant scratches a part of the screen with their mouse or finger to gradually reveal whether they've won.

Double opt-in is a two-step consent process: a visitor signs up once, then must explicitly confirm by clicking a link sent to their email.

Eligibility refers to whether an entrant meets the criteria set out in the official rules (minimum age, geographic area, exclusion of the organizing brand's employees, one entry per person...), these criteria are also called entry requirements.

An entry form is the interface used to collect the information an entrant provides to sign up for a giveaway: email, name, and sometimes extra fields like city or a qualifying question.

Gamification applies game mechanics (points, levels, leaderboards, rewards) to a non-game context to boost engagement, training, sales motivation, loyalty.

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is the EU regulation that strictly governs the collection, processing, and storage of personal data, and fully applies to any giveaway collecting entrants' emails or other information.

A giveaway is a marketing promotion where a brand offers one or more prizes through a random draw, with no purchase required and no judging criteria.

Giveaway ROI (return on investment) measures how profitable a giveaway was by comparing the benefits obtained (the value of the leads generated, additional sales, visibility) against the costs incurred (the prize, the tool, promotion).

In an instant-win game, each entrant finds out immediately after entering whether they've won (virtual scratch card, wheel, instant draw) ,

A landing page is a web page dedicated to a specific campaign, designed around a single conversion goal, here, turning a visitor into a giveaway entrant.

A lead is a person who has voluntarily shared their contact details (email, phone...) as part of a marketing operation, becoming a potential prospect for the organizing business.

Lead generation is the process of collecting contact details from prospects interested in an offer, for later commercial follow-up.

A memory game is a giveaway mechanic that involves matching pairs of identical cards or tiles, often used to showcase a brand's products in a playful way.

A participant (or entrant) is anyone who took part in a giveaway in line with the conditions set out in the official rules, whether or not they end up winning a prize.

Participation rate measures the share of visitors (or people exposed to the campaign, say through an email blast) who actually completed the giveaway's entry form.

A photo contest is a contest in which entrants must submit a photograph, usually on a theme set by the brand, to try to win a prize, with the winner chosen by a jury or by public vote.

A prediction game is a mechanic in which entrants must predict the outcome of an upcoming event (sports, culture...) to try to win a prize, with the winner(s) being those whose prediction was closest or exactly right.

A prize is the item, service, gift card, trip, or any other benefit awarded to a giveaway's winner, and its nature strongly shapes the appeal and profile of the entrants it attracts.

A prize draw is the random-selection method used to pick one or more winners among all eligible entrants in a giveaway, typically run by an algorithm that guarantees a fair process.

Prize pool refers to the full set of prizes planned for a giveaway, whether it's a single prize for one winner or several prizes split among multiple winners (1st, 2nd, 3rd place...).

A promotional game is any marketing operation organized by a brand with a direct commercial objective: boosting sales, raising brand awareness, driving engagement, or collecting customer data.

A qualified lead is a prospect whose profile matches the specific criteria a brand is looking for (budget, location, product interest...), usually identified through one or more qualifying questions added to the entry form.

A quiz is a giveaway mechanic built around a series of questions entrants must answer to take part, sometimes with the winner still picked by random draw regardless of score, and sometimes with the score itself determining the ranking.

Referral marketing rewards a participant for recommending a brand to their network, typically with an extra benefit for every person they refer who also takes part.

A score-based game is a giveaway mechanic in which each entrant earns a number of points that determines their final ranking, for example by answering questions correctly or completing defined actions.

A skill game is a giveaway mechanic where the outcome mainly depends on the entrant's ability, precision, or speed, rather than chance or simple knowledge.

A slot machine is a digital animation that visually recreates a classic slot machine (reels spinning and stopping on symbols), used purely for promotional and free purposes, with no real money wagered.

Sweepstakes is the term most commonly used for a promotional prize draw governed by specific legal rules (no purchase necessary, mandatory official rules).

Outside the EU, the two most referenced data-protection frameworks in English-speaking markets are the UK GDPR (the UK's retained version of the EU regulation, kept in force after Brexit via the Data Protection Act 2018) and, in the US, state-level laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and its successor the CPRA, since the US has no single federal privacy law.

User-generated content (UGC) is any content, photo, video, text, review, created by participants rather than by the brand.

A video game mechanic is an interactive feature inspired by gaming conventions (platformer, obstacle course, reflexes...) built into a giveaway to boost its playful feel and the time entrants spend engaging with it.

A vote contest is a mechanic in which entries (photos, creations, ideas) are judged not by an internal jury but by public vote, with the winner being whoever collected the most votes over a given period.

Wheel of fortune is a giveaway mechanic in which the entrant spins a virtual wheel divided into segments, each representing a possible prize or outcome.

A winner is the entrant selected, by random draw or on merit, as the recipient of one or more prizes at the close of a giveaway.