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Manual Sweepstakes Entries

Manually enter sweepstakes participants who aren’t program members using contest ID, name, and entry count

For legal reasons, sweepstakes often need to be open to people who aren't members of your program. There are two ways to get those entries in.


Adding One Entry at a Time

Open the sweepstakes in the admin (Rewards › Sweepstakes), select your desired sweepstake, and scroll to the Manual Entries card. Click + Add Manual Entry and fill in:

  • First Name and Last Name — both required

  • Entries — how many entries to give them

  • Email — optional

  • Phone — optional

Click Queue Manual Entry. The entry is queued for processing, so give it a moment rather than submitting twice.

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Note: if the email you enter matches a member of your site, the entry is recorded against their account instead of as a standalone name.

Everything you've added shows in the Manual Entries table with the name, email, quantity and phone. Manual entries take part in the winner draw just like member entries do.


Importing Entries in Bulk

For a stack of paper forms, use an import instead. Go to Reports & Imports › Imports in the admin, start a new upload and choose Manual Sweepstakes Entries.

Here is a sample file.

Import Format

Your CSV needs these columns:

  • contest_id — the sweepstakes to enter them into

  • first_name — the entrant's given name

  • last_name — the entrant's family name

  • entries — how many entries to give them

And one optional column:

  • email — the entrant's email address, when you have it

So a row reading 9999, John, Doe, 1 creates "John Doe" with one entry in sweepstakes 9999.

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Where do I find the sweepstakes ID? Open the sweepstakes from Rewards › Sweepstakes and read the number at the end of the address in your browser's address bar.
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Tip: a plain CSV export from Excel or Google Sheets is fine — the admin cleans up encodings, line endings and Excel's stray blank rows for you on upload.

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