As promised, here are some statistics from the Google Fridge Giveaway, as well as some lessons learned. All the data shown is from the 8-day period (Monday – Monday, inclusive) that the contest ran. Clearly, there are more views and sessions after the fact.
Inbound Links
There were 118 inbound links generated from the contest. Although I know PR doesn’t mean what it used to, I do think there’s value in listing the PR of the homepages of the sites that linked to me.
- PR7 = 3
- PR6 = 12
- PR5 = 17
- PR4 = 14
- PR3 = 25
- PR2 = 11
- PR1 = 3
- PR0 = 33
Two things stand out; first, I got some pretty good links from some pretty authoritative sites, which was part of the goal. Secondly, there were a lot of first time bloggers who posted to try to win the fridge. In fact, I think there were some who actually started the blog to enter. That’s awesome.
Social Media
Lots of fun stuff here, and it really taught me the power of the social space first-hand.
- Flickr – 9 pictures, 2,567 views
- YouTube – 2,184 views
- Digg – Got dugg three times (32, 27 and 8 Diggs respectively)
- Sphinn – Got sphunn twice (38 and 4 Sphinn’s respectively)
- Mixx – 46 Mixxes
- Propeller – 28 votes
- Marktd – 20 Marks
- PlugIM – 24 Plugs
- StumbleUpon – 9 Reviews, 23 Liked it, plus a TON of traffic, which is next
Site Traffic
Prior to the 8 days of the contest, I was averaging 79 sessions/day (the blog is a month old; cut me some slack). During the test, this ballooned to 1,175 sessions/day!
- 01/01 – 71
- 01/02 – 63
- 01/03 – 100
- 01/04 – 104
- 01/05 – 67
- 01/06 – 67
- 01/07 – 1,035
- 01/08 – 2,858
- 01/09 – 782
- 01/10 – 1,131
- 01/11 – 1,736
- 01/12 – 824
- 01/13 – 497
- 01/14 – 532
Yes, a lot of this traffic came from StumbleUpon (about 70% the first day, and 50% overall), but I also got a lot from other blogs.
Press Release
Yes, I actually sent out a press release for the giveaway. It didn’t launch until Thursday, but actually, that wasn’t such a bad thing. You can see the spike on Friday (the 11th), and I attribute almost all of this to the release, and actually, to one blog post from a prominent blogger (more below). Also, during the 8-day period, there were 149 mentions of the release all over the internet.
Additional Mentions
By searching Google for “dan perry” “google fridge”, there are 340 mentions on different sites that don’t provide a link. Lots of exposure in addition to inbound links. Not as valuable from an SEO perspective, but still valuable.
Lessons Learned
Don’t Underestimate the Value of a Press Release
As I said, having Google Blogoscoped pick up my release, and blog about it, provided me not only a lot of traffic, but also a lot of international links. Watching it unfold was amazing: Germany kicked in first, then China, then South America, all of which linked to my site. Having one important blogger pick it up was worth roughly 40-50 international inbound links. Without the press release, it would’ve never happened.
Engage Your Network
I enlisted Tamar to help me “market” my giveaway to the community. As a nobody (c’mon, let’s be honest), I knew that if I Sphunn it, Mixxed it, or Stumbled it, it wouldn’t have a big effect. I guessed that if Tamar did it, it would be looked at in a different light, and my assumptions were correct. I honestly don’t think it would’ve had the legs it did without her help. Tamar; you’ve earned more schwag than I can give.
Again, thanks to everyone who entered, and I hope you’ll learn something from this giveaway. I certainly did.
If you like this post you might enjoy following me on Twitter: twitter.com/danperry
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