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Using Rafflecopter: Negative Impact on Statistics?

I'm planning on using Rafflecopter next month for my giveaways (reviews/giveaways are my niche, so I expect to use it about 20 times each month!). The feedback from readers is overwhelmingly in favor of it because it takes less time to enter.

But I'm worried about the impact it has on a blog's statistics, specifically page views. Can anyone who uses Rafflecopter comment on what their stats look like now compared to what they looked like before using the system? Big difference (good or bad)? No difference? I

I'd love to hear the perspective of bloggers who use it! Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Erica Kloetstra on August 31, 2011 at 6:47pm

It did impact my pageviews but i then added an entry for commenting on another blog post to help with that. My giveaway entry numbers have increased since using rafflecopter but pageviews are down. Companies are excited to see so many entries into their contests, so that is a positive for my blog.

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Tyree on August 31, 2011 at 6:48pm

From my experience, they still have to view the page to use Rafflecopter. So its no different. I've just started using it, and I really love it, its easier to see how many entries, and easier to track vs just reading comments.

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Permalink Reply by Dusty Bastian on August 31, 2011 at 7:13pm

You know, I wondered this, too, but I find that I can get a lot more reviews/giveaways done when I'm not trying to maintain them the old way, and since so many people like Rafflecopter, I find I'm getting more entries and therefore more page views. I would just make sure that you included the required blog comment in Rafflecopter so that you're not missing out on as many comments.

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Permalink Reply by Melanie Johnson on August 31, 2011 at 7:18pm

You may not have the page reload that you usually do when someone enters multiple comments, but you have more people entering, thus giving you more page loads. It's the uniques that count anyway. I can reload my page 1000 times but that doesn't mean I have a 1000 page views. Ya know.

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Permalink Reply by jewel33 on August 31, 2011 at 7:40pm

I've been using Rafflecopter since beta, and I always have my mandatory entry be a comment, then to scroll up to Rafflecopter to enter, so that there's an indication to sponsors/visitors of how many people actually visited and enterd.. I can see how using Rafflecopter might have an impact on pageviews, because it doesn't reload the page to make the person go to the next entry. HOWever, I think most sponsors are looking for UNIQUE pageviews vs. number of pageviews, so in the end I would think that the impact would be minimal.

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer B on August 31, 2011 at 8:54pm

I put my first Rafflecopter giveaway up on Monday & so far it's just been a pain! I use Live Writer to write my posts & I guess Java scripts don't work in Live Writer (that's what the Rafflecopter folks said). So I write my post & then have to open it in blogger again to add Rafflecopter (yes, I'm still using Blogger). Blogger changes my formatting, so I have to reformat my post. Anyway, the first time took me forever to get it all worked out.

Now, though, I've had a couple readers contact me because they didn't know how to use the Rafflecopter entry or they couldn't see it. Also, when you use it with Blogger, if the reader is viewing it from your main blog page, they can't see the form. They have to click on "Read More" to go to the post page & see it. My giveaway still has 4 days left, but I have less than half the entries I had on my last giveaway at the same time point.

When I enter a giveway, I love Rafflecopter, but right now it's not looking too hot for me. I might go back to Google Docs. We'll see at the end of this giveaway. Maybe I'll poll my readers & see what they think.

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Permalink Reply by Rita Reviews on August 31, 2011 at 9:01pm

To stop the Read More thing all you have to do is go to your layout and edit the post section. Just uncheck where it says Read More. It will show you entire post after that. If you have a custom template you may have to take the read more code out of your template

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Permalink Reply by Melanie Johnson on August 31, 2011 at 9:03pm

It was my understanding Read More is necessary at this time if you have more than one Rafflecopter giveaway on your home page. Otherwise, it will repeat the first giveaway throughout all. That's what Greg told me when I had this problem.

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Permalink Reply by Rita Reviews on August 31, 2011 at 10:08pm

I have run several on my homepage and haven't had a problem. I have been using Rafflecopter since the beginning and love. I just added the Read More to my blog yesterday because I didn't want the long form showing making my page huge. What i do is write my post and then switch from Compose to HTML and add the giveaway widget at the end. This way you don't have to add the read more break. When I switched to the Blogger in Draft Editor the Rafflecopter stopped working correctly when added in Compose. It works fine when added in HTML. What editor do you use in blogger?

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer B on August 31, 2011 at 10:56pm

Fabulous! Worked for me! No more "read more". Greg made it sound like I had to use the "more" hmtl. Still want them to get it to work in Live Writer, though! Thanks Rita

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Permalink Reply by Rita Reviews on September 1, 2011 at 3:11pm

Glad you got it work.

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Permalink Reply by Melanie Johnson on August 31, 2011 at 11:05pm

I am on Wordpress. Maybe that's the difference? I do switch from compose to html too. I have been doing this from the beginning, adding the read more because it was coo-coo otherwise.