How to avoid fraud in your campaign

1. Introduction.

2. Our anti-fraud system mechanisms.

2.1. Blocking participations.

2.1.1. Restriction by country.

2.1.2. Restrictions by IP.

2.1.3. Restrictions by number of participations.

2.2. Blocking votes.

2.3. Validating the participant's email.

3. Other specifications.

4. Related content.

1. Introduction.

In campaigns where participants can obtain a valuable benefit (such as free samples) or in contests with voting (such as photo contests), it is common to find participants who resort to dishonest practices to get more entries and votes: registrations with different email addresses, fake emails, vote-buying...

For this reason, Cool Tabs has different mechanisms and features to control and minimize fraud, offering transparency and greater fairness to all participants in your campaigns.

2. Our anti-fraud system mechanisms.

Below is a list of features you can activate as preventive measures to avoid fraudulent participations or votes.

2.1. Blocking participations.

You can limit who can participate and how many times, by applying restrictions by country, IP or number of participations.

2.1.1. Restriction by country.

You can limit participations to one or more specific countries, so that only users accessing from the countries you define can participate. Users outside those countries will not even be able to access the participation form.

To configure it, see the tutorial How to restrict or limit participation in a campaign.

2.1.2. Restrictions by IP.

You can limit participation by IP to a set number of times, helping to prevent a user from participating with different identities (for example, using multiple valid email addresses belonging to them or family members).

Keep in mind that several users may participate from the same home or office, and the restriction could prevent them from participating.

To configure it, see the tutorial How to restrict or limit participation in a campaign.

2.1.3. Restrictions by number of participations.

You can set a limit on the number of participations per user, either for the entire campaign or for each of its phases.

To configure it, see the tutorial How to restrict or limit participation in a campaign.

2.2. Blocking votes.

You can activate different mechanisms to control voting fraud in your campaign. Go to the 'Votes' section of the campaign editor and enable the 'Enable voting on entries' checkbox.

Several mechanisms are available:

• Activate the vote limit. By default, a user can vote once for each participation. You can limit this to, for example, a single total vote or 3 if the user needs to choose their 3 favourite photos.

• Limit the countries from which votes can be cast.

• Block votes from vote exchange networks. We have built a database of users who have voted in hundreds of campaigns and likely participate in exchange networks. If you enable this option, their votes will not be accepted (they will see an "Invalid vote" message). You will also be able to identify which participants receive votes from these users.

• Block fraudulent votes. If a user tries to vote multiple times from the same computer using different profiles, we will block their votes.

• Block votes from the same IP. This feature is designed to deter users who try to vote from multiple computers with different profiles. It prevents voting again from the same IP until N minutes have passed since the last vote. Note that in offices or universities all computers share the same IP; we recommend setting an interval of 5-10 minutes.

A vote will be considered invalid when:

1. It is cast from the same computer as a previous vote.

2. It is cast from an unauthorized country.

3. It is cast from the same IP before the minimum time interval you have configured has elapsed.

4. The user has voted in a large number of Cool Tabs campaigns and is detected as likely belonging to a vote exchange network.

Invalid votes can be manually validated by the administrator from the votes panel, if deemed appropriate.

2.3. Validating the participant's email.

You can ask participants to verify their email address, preventing registrations with fake or unused emails.

After completing the form, the participant receives a validation email at the address they provided. Only once the email is confirmed will they be counted as a campaign participant.

To enable it, see the tutorial How to enable user email validation after participating.

3. Other specifications.

If you have any questions, contact us at help@cool-tabs.com.

4. Related content.

How to restrict or limit participation in a campaign.

Best practices in Instant Win campaigns.