This post is in response to our ongoing ShopABot discussion answering our members questions.

Got questions about:
– Finding profitable giveaways for your ShopABot store? Post them in comments!
– Any other marketing concerns or ‘how to’ questions? Post them on the main thread.
– Technical issues? Open a support ticket at our support desk

OR if you have no idea what ShopABot is and want to learn more, visit ShopABot here.

And now… on with the question at hand…

How Do I Find Profitable ShopABot Giveaways?

First up … literally ANYTHING can be a gift. Using ShopABot, if you already have ‘stuff’ that is still boxed up that you’ve got lying around in your closet ..um… start with that… regift it… haha

If it’s a product still available for sale on Amazon, look it up, find the code for that product

Where do you find the code?

If you’re just searching around Amazon and find something that checks all the boxes as a great contest prize you can get the code just in the product URL.

You’ll need to copy the string of random digits/letters. If you look at the website address you’ll see amazon.com, then the name of the product and sometimes something else… (in this case dp), ignore all of those and go for the first random collection of numbers or letters you see in between / and /

Like what you can see here:

Or use our inbuilt Discover system.

As a member you can use our discover viral products tool (if you’re not a member, check out ShopAbot here)

Here are some ideas – for prizes that would work well. (click it if you want to see it a bit bigger)

Obviously, you need to choose something that will work best for your target audience – and something that’s within your budget – but if you are fairly certain that it’s something that is being talked about, shared and liked like crazy – you know you’ll be able to get interest fairly easily.

How much should I spend?

This is a tricky question and really is up to you. First up, I’d like to stress… that you DON’T need to spend a lot of money – it’s funny, but often a $10 prize will get almost as attention as a $100 prize. It really depends on your audience.

Start with something low – and run the contest for a while, the one i’ve set up is running for a whole month.

I’ve spent $100 on my prize because, as I’m using the pro version I’m able to capture the email addresses and I’m confident i’ll be able to get a LOT more than a few hundred leads with this contest – which works out to quite a low cost per lead price.

You DO NOT have to spend $100 to have a very successful campaign. Some of ours have been with much lower prizes – and have yielded over 7,000 subscribers.

The main thing to think about when choosing a gift is:
– Is it something people want
– More specifically, is it something your chosen audience wants
– Will it be cheaper than paying for leads/traffic and how much are you willing to test on it?

And… a fun one to think about too…
– Is it something they are likely to want to buy even if they don’t win it

Once the draw has finished, you can contact them with info about the contest winner and, since they’ve already shown an interest in that product – put together a special incentive for them to buy it, give them a bonus when they purchase or find a similar one at a discounted price.

Well, there you have it! I hope that answers your question.

I’d like to mention something you’ve probably heard me say before, but don’t overthink it TOO much.

Choose a product that’s something your audience would like
Write up some relatively enticing contest invitation sentences for the page and…
Get it live

You might get lucky with your first campaign, a lot of our members do! But even if you break even on the first campaign, you’ve already begun building a very targeted audience for your second campaign – each time you do it you’re building on the previous success, learning and growing each and every day!

And… don’t forget to have fun! 🙂

As always, if you have any questions let me know – we’re here to get your campaigns kicking butt and working for you! Share your questions, concerns and success stories in the comments below – talk with you soon.