3.3. Winners page and certificate of validity
1. Introduction
With Cool Tabs, you can create a sweepstake from a list of users: participants from online or offline sweepstakes, subscribers, customers, event attendees, etc.
The Random List Sweepstakes app lets you import your list of participants from an Excel, CSV, or text file, and randomly select one or several winners among them.
You'll also get a URL to the winners page with a certificate of validity, so you can publish the sweepstake results.
2. Ideas and examples
With this app, you can run a transparent, certified sweepstake from a list:
Unify online sweepstakes: combine participants from different sweepstakes (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) by downloading and merging their Excel files to choose joint winners.
Blog/YouTube comments sweepstakes: reward your readers or followers by collecting the list of commenters and importing it.
Online sweepstake for an offline event: ideal if you're organizing an event, course, or workshop and want to raffle a prize among attendees.
Sweepstake among subscribers: export your contacts from your email marketing tool and import them into the app.
3. Step by step
3.1. Create the sweepstake
1. Log in to your Cool Tabs account. If you're not registered yet, check how to create a Cool Tabs account.
2. Click the 'New campaign' button, or 'Create campaign' in the left-hand menu. If it's your first time on Cool Tabs, you'll see the app catalog directly.
3. Select the Random List Sweepstakes app.
4. Fill in the basic information and import the file:
Write a name to identify your sweepstake internally (it won't be public); this is what will appear in your campaign list.
Import the file with your participants in Excel, CSV, or .txt format. The maximum file size depends on your plan: 1 MB on the free trial, 5 MB with the Stone plan, 50 MB with Gold, and 100 MB with Diamond.
5. Map your file's columns to the Cool Tabs fields. You'll see a preview of the first rows in your file and, below it, the fields you can map each column to:
Unique identifier* (required): the column that uniquely identifies each participant, such as their email or an ID from your list. Winners are selected based on this column.
Email, First name, Last name (or Full name): optional. You can enter first and last name separately, or use the combined Full name field — you don't need to fill in both.
Winning chances: optional. If your file has a column with the number of chances for each participant, select it here (more on this in the next step).
For example, in the file shown above, Column 1 would be the unique identifier, Column 2 the email, Column 3 the first name, and Column 4 the last name.
6. Set the winning chances. By default, all participants have the same chance of winning. If you want to give some participants more chances, make sure your file has a column with the number of chances per row:
Blank cell: counts as 1 chance.
Cell with 0: that participant won't be entered in the sweepstake.
Cell with 1 or more: that's the number of chances for that user.
You can add more participants at any time by attaching a new file.
Once you've filled in the required fields, click 'Continue' to preview the imported data. If you want to keep the participants in the same order as your file, enable that option on this same screen. Then click 'Confirm and choose winners'.
3.2. Select winners
1. Click 'Step 1: Filter' to get started.
2. Set the number of winners and alternates (you can leave the alternates field at 0 if you don't want any).
If you want to keep your file's order when selecting winners, check the 'Keep the winner order from your Excel file' box.
3. Finally, click 'Step 2: Launch sweepstake'.
3.3. Winners page and certificate of validity
Once the sweepstake is finished, you'll get a link to the public winners page, ready to share and announce the result.
It includes the certificate of validity, confirming that the process was random and transparent.
Make sure to set it to public mode so participants can view it.
The page includes a button with the certificate code; participants can click it to check the certificate.
3.4. Winners video
After selecting winners, you can also generate a video with the sweepstake results, including the title, prizes, and winners/alternates.
It can be published via URL or downloaded in different formats to share on social media.
For more details, see the tutorial Winners video: how to show the result of your sweepstakes.
4. Other specifications
To import a text file (.txt), the fields must be separated by commas.
The Random List Sweepstakes app is available starting with the basic plan, the Stone plan.
To select winners, you need an active plan, either paid or trial. The trial period lets you use any plan for free for 7 days, with no usage limit.
If you have any questions, contact us at help@cool-tabs.com.
5. Related content
More information about the Random List Sweepstakes app
How to create a sweepstake on Facebook and choose winners
How to create a sweepstake on Instagram and choose winners
How to create a sweepstake on X and choose winners
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.