Many websites and blogs run group giveaways or have occasional promotions that are not managed from within their primary PromoSimple account, including group giveaways that may be administered by one of your partners. You can now add any giveaway to your website widget so that your users can view all of your promotions easily from your blog’s sidebar or any place else that you host your widgets. This feature provides you will complete flexibility and control over the content of your giveaway widget.

Adding an external giveaway to widgets

To add a giveaway that is not managed in your PromoSimple account click on Promote from the top navigation. Within your widget settings there is the option (shown below) to add an external giveaway. Click on ‘Add External Giveaway’ to enter the details for the giveaway that you want to show in your website widget.
giveaway widget

Parameters for external giveaways

There are few simple fields to fill out so that visitors to your website can view the giveaway from within your widget.

  • Headline: Type in the headline that you would like to have shown within the widget. This should describe the prize and entice users to click on the giveaway.
  • URL: Enter the webpage URL where a user should be directed when they click on the giveaway in your widget.
  • Start & end dates: Use the calendar to select the dates for when the promotion begins and ends. This will determine when the giveaway appears within your widget.
  • Image: You have the option to add an image; simply paste in the URL to where the image is hosted and it will be automatically resized to fit in the widget. You can view this in the list of live giveaways or by using the widget preview.

Prioritize giveaways within your widget

Once you have saved your external giveaway it will appear within the ‘Live Giveaways’ section. You can remove it from the widget by unchecking the box next to the giveaway title. You can also use the arrows to the right to change the order in which the giveaways appear within your widget. Use the ‘Edit’ link if you need to update the details of your external giveaway.

Please note that if your website widget is set to display the number of entries for a giveaway, this field will not display in the widget for external giveaways, as PromoSimple is unable to retrieve this information from a third party.

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