These features available on All Plans (except where noted)
Contents
Activating Instant Win
Prize Settings
Schedule
Summary and Resetting Awarded Prizes
Setting Win and Lose Messages
Overview
Instant win allows you to award prizes to folks instantly upon submission of a form on your campaign. So if you are looking to award multiple of the same prize, or just want people to know if they lost or won instantly - instant win will work for you. Here's how to set it up:
Activating Instant Win
Getting instant win set up is super easy. To start, open the Form Designer in your Campaign Builder by clicking on your Form Widget, then clicking Design Form.
Once you have the Form Designer open, click on the Instant Win tab at the top.
This will open a popup where you can enable instant win. Set the Enable Instant Win toggle to Yes to activate instant win on your form.
Prize Settings
Once you've clicked the toggle to activate instant win, a new popup will appear with specific settings that you'll want to adjust for prize distribution in your contest. Once you're done making adjustments to these settings, click the blue Next button at the bottom.
Total Prizes
This is where you'll set the total number of prizes that you want to give away over the duration of your contest. The system will automatically distribute these prizes at random during the contest, and do so in a manner where the winners are spread out somewhat evenly (so you're not giving all of your prizes away right at the beginning or end of your contest).
Note: Here's how the prize selection algorithm works in the back end:
When there are fewer prizes than days, we randomly distribute each prize between the start and end dates, which can lead to clumping of prizes.
When there are at least as many prizes as days, then we use a different algorithm that leads to a more even distribution of prizes.
Label winning entries with
When an entry is a winner, it will automatically have a label added to it - this makes finding your winning entries super easy using the Entries Manager. By default, the label "winner" is added, but we highly recommend changing that to something more unique.
Distribute Unique Codes
If you want each of your winners to have a code distributed to them (whether it be a coupon code, or even the name of the prize they've won), you can connect a code list to the form here. When you switch the toggle to Yes, a new popup will appear that allows you to upload a new code list, or select one you've already added to your account.
When a list is added, you will see the name of the list appear under Distribute unique codes.
Note: The ability to upload code lists and distribute unique codes is only available on the Agency Plan or higher.
Limit Repeat Winners
When set to No, entrants have a possibility of winning as many times as your entry restrictions allow them to submit the form. Switching this to Yes, you can allow for multiple entries per person, but restrict (by email address) the number of times they can actually win a prize.
Setting the limitation to X only means that a person would only be able to win X amount of times total per email address.
Using the dropdowns to change the restrictions to X every X time period allows you to let folks win multiple times, and set how much time must pass before the person can win again.
Schedule
When you've clicked Next to lock in your Prize Settings, the following step is to configure the schedule during which your prizes will be distributed. Use the fields provided to set the Start date and End date of your giveaway, as well as the Time zone (typically, you'll want to use the time zone where most of your entrants live). Once you're done with the Schedule settings, click the blue Next button.
Advanced Settings
If you'd like to get more granular about exactly when your prizes are given away, click Advanced to expand the section and view more settings. 
Prize distribution weight allows you to control whether prizes are given away evenly throughout the contest (by entering a value of 1) or--with a higher value (a maximum of 5)--distributed more near the start of your campaign.
You're also able to use these settings to Allow winners only on specific days of the week, and Allow winners only between specific times of the day.
Summary and Resetting Awarded Prizes
Once you've finished scheduling, you'll see a summary of all your instant win settings, including a graph showing you roughly when the prizes will be distributed. If any tweaks need to be made, click on the Edit button in the corresponding section.
You may run into a circumstance where the system wasn't able to award the prizes during the times forecasted (due to low/high participation, etc). If you'd like to redistribute the remaining prizes to spread them out evenly for the rest of your remaining contest time, check the Redistribute X unclaimed prizes box.
If, during the process of testing your campaign, you have awarded actual prizes/prize codes to test entries, you can use the Reset Awarded Prizes to 0 button to reset won prizes and add the distributed codes back to your list.
Setting Win and Lose Messages
Like nearly everything on ShortStack, the message that your winners see is completely customizable. You can display your win and lose messages in two ways; in the Form Widget itself, and in a pop-up using an Action Widget.
In the Form Widget
The default way that winners will know they've won is via a message appearing in the Form Widget itself. To change what this particular message says, start by clicking your Form Widget in the Campaign Builder, then clicking the Edit button.
In the settings for your Form Widget, click Text in the menu on the left side.
In the Text section, scroll all the way down and the bottom three options will be for the instant win feature; use the provided fields to change the message from the default (shown on the left):
You're a winner!: This message will show when an entry is an instant winner, but you do not have a code list attached.
Congratulations!: This message will show when an entry is an instant winner, and you have a code list attached. Use the {{ code }} merge field to show the actual code itself (especially useful when your codes are the names of the prizes).
You didn't win this time: The default message for when the entry is not a winner.
When someone wins, they'll see your message like so:
And when they don't win, they'll see your other customized message:
You can change the text color and placement of your in-form winner message by clicking on your Form Widget (to highlight it) in the Campaign Builder, then clicking on the All Form tab in the Style Panel. From there, click open the Submit Messages section and make your changes there.
By Showing a Hidden Widget
One of the most popular ways to display a win/not a winner message is simply by using an Action Widget to show some other widgets (or containers) that you've created - one for each message - depending on the outcome.
How you start depends on you; if you want more than just a simple text message, you can create a new Container Widget and add whatever you'd like inside; for the purpose of this doc, we're just going to set up a couple of Rich Text Widgets that will show upon form entry.
In the two widgets, you'll set the visibility to Starts Hidden. For more information on visibility settings, check out our Widget Visibility doc.
Once you have the visibility set up for both widgets, you'll add a couple new Action Widgets to your campaign.
In the IF section of the Action Widget that shows the winning message, you'll select your Form Widget in the first drop-down, then an entrant is an instant winner in the second drop-down.
In the THEN section, you'd then select the Rich Text Widget containing your winning message in the first drop-down, then Show in the second drop-down.
You'd then repeat this same process in a second Action Widget for your losing message, making sure to select the same Form Widget and an entrant is not an instant winner in the IF section, and the Rich Text Widget with your losing message in the THEN section.
If everything's set up correctly, you'll see either message in a pop-up when your form is submitted:
In a Pop-Up
You can also choose to display your win/not a winner message in a pop-up, if you choose. To do so, start by setting up a couple of new Rich Text Widgets; one with your winner message, and one with your not a winner message.
For both of your new widgets, you'll set the visibility to Pop-Up. For more information on visibility settings, check out our Widget Visibility doc.
Once you have the messages set up in their own Rich Text Widgets, you'll add a new Action Widget to your campaign.
In the IF section of the Action Widget that shows the winning message, you'll select your Form Widget in the first drop-down, then an entrant is an instant winner in the second drop-down.
In the THEN section, you'd then select the Rich Text Widget containing your winning message in the first drop-down, then Show in the second drop-down.
You'd then repeat this same process in a second Action Widget for your losing message, making sure to select the same Form Widget and an entrant is not an instant winner in the IF section, and the Rich Text Widget with your losing message in the THEN section.
If everything's set up correctly, you'll see either message in a pop-up when your form is submitted:
To make changes to the style of the pop-ups, click the Global tab in the Style Panel, then open the Popups section and make your changes there.
Note: If you make a copy of a campaign that uses the instant win feature, please note: You will have to set up the Instant Win feature again in the new campaign's Form Widget. The new campaign copy will not pull over the Instant Win settings from the original campaign.