Tyler’s Cash Giveaway Results
October 19, 2008 Posted by Tyler CruzTwo days ago I launched Tyler’s Cash Giveaway!, a very simple contest in which I’m giving away a total of $550 in cash. Well, it’s already Sunday and so the contest is already over.
I’d like to thank everyone who subscribed and participated in the contest. If you didn’t win, now that you’re subscribed, you’ll automatically be eligible for any future RSS contests I have and may end up winning something without even knowing you were entered into it!
I used Random.org to produce the following 3 random winners from the RSS by E-mail and Newsletter categories (I’ve left out the domain part of the e-mail addresses for spambot and privacy protection):
RSS by E-mail Winners:
- 1st place: $100 – jphabaradas
- 2nd place: $100 – romefeeds
- 3rd place: $50 – kris
Newsletter Winners:
- 1st place: $100 – chris
- 2nd place: $100 – gareth1989
- 3rd place: $100 – kurt.walther
Congratulations everyone! I’ve e-mailed each of you to get your PayPal addresses and will send you your free cash out as soon as you get back to me.
In the event that somebody does not get back to me within a week, I will redraw a winner to take their place.
The Rich get Richer
I personally find this hilarious but some of you may not. You see the 3rd place winner, kris? Well that’s actually Kris Jones, CEO of the Pepperjam Network! He’s already a multi-millionaire and now he’ll be another $50 richer, lol…
He won because he’s apparently a subscriber to my Feedburner RSS by E-mail list which he signed up to a long time ago, not specifically for this contest (obviously). I’ll see if he’s willing to forfeit the cash and let another person win it, but he won it fair and square so it’s completely up to him.
Thank you MarketLeverage!
This contest would not have been possible without MarketLeverage inviting me to participate in the Cashinator Showdown in Vegas last month.
I worked hard to gather up all those hundreds of bills, but MarketLeverage are the one’s who put UP those hundreds of bills!
In addition, I’d like to thank John Chow, Shoemoney, and Zac Johnson for each throwing in $100 of their own cash as well 🙂
Effects of the Contest
Who said you needed to run a huge contest and make it a big production? From time to time I run very quick and simple contests like this one and they’ve all seem to have gone well.
Two days ago, I hit a new RSS record of 1,751. This was only an increase of 3 over my previous record, following the very slow but gradual growth trend of my blog’s RSS subscriber count.
I knew even before launching this contest that it would increase my RSS count. However, I was thinking it would be more along the lines of around 100 or maybe even 150, making the total 1,850-1,900.
So when I refreshed my RSS yesterday to see what it came to after just 24 hours of launching the contest, I was very surprised.
After just one day, my RSS exploded from 1,751 to 2,130! That’s an increase of 379 RSS subscribers OVERNIGHT! It just goes to show you that running a very simple contest from time to time can do wonders for your blog.
If you equate the cost of the contest in terms of RSS readers, it would come out to a $1.45 cost-per-acquisition which is very cheap. You’d be crazy if you’d turn down buying 1,000 RSS subscribers for only $1,450.
The new subscribers account for 17.8% of my new RSS total, which is a LOT for a simple 2-day contest.
The majority of the increase was due to new Newsletter subscribers. At the time I launched the contest, my count was at 18. 101 people signed up that same day. My new Newsletter count is currently at 123!
There’s one thing that’s bothering me though. See, if you set up AWeber to send out blog broadcasts, then Feedburner is supposed to add those subscribers to your total RSS count. However, the numbers don’t seem to add up.
For example, here is the total count of my AWeber count according to Feedburner the day the contest launched:
And here’s the results from the following day:
First off, I know that I subscribed around 42 new registrants to the Feedburner E-mail subscription service, but it’s only showing 1 new one. More importantly, however, is the huge increase seen in the AWeber numbers.
It jumped from 179 to 415, an increase of 236 when AWeber itself says I registered only 123.
The only thing I can think of is that since most people registered for the first time on the 17th, AWeber sends a couple e-mails to conduct the confirmation process of a new lead. Perhaps Feedburner is counting each of those as a separate count. But when I’ve seen other bloggers add the AWeber Blog Broadcast to their blog, I didn’t notice them having a short influx of RSS subscribers then see it lowered immediately afterwards, so I’m not sure what’s going on here.
I think I may never know the answer, and it’s just one of those statistical anomalies that can’t be accounted for in some online programs.
But enough analyzing….
I can’t believe I finally hit the 2,000 RSS milestone! In fact, I’m already well on my way to the next one and have my eyes set on the big 3,000.
Stay tuned for a post within the next 2-3 days regarding a present I promised to buy myself once I hit the 2,000 RSS mark, and the present I will promise to buy myself at the 3,000 mark.
Nice Site layout for your blog. I am looking forward to reading more from you.
Tom Humes
Wow, I never win anything like this – I only entered because it was so easy to do so and I thought I had an outside chance, nice one Tyler 🙂
Congraulations on the RSS milestone too.
I didn’t think I would win either but i entered because it was so simple and I could have really used $100 because I just spent $100 on a new premium theme for my MMO blog
It’s all too common. I don’t win anything ever.
I saw my name up there, but guess it’s not me, ‘cos I never got your notification email… 🙁
Congrats to the winners. Way to go, Tyler.
Congrats to the winners, I have to say I’m dammed disappointed I didn’t win 😉 Maybe next time?
congrats to the winners. I was late. nyarrrs.
Woohoo! I saw the name Chris up there as well but wasn’t sure it was me since I didn’t have the email, but looked in my junk folder and there it was!
Can’t believe I was one of the winners, yay me!
Thanks Tyler!!
I’m not surprised… the subject sounded quite spammy: “Congratulations, you won $100…”
Makes me sound like Tyler McMahon…
Congratz to all winners! and congratz to you Tyler for the RSS milestone.
LOL, Kris is just so lucky to win! Im sure he might not even be able to check this post…
[…] arrived back from New York yesterday and have had a nice surprise, I won $100 in the Tyler Cruz Cash Giveaway! Not bad for simply signing up to the newsletter of a blog I already read regularly! Thanks […]
Whats with all the babbling? Why are you so happy about your amazing “success”? People signed up just because they are a bunch of lazy sobs that wanted to earn a few bucks, they couldn’t care less about your blog and probably don’t even know who you are.
I would be ashamed if I had to gather up subscribers like you do. I would rather have people signing up to my blog because they are interested, not just because they are a bunch of newbies hoping to earn 100 lousy bucks.
I guess giving out “CASH” is always the best thing ever 🙂 Congratulations on a successful contest, Tyler.
-Mike
Damn, I didn’t win again. 😐
Congratulations to all the winners!
I held a simple $50 giveaway before and it was just as popular so I can backup the theory of how cash contests can make a drastic difference for your stats.
But I like the fact that the rich get richer and I think he should donate that to, um, me?
Jay
Congrats Tyler!
It seem’s people are withdrawing after the contest though, because you’re back at 2030.
oh.. i missed the contest 🙁
Anyway, congrats to the winners. 😀
It will be interesting to see how many people keep subscribed, e-mail subscriptions annoy people after a while and they eventually subscribe unless they are VERY interested in the blogger.
Too bad I missed your contest.
I am only showing 1141 subs tyler?
It’s incredible how desperate people are to win a measly $100.
Wow, do you guys see what I see?
http://www.grabup.com/uploads/ac29c4bba8e2a003365394f1f8eac7f6.jpg?direct
hah<haha
That proves my point. Stupidest thing to do is to try to buy your readers.
Tyler, looks like you’re doing quite well earning some referral income with these contests, and a good-luck/congratulations to all the contestants.
Check out my opinion of Market Leverage: http://www.diariesofablogger.com/why-does-market-leverage-suck-ass-ill-tell-you-why/
Wow, thanks for the heads up. I agree that that crappy network is worth nothing. As an international publisher I tried to sign up and they started asking for all sort of banking information, telling me that they needed to do a credit check and see if they would “do business” with me.
Hey marketleverage… Fk u!!! I’ll just go to promote a real network that can use something as normal as paypal payments, something it seems you don’t know exists.
Thanks for sharing your story. Definitely something to watch out for.
Men i though i would win something…..but i didnt maybe next time!
Tyler what is up with feedburner only showing 1k some?
Wow, what a wonderful surprise! I’m subscribed to your RSS feeds via email not coz of the contest but coz of your blog.
I’ve replied to the email you sent. Please let me know if you’ve received it or not. Thanks Tyler! 😀
So what is your real subscriber count? I doubt you lost 1000 overnight.
It’s just a temporary hiccup that Feedburner occasionally has with some feeds. It’s not reporting my correct Google Feedfetcher count (it’s showing 100 instead of 1,000).
I hoped it would be fixed today but I’ll have to wait and hope for tomorrow. It should be back up to around 2050 or when it’s fixed.
It’s not a hiccup, check other blogs, usually when it was an issue all blogs had weird numbers. Those are the real amount of subscribers you got. It just changed from 1141to 1168. Probably you or someone faked them.
Lol, that’s what I was thinking… he must be searching for some way to hack his count right now and make it go up again so he can say “see, it was just a mistake”
Look, my count is back up. Guess I must have “hacked” it…
Oh, and all those referrals I sent to MarketLeverage – 111 now – those are all fake too! In fact, nobody reads my blog except for 2-3 people! It’s all a conspiracy, ahhhh!
Sssh, Tyler. That’s our secret, remember?
Hey Hahahaha loser,
If you so hate this site, why bother wasting your pea-brain or whatever is running your head , you should look at yourself and ask ” What Am i behaving like a real sore loser ??”””I guess you’re too lame to know this…
And you are behaving like an ass kisser.
Congratulations on your RSS milestone!
congratz. can’t wait to see what you get urself
Nice Site layout for your blog. I am looking forward to reading more from you.
Now I wonder how many will unsubscribe now that the contest is over.
i am too late to contest in this. it is my bad luck
[…] October 27, 2008 Posted by Tyler Cruz Paid Advertisement Eight days ago I announced the Tyler’s Cash Giveaway Results in which 6 random winners were drawn from my Feedburner by E-mail and AWeber Newsletter […]
[…] Contest Ended: Results Announced […]
Ye are running a great blog..Bravo man!!
can’t believe I missed out this giveaway.
Congrats to Winners 🙂
[…] myself. However, I didn’t actually do too badly compared with September. I also won $100 in Tyler Cruz’s cash giveaway which provided a welcome boost to earnings […]
[…] of the fastest growing companies in the United States. He was also one of the lucky winners of my Cash Giveaway from last […]