No-bots policy: how we promote contest entries without casting votes

Where does contest promotion stop and voting begin?

Contest promotion ends at the point where a person decides what to do with an entry. We can help a client present their work to an audience; we do not act on the ballot or direct people to bypass the contest’s voting steps.

For every project, we do not use bots, scripts, fake accounts or click farms, and we do not sell or arrange purchased votes, followers or engagement. We also do not help people work around a captcha, account requirement, email confirmation, phone check or voting limit.

A practical boundary check is to look at each proposed action and ask whether it helps someone discover the entry or changes how voting works. The first may fit a campaign if the contest rules allow it; the second is outside our work. We can use paid placements, creator outreach and permission-based messages as part of contest marketing, with the entry and any paid promotion presented clearly.

Before approving a tactic, prepare the contest rules, the entry URL and the channels you have permission to use. If the rules prohibit outside promotion, we will not run a workaround; we explain the issue and decline that project.

What can we check about the people a campaign may reach?

We review the information available to the client and the campaign team, rather than claiming to identify every individual who sees a message. This keeps audience checks grounded in evidence that can be shown and discussed.

For a paid placement, we refer to the ad platform’s campaign reporting and use tracking links where appropriate. For creator outreach, we can review audience information the creator shares from their own analytics before discussing a placement. For email or community outreach, we confirm that the channel is appropriate for the message and that the audience has agreed to receive it. See our creator outreach approach and community and email outreach for those formats.

Useful items to have ready include:

• The contest’s intended audience and any voter eligibility rules.
• The public entry or voting page, plus the relevant contest rules.
• Available campaign analytics and the tracking links used for promotion.
• Creator audience information supplied for review, if a creator is involved.

A click, visit and recorded vote are different events. If a voting page does not show whether a visit became a completed vote, we report the available visit data without presenting it as a vote count. That distinction helps clients interpret the campaign and ask the organizer focused questions when needed.

What will we put in writing before promotion starts?

Before work begins, MarketingExtra uses a rules-and-source review to agree what the campaign will do, what information can be tracked and which requests are out of bounds. Clients should receive a plain-language outline of the agreed work and know which figures will appear in campaign reporting.

That outline can cover the promotion channels, the creative or messages to prepare, how tracking links will be used, and what the available analytics can show. If you are planning paid promotion of contest entries, we identify the ad work separately from the voting process. If you need to adjust the entry presentation, contest creative and copy can be reviewed as a separate part of the plan.

The organizer decides whether an entry meets the contest rules and how to handle a vote, while ad platforms control their own ad review and delivery. We cannot determine whether every person reached is eligible or whether the organizer will accept an individual vote.

If someone asks for purchased activity, automated voting or a way around contest protections, we decline that request and explain the boundary; if the project depends on it, we do not proceed. Send the contest page, rules and your proposed promotion channels for a free contest analysis; we will review the fit and tell you the next practical step.