Holiday Contest Ideas: 7 High-ROI Contest Formats That Drive Traffic & Sales

The holiday season, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, is a time for giving and being thankful to your customers.

So, delight them with exclusive rewards, mystery gifts, and prizes.

Are you wondering where to start?

No worries, we’ve got you covered.

There are multiple strategies to incentivize holiday shoppers and boost sales, one of them being holiday promotions and contests.

We’ve curated some of the best holiday contest ideas that skyrocketed customer engagement for stores worldwide.

In this article, you’ll get to know about some good holiday contests and best practices for running last-minute holiday contests.

Let’s go.

🎁 Holiday Contest Ideas — At a Glance

Contest Type	Best For	Time to Launch	Primary KPI	Typical Prize Ideas	Best Practices	Common Pitfalls
Photo Contest	User-generated content (UGC) & visual storytelling on Instagram or Facebook	3–7 days	Social shares, submissions, and engagement	Gift cards, free products, or feature on brand’s social feed	Make the theme specific (“Show us your festive setup”), encourage creativity, and use a branded hashtag	Too broad a theme leads to low-quality entries; unclear submission rules cause confusion
Video Contest	Story-driven engagement and showcasing customer experiences	5–10 days	Video views, submissions, and shares	Exclusive merchandise, early access, or large-value gift packs	Keep videos short (<60 seconds), provide clear submission guidelines, and promote through YouTube/Instagram Reels	Overly complex rules discourage participation; not optimizing for mobile submissions
Hashtag Contest	Viral reach and brand visibility on social media	2–5 days	Hashtag uses, reach, and follower growth	Store credits, seasonal hampers, or co-branded gifts	Create a unique, short, and easy-to-type hashtag; engage with entries by commenting and resharing	Choosing a generic hashtag that’s already used; ignoring participant engagement
Refer-a-Friend Contest	Customer acquisition via word-of-mouth	4–8 days	New customer signups, referrals, and conversions	Double-sided rewards (both referrer and referred), discount codes	Automate tracking via email or CRM tools, keep rewards simple and valuable	Poor tracking can lead to disputes; too many steps in the referral process
Pinterest “Pin It” Contest	Visual curation and inspiration-driven engagement	3–6 days	Pins, repins, and traffic from Pinterest	Home décor kits, fashion accessories, or DIY bundles	Ask users to pin from your product catalog, provide a branded board template	Vague instructions on what to pin; prizes not aligned with visual themes
Sweepstakes	Fast audience growth and list building	2–4 days	Email signups and total entries	Cash prizes, vouchers, or large giveaways	Keep entry forms short; clearly state eligibility and dates; promote across channels	Offering irrelevant prizes (attracts low-quality leads); lack of transparency about winners
Gamification Contest	Driving engagement, loyalty, and return visits	5–10 days	Time on site, repeated plays, and conversions	Spin-the-wheel discounts, tiered rewards, or points for redemption	Use game elements like countdowns and surprise bonuses; reward participation instantly	Poor game UX or mobile experience; prizes too small to sustain interest

💡 Quick Takeaways

• Low-effort, high-impact contests: Hashtag and sweepstakes contests — perfect for fast traffic boosts.

• High-engagement, brand-building contests: Photo, video, and gamified challenges — ideal for deep audience connection.

• Referral and Pinterest contests: Best for sustained, long-term growth and community creation.

Common Questions About Holiday Contests

Want to drive fresh traffic this festive season while building your email list and customer loyalty?

These 7 holiday contest ideas — including photo challenges, hashtag campaigns, referral promotions, and gamified sweepstakes — from EngageBay are tailored to spark engagement, boost brand awareness, and convert visitors into buyers.

Scroll down to pick the right format for your audience and get inspired to launch your contest in minutes — then download the ready-to-use templates and launch fast!

In this section, we answer some FAQs about holiday contests.

What is a holiday contest?

A holiday contest is a promotional activity run by eCommerce stores to increase customer engagement, generate word of mouth and drive sales.

Whether or not you get tons of traffic to your website the rest of the year, you can run contests and drive traffic during the holiday season.

Why should you run holiday contests?

The holiday season is a customer magnet; people shop a lot, and that leads to intense competition between sellers.

One way to stand out is to run a holiday contest; reward your customers with exciting gifts and they’re more likely to shop from your business and even mention it to their friends, families, and colleagues.

Read also: 10 Christmas Marketing Ideas For Some Sales Magic✨

Who can run holiday contests?

Every eCommerce store looking to increase customer engagement, boost brand awareness and retain customers can run holiday contests.

Holiday contests help increase website traffic, so if you have any other type of business with a presence online, you will definitely benefit from that bonus holiday traffic.

How does a holiday contest benefit you?

This article is written for business owners looking to get some extra sales during the holiday season. If that’s you, it makes sense for you to run a holiday contest, because:

• Holiday contests grab attention easily and often increase online engagement by a lot
• They generate word-of-mouth and help you acquire new customers. Many customers tend to share contests with their friends after they participate in them
• They can boost customer loyalty
• You can get organic traffic with holiday contests and hence a better ROI than buying ads

How To Run a Holiday Contest: Best Practices

You can run a holiday contest on your website, your eCommerce store, and your social media accounts.

Try to ensure that the contests are interesting and relevant to your customer base.

Try the EngageBay Landing Page Templates

Some holiday contest best practices are as follows:

• Ensure that your gifts are relevant to what you’re selling
• Promote the contest via new landing pages; don’t direct customers to the same old web pages 

• Use the most attractive CTAs — both in design and content
• Keep the contest rules simple and easy to understand. Only then will your customers be eager to participate
• Reward multiple winners, not just one
• Don’t skimp on the prizes. Contests with prizes higher than $1,000 get an engagement rate of 5.8% per 100 followers
• Promote your holiday contest across multiple platforms. Also, send emails to keep your customers informed

Read also: New Year Email Marketing Templates to Copy & Send Now

7 Holiday Contest Ideas

Now, let’s look at what kind of holiday contests you can run to get some bonus love from your customers.

#1. Photo

The photo contest is the most common holiday contest in all eCommerce stores.

Photos go toe-to-toe with the holiday season, especially Christmas.

Christmas is a time of joy, sharing, and togetherness.

And let’s not forget the decorations – the sparkling lights reflecting off the baubles, colorful stars, Christmas trees, etc., makes Christmas the most photographed holiday.

And that is what you do in your eCommerce store. Run a photo contest with a specific theme, like:

• Best Christmas tree decoration
• Best Christmas lights
• Ugly sweater/jumper
• Best snowman
• Awkward Christmas selfie
• Animals in Christmas outfits.

Photo contest best practices

1. Ensure the photo contest has a unique theme.

2. Offer tier-based rewards so that more customers can get rewarded.

3. Make it easy for customers to upload their photos.

4. Include a social sharing button, so people can share your contest with friends easily.

5. Make the voting process simple and transparent.
   KPI: Number of photo submissions + number of social shares/votes.
   Example prize: A top prize of a $250 gift card + three runner-up coupon codes (boosts entries + conversion).

The most important practice is to allow customers to vote and choose the winners based on votes. Keep the voting process really simple and transparent.

#2. Video

About 89% of businesses use video contests to improve brand awareness.

It is similar to a photo contest where you run a contest with a theme and ask customers to perform the task and submit the video.

Video contests are becoming extremely popular, and they can help you in several ways:

• Higher customer engagement
• User-generated content is trending these days
• It’s great for word-of-mouth

Here are some popular video contest ideas:

• Finish the Christmas song
• Dance with your recent purchase
• Christmas dares
• Quickest Gift wrapper
• Before/After Thanksgiving dinner

Source

Video contest best practices

1. Set a time limit for the video.

2. Share user-submitted videos from your social media accounts.

3. Let customers vote for the winner.

4. Follow a strict deadline for submissions.
   KPI: Number of video submissions + total video views + shares.
   Example prize: Free product bundle worth ~$500 + feature on your brand’s homepage (drives exposure + social proof).

#3. Hashtag

When people want to search for a brand, a type of product, or even geolocation-based services on social media, they use hashtags.

Running a hashtag contest, especially during the holiday season, can boost your organic traffic.

Your ultimate goal while selecting your hashtag for the contest should be virality. So, choose a short, fun hashtag that you believe can go viral.

Ted Baker wanted to increase its customer engagement, so it came up with a hashtag contest – Ted’s Elves.

Ted created 32 Instagram accounts and organized a Christmas-themed game where customers have to hunt for prizes and elves.

Ted’s Elves contest is a classic example of how to keep your customers engaged during the holiday season.

The contest went viral with 37K interactions and 14.5K entries. This is how you run a hashtag contest.

You can run a solo hashtag contest or couple it up with a photo contest or video contest; ask your customer to submit their pictures and videos using the hashtags and boost your brand awareness.

Hashtag contest best practices

1. Keep your hashtags crisp — avoid long words that can result in typos.

2. Promote the contest across platforms.

3. Send reminders about the deadline.
   KPI: Number of entries using the hashtag + reach/impressions of the hashtag + new followers.
   Example prize: A “holiday hamper” valued at ~$300 + spotlight social post for the winner (encourages tagging and sharing).

Read also: How to Send Out Thank You For Your Order Email (Examples & Templates)

#4. Refer a friend

Did you know that customers acquired via referrals are 18% more loyal than customers acquired via other means?

Yes, that is the power of the referral program, and that’s exactly why you must run a referral contest during the holiday season.

Customers trust recommendations from their friends, so this type of holiday contest is an easy chance to gain new customers during the holiday season.

Here are the benefits of running a referral contest:

• Generates organic word of mouth
• Boosts brand awareness
• Minimizes customer acquisition costs
• Increases customer loyalty
• Helps to retain existing customers

A refer-a-friend contest is the easiest way for a customer to get a discount, so the chances of the contest failing are only slim.

If you haven’t run one before, this season is the time you do it.

Referral contest best practices

1. Offer a reward to both — the referrer and the referred friend.

2. Set a purchase or action limit to trigger the referral reward.

3. Add social sharing buttons for customers to share their referral link.

4. Provide a unique/dynamic referral link for each customer.

5. Set a contest deadline to prevent abuse.
   KPI: Number of successful referrals (new customers) + conversion rate of referrals + cost per acquisition.
   Example prize: $50 store credit for both parties (referrer + referred) + random grand prize drawing for top referrer (motivates more shares).

#5. Pinterest

Pinterest has become a popular marketing channel on par with Instagram and Facebook.

It helps customers find fashion inspiration and ideas, and can also be used as an eCommerce marketplace.

A ‘pin it’ contest is more like a sweepstakes contest but is relatively new, and eCommerce stores haven’t grasped it much.

But it is a fun and interactive way to get your customers engaged.

As we said, it is more like a Sweepstakes contest where the customer has to perform simple tasks to win the contest.

Pinterest contest best practices

1. Review Pinterest’s rules before running the contest.

2. Create a branded hashtag for submissions.

3. Clearly explain the process (what to pin, how to tag, etc.).

4. Cross-promote the contest on multiple platforms.
   KPI: Number of pins + repins + traffic from Pinterest to your site.
   Example prize: A DIY holiday décor kit (value ~$200) + featured “Board” on your brand’s Pinterest page (adds exposure).

#6. Sweepstakes

You’d often come across sweepstakes in your favorite eCommerce stores.

Though it is slightly different from a contest, it is still a valuable engagement-boosting activity for holiday season sales.

Unlike a contest, Sweepstakes is not a competition; it doesn’t have defined rules to participate or win.

In Sweepstakes, the winner is selected by chance/probability, just like in a lottery.

Easy to run and easy to collect email addresses. This is why it is considered one of the best lead-generation tactics.

Sweepstakes best practices

1. Create eye-catching visuals to grab attention.

2. Make it super easy for customers to participate.

3. Offer a high-value prize to boost participation.

4. Define the probability of winning / select winner clearly.

5. Build social sharing buttons to encourage sharing.
   KPI: Number of entries + email/list opt-ins + share rate.
   Example prize: A grand prize of a $1,000 gift card (or equivalent) + 10 runner-up winners with $50 vouchers (drives high entry volume).

#7. Gamification contest

Who doesn’t want to have fun on a joyous occasion?

A gamification contest is as simple as Sweepstakes; the only difference is that you have to play a game to win the contest.

The ultimate goal of a holiday contest is to get the customer engaged during the holiday rush, incentivize unique actions, reward customers and gain loyalty.

Gamification contest has the recipe for all that. You get engagement and loyalty, and customers get to win exciting prizes.

Popular gamification contests used during holiday seasons are:

• Spin the wheel
• Scratch and win
• Quizzes
• Raffles
• Scavenger hunt
• Trivia

Here is a classic spin-the-wheel contest you see in most eCommerce stores.

Or, you can be more creative and make your customer work for it using a clever puzzle-like game.

Gamification contest best practices

1. Ensure the game theme is relevant to the holiday season.

2. Keep the game easy and fun to navigate.

3. Promote it prominently (e.g., homepage takeover).

4. Use surprise rewards or incremental wins to boost engagement.
   KPI: Number of game plays + repeat visits + conversion rate of participants.
   Example prize: Spin-the-wheel game where every participant gets at least a small discount (e.g., 10% off) and a grand prize winner gets a $500 prize bundle (incentivises participation and sharing).

Final Thoughts

A holiday contest is the easiest way to get some extra seasonal traffic and sales.

Keep up the holiday spirit and reward your customers with exciting gifts. This gesture will help your business in the long run.

Running a holiday contest is a smart way to boost customer loyalty, generate positive word of mouth, and acquire new customers.

Cheers!