Jul
4
I received several requests for a detailed breakdown on how this blog benefited from the 1000th Comment Contest. In this post, I will try to detail the effect that it had on my traffic, the number of comments, and the income from this blog.
After looking at the stats, I decided to break it down into three periods:
- June 1 – June 19 (Baseline performance before the contest was announced.)
- June 20 – June 30 (Contest is announced on June 20th and I did one contest update on June 27th.)
- July 1 – July 3 (Second contest update on July 2nd as the contest draws to an end.)
Traffic
I was little surprised to see the traffic breakdown because traffic actually decreased after the contest was announced. However, there was big increase as the contest approached the end. The numbers below represent unique visitors per day.
June 1 – June 19: 840
June 20 – June 30: 800 (-4.76%)
July 1 – July 3: 1067 (+27.02%)
Comments
The number of comments steadily increased as the contest went along. The numbers below represent number of comments per day.
June 1 – June 19: 9.3
June 20 – June 30: 14.6 (+56.99%)
July 1 – July 3: 33 (+254.84%)
Income
I’m still not comfortable giving actual income numbers so I’ll just list the % increase here. Income followed the same trend as the number of comments but not to the same degree. The numbers below represent income per day.
June 1 – June 19: used as baseline
June 20 – June 30: +28.70%
July 1 – July 3: +111.30%
For Part 2 of the contest, bloggers were asked to blog about the contest and that resulted in nearly 50 new links for PureBlogging.com. Those links help to increase page rank, Technorati rank, and will hopefully provide some traffic in the future as well.
Overall, I was very pleased with the results. What do you think? Was the end result worth the $200 in prize money?
Popularity: 100% [?]
Wow, I’m very surprised to see the boost in income! Very impressive!!
Hi David, looks like it was very successful in all areas even though traffic went down initially. Seems like it was definitely worth the $200 in prize money!
Thanks for the breakdown!
Seems like overall it was a successful project and I had fun watching all the excitement here!
thanks for sharing the results David!
Was worthwhile for me
. Saw an 1000% boost in income yesterday. 
But yeah, I think it did. Should be good to see how many of the new readers stay and everything.
hey congrats Rhys…:)
It sounds like it was worth it. Sorry I did not get a post out about it. 111.30 % is a nice increase for a month. Hopefully it does the same next month.
Hey David, just to let you know, I got the greatest number of referrals from Pureblogging last month.
Adam
Cool… Thanks Adam.
Seems like you got a good idea in getting your fellow readers post comments here! I have also a contest up and going which i am looking at all bloggers to join in my cash contest $100 giveaway!
Another positive result from a contest. Thanks for sharing!
[...] even better, it will boost your incoming links! David Culpepper of PureBlogging.com posted the results of his recent blog contest – those numbers go to show, it’s well worth the time and effort. The returns are [...]
very nice … very nice … do I hear $500 for the 10,000th comment comming up?
LOL
Darin
I don’t think I’ll have to worry about 10,000 comments anytime soon…
Well I don’t know anything about website stats but I’m liking those income percentages.
Just think, if you can find a way to keep up 100% income growth per month, even only starting w/ $1 turns into:
Month 1: $2
Month 2: $4
3: $8
4: $16
5: $32
6: $64
7: $128
8: $256
9: $512
10: $1024
11: $2048
12: $4096
13: $8192
14: $16384
15: $32768
16: $65536
17: $131072
18: $262144
19: $524288
20: $1048576
Comfortably a millionaire in less than 2 years. Hey, maybe that 10,000th comment isn’t such a bad idea.
P.S. Please nobody spoil my fun with your rational thinking.
That is indeed a lot of comments. If it keeps improving like last month, you may find yourself there sooner than you think. Might find yourself needing some help to moderate all those comments. Sounds like a good problem to have.
Wow, the stats really jumped over the last two days of the contest, hopefully it will rollover and continue
Sorry I didnt get the post up in time to really send you any entrants
If you host another contest let me know I’ll plug it for free
[...] format. Check out any of his recent articles to see what I am talking about: More Blog Contests, Effects of the 1000th Comment Contest, We have a Winner, Pure Blogging Goes Mobile, Contest Update 2 — $200 Cash Giveaway, June [...]
Your contest was a stroke of absolutely pure mind-gold.
BTW, I support you not posting actual income amounts. I always think that is unwise.
I also Agree.. there are more blogger getting banned by adsense because of the people jealous with the high earning
Only you can determine whether the contest was worth the $200 prize money you gave away.
Sure, it created a short term boost in activity on your blog but has this been maintained since the contest ended?
I am always a little cynical when it comes to contests or incentives to encourage visitor activity.
- Martin Reed
i think i’m going to try this one!
Darin
[...] page rank, Technorati rank, and will hopefully provide some traffic in the future source: Effects of the 1000th Comment Contest, Blogging Tips, News and Tutorials from [...]
An effect which should be an fact is that everybody who is reading this blog, will comment as much as they can. Because this contest can deliver money and for money you want to do everyhting.
nice contest .. I am sure it would have increased traffic and number of comments .. how the conversion ratio? that also showed some boost?
Great contest idea, I’m glad to see that it helped boost your income.
Running contests can surely increase number of comments. But there are many other ways to to do so.
I created a drop list and saw the number of comments increased exponentially.
I’m gonna give this one a shot
Nice contest, It’s great to see the after effect of the contest and the results show themselves. Great job.
Did the increase in revenue cover contest costs? If not 50 links it still worth something!
Effect which should be an fact is that everybody who is reading this blog, will comment as much as they can. Because this contest can deliver money and for money you want to do everyhting.
Contests are a great way to increase traffic, gain readers and subscribers (and boost income) in a very short period of time.
I am nearing my first contest with very positive results – blog gained 45 subscribers in 2 weeks!
I will be trying your comment contest model next. Can wait to see and compare results.
I think i am gonna setup a similar contest for my blog too.
Wow, i think i will setup a similar contest on my blog too.
Thats a great contest, i think i will setup a similar on my blog too.
Wow, great contest idea!
I think its worth it. If you are pleased then I think it dosen’t really matters. All that matters is you are happy and everyone is happy and had fun!
someday I Try the idea…thanks
I always see new contests popping up and ending with a lot of benefits to the contest runner. Now I wonder what is holding me to launch a contest that benefits my websites.
Would like to have ur help. Would u?
thx
Nikki How.
is it true?
Wow that looks like a great contest idea, contests are always great ways to get more traffic and make things more interesting on the site.
very good contest idea, you will get many comments and traffic to your Great blog
i think the more creative we all can get with contests, the better the traffic will be… you set the bar pretty high
wow thats some great results. Infact the amount you earned i greater than the one you gave away
Very interesting idea! I liiiike.
great prices.
thanks for report…..blog comment still working well
Man, this sounds like it was a great contest. I think it was worth it. I’ll be looking forward to more contests in the future now that I have my own blog!
very nice article
Very interesting article indeed.
This is a very interesting idea for a gimmick!
Great way to produce traffic for your site.
Very creative indeed. It’s worth all the trouble and the expenses you made.
Congrats!
am i late to be contestant???
I think it would definitely be worth $200 if you were able to get that back out of it. Even if you didn’t make your $200 back if you get more readers and more comments you will probably more than make up the $200 before long.
You are obviously doing something right if people are still commenting two and a half years later. Or maybe people don’t read the dates!
Recently people started to host dozens of contests on youtube, where they give stuff away for comments and subscription of their videos. This is pretty stupid, and it don’t really makes sense.