You're making a huge mistake if you enter sweepstakes but don't keep track of your reward wins. When you have a system in place, monitoring your prize wins takes just a few seconds, and will help prevent challenges in the future. It's also motivating to see all of your prize wins in one place. So, how do you keep track of your winnings? Start with creating a simple spreadsheet. Once you’ve done that, here are the details you'll need to keep track of:
The date you won the prize
The day you won the prize is the first thing you should keep track of. This will allow you to find out when the prize is due. This is helpful in cases when the prize will arrive a certain period of time after your win, as opposed to right after the giveaway ends. It will also make sorting your prizes in the order in which you earned them much easier.
Make a note of the sweepstakes sponsor and fulfillment company
This not only makes you recall which giveaway you received a prize for, but it also reminds you of who you can email if there is a problem receiving the reward.
Which reward will you receive?
Describe the reward you expect to receive. It's a good idea to check the sweepstakes rules or your winning notification to see what you can expect.
Entry frequency
You should keep track of the entry frequency of the giveaway you won. This will help you to figure out which types of sweepstakes work best for you. If single-entry or regular sweepstakes are more successful for you, you can focus your attention on such giveaways and win more prizes.
Time of your win
You can record the time of day you won to see if entering sweepstakes in the morning, evening, weekends, or holidays pays off better for you.
Win notification
Some people enjoy keeping track of not just their winnings, but also how they learned about them. It could be useful to see if more sweepstakes updates arrive by mail, phone, email, social media, or another form, so you can find out which ones you should pay attention to.
Where will the prize be delivered?
To figure out when your reward will come, look at the sweepstakes rules or your winning email. Then, on your reward tracker spreadsheet, make a note of the anticipated arrival date so that if the prize doesn't come within a couple of weeks of the due date, you'll remember to contact the sponsor.
