The x3 reasons raffle sites Fail (and how to avoid them)

So your scared of starting a raffle business & failing?

Raffle sites, lottery sites, competition sites.

All names that mean the same thing: selling tickets online.
Sometimes it seems like everyone wants in on this business model:

• Low overheads,
• high scalability,
• potential for massive returns.

At least once a week I have a call with a prospect with someone who tells me they think raffle sites were “easy money.”

“Just build a website, chuck up a few prizes, and boom — passive income.”

I won’t entertain naive notions of “get rich quick schemes”.

There is no such thing as “passive income.”
I prefer to think of passive income as “leveraged income”.
No income is fully passive, but raffle sites are pretty close.

But if it was that easy everyone would be rich!

Don’t get me wrong: Competition sites have made a lot of people rich.

I’ve had the personal pleasure of watching some of my clients lives change completley:

Some of my clients have gone from working multiple jobs, to earning more money every month than they have in years of wages.
It’s genuinley life changing.
It’s one of the most rewarding things about doing this job…

But it’s got to be done right.
The clients who have had success in this niche have invested high, worked hard, taken risks, and consistently made the right moves.
And they earned, and deserve, every bit of their success.

Starting any business comes with risk.
You’ll have to invest time, and money.
I often take consultations which I call competition clarity calls  with entrepreneurs  who want my advice on what to do, what not to do, how to do it, and what order to do them in.

If I think that a prospect has a high chance of failure, I’ll tell them so, and pass on taking the job, and advise them to spend their money elsewhere.
I would rather give honest advice than convince someone to do something that’s a bad fit.

Let me save you a lot of time, money, and grey hair. Let’s dive in to what the RIGHT things to do are when launching a competition business, and what the WRONG things are too.

The most expensive mistakes raffle site founders make

Mistake #1: Trying to Appeal to Everyone

“We’re giving away cash, cars, and PS5s!”

Everyone likes cash, so now our market is everyone in the UK.
More people = more sales, right?

Wrong.
Although logically, it makes sense that , in reality it doesn’t work like that.

Have you ever heard the phrase “what appeals to everyone appeals to no-one?”

You don’t need to sell to everyone,
you only need to sell to the people in the room.

The problem is that if you are giving away cash, cars, tech and holidays,

Now you need a set of ads for cash, a set of ads for cars, a set of ads for tech, a set of ads for holidays.
So now your marketing budget has just multiplied by x5

And there are x50 other people in the same room as you selling the same thing.
Now you have to compete for attention, and that ad budget you just multiplied is turning into fewer and fewer paying customers.
Those customers are worth less too. There’s no loyality, you see;
They can just turn to the next guy beside you also offering cash and tech prizes.
When you try to sell everything to everyone, you appeal to no-one, and you compete with everyone.

 

In the last few years the competition space has become more competitive (pun intended!) 😅
The space is flooded with people who have no clue what they’re doing, And in a crowded room, the person who speaks the clearest gets heard.

But if you are the brand for “branded kids clothing for new dads” or “vintage 1960 modded mopeds”,
Well now you have a rapt following of a few key customers who are loyal only to your brand for that particular need.

And let me tell you, it’s still a very big room; The internet has expanded the borders of the room to reacxh every mobile phone in the UK.

This is why you MUST choose a niche to build your community around.

The problem

You attract people who aren’t really interested in your brand = no sales on the site
You have to run multiple ad campaigns with no focus or target audience = Your ad campaigns are ineffective, huge marketing spends.
No ideal customer profile = no sense of community, no loyalty.

How to fix it:
Target one market vertical niche.
start narrow and expand.
If you want more guidance on that here’s my guide to choosing your killer niche.

 

 

Mistake #2: Underestimating the Trust Factor

Raffle sites are often viewed with suspicion.
Your site needs to scream: “We’re legit. We’re safe. We’re real.”

Do this with:

• Real photos
• Testimonials
• Winner videos
• Transparent terms

You also need a social media channel with a rich backlog of well made content, ideally with someone’s face on there.

 

 

If you don’t have enough budget for a decent site you’re going to be stuck with a cheap web designer who will cost you more in the long run.
Good websites need to generate trust and squeeze out extra sales….
This problem is related to Mistake 3…

Mistake #3: Insufficient budget or runway

Very few businesses are profitable from day 1.
Most business take months or even years to reach profitability.

Competition businesses can be the exception to that rule:
Many of our clients are profitable from launch, and considerably so.

But ‘can‘ is the key word.

You need to put in investment now, to build a leveraged, scaleable income source.

A large number of competition businesss fail becaue they either

1. Didn’t have sufficient budget to start with, and didn’t invest enough in the fundamentals: They skimp at the start, go with the cheapest option, lose trust, and end up spending far more money on advertising to compenstate. This bleeds their profit margin. which means….
2. Didn’t have a runway budget to support digital marketing activites or adspend. I’m very risk averse, but I would recommend having 3 months of adpsend set aside to buy traffic to your site.

Remember: Every “passive” income source requires time & money to get started.
Competition businesses are no different.

Mistake #4: Overinvesting in Big Prizes Upfront

Start small.

I once had a call with a competition business owner who’d bought x16 transit vans and had no money left for marketing to sell tickets for them.
I had to ask…. “Why didn’t you just buy x1 at a time?”

Sounds silly, but it has to be said.

It’s just about risk mitigation:
Nobody starts as an expert.
Do you think that Lewis Hamilton jumped straight into an F1 car? or did he work his way up from something smaller, and safer?

Expect that your first few advertising campaigns will not do very well. but you will optimize them and get better.
Until then, mitigate your risk by  starting with lwoer value prizes and work your way upwards.

Remember, if your first comp flops, it’s easier to recover from a £500 loss than a £20,000 one.

You can start with high value items, but make sure you have a big enough ad budget or an engaged audience to support the risk.
If not, Try lower-ticket items in your niche. Then scale upwards and outwards.

(You can also use Instant Win functionality to still give away smaller prizes and mitigate risk further.)

Mistake #5: Skipping the Legal Stuff

Raffle business can be a legal minefield, but you can also avoid a lot of legal exposure by following a few simple rules for compliance.
I’m not a lawyer so I won’t give you legal advice,
But I  can tell you what our clients have done legally in the past, and I can also put you in touch with a lawyer who specialises in this niche if you need it.
For more info on that you’ll need to book a competition clarity consultation  😜

But generally, make sure your comps are skill-based and offer free entry.

Get your terms, privacy policy, and disclaimers airtight.

Apply for your Meta RMG license BEFORE you launch. Or you won’t be able to run ads.

Mistake #6: Unrealistic expectations

If you want to survive (and thrive), you need to approach raffle sites like a real business.
Because it is.

Don’t expect to launch your competition business, and be driving around in your gold lambourghini 1 week later.
I’ve built raffle sites for dozens of clients this year alone, from side-hustlers to full-time founders, and let me tell you:

• “Get rich quick” schemes are for quick quitters.
• Nobody who knows their stuff gives their time & advice for free, especially when a few sentences turns into £££. Spend money to get the right advice and right people.
• Social media audiences take a long time to grow and nurture.
• “Free” isn’t as attractive as you think it is. “free prizes” is not a social growth strategy.

Mistake #7: Trusting web designers who haven’t done it before

Choose your partners carefully.

Yes, it’s a high-churn niche, but if your competition site builder can’t instantly show you a strong roster of successfull competition sites then I would be wary of investing your time and money with them.
Many web designers mean well, but if they aren’t used to building competition sites, then they may not realise how much they don’t know. This can result in website which look the part, but behind the scenes it’s a total mess.

If you mess up ticket orders in public in the competition niche, your customers have a short capacity for patience and understanding, but a long memory and will be quick to label you a “scam” on social media, even if it’s an honest mistake.

Mistake #8: Not prepared / organised

This is a mistake my own clients rarely make, because I guide my clients step by step through everything they need to do to launch a competition business succesfully.
But a mistake I often see people skipping testing.
If you launch with a huge marketing campaign, with lots of £ spent on ads, then on your big day you haven’t practiced using your site or running lives on social media,
You could hit snags you hadn’t anticipated.
This can result in some pretty costly, embarassing, public mistakes.

Plan everything.
Test everything.
Rehearse everything.
Don’t be a “last minute charlie”.

Mistake #9: Not booking a competition clarity call with Nick

🤣🤣🤣
If you think this blog post has saved you from making a few costly mistakes, one call with me will help you save a hell of a lot more.
You can book a call here

How to start a competition business the RIGHT way…

Competition sites can be incredibly lucrative.
The last x4 competition businesses we helped launch were profitable from day 1, and turning over £100,000/m consistently by month 6.
But you’ve got to do it right.
And there’s x3 things you’ll need to do it right, and launch & scale a successful competition business.

Most people come in thinking the website is the business.
A pretty website alone won’t save your business if no one’s buying tickets.
The website is just one-third of the equation. And unless you sort the other two, you’re in for a rough ride.

You need three components. Like the legs of a stool.
A stool with x2 perfectyly good legs, is still useless.
If even one leg is missing you’ll fall on your ass.

Here’s the 3 key things you need to invest your time and money in to succeed:

1. A Brand Built Around a Specific Niche

Many people skip the brand.
Your brand is more than just your domain name or a logo.
It’s the emotional connection you create with your audience. It’s the reason people choose you over the other 20 raffle sites giving away the same prize.

Niche matters. A lot. You MUST choose a niche for your raffle business.
The tighter your niche, the cheaper your ads, the better your conversions, and the faster your growth.

We’ve built raffle sites in all sorts of weird and wonderful niches.

• car enthusiasts
• retro gaming fans
• offshore tradesmen
• Children’s clothing
• Everyday goods.
• Stunt bikes
• Luxury watches
• …

When your brand speaks to a specific group, it doesn’t just sell a prize. It sells identity. It says, “We get you. We are you.” And that’s what builds trust.
Here’s an example of brand guidlines for a niched competition site targeting the gaming community 👇

 

 

2. A high-conersion Raffle Website that scales

The site is the founation of your business.
It needs to look good for trust.
Avoid templates and cookie-cutter builders. They won’t inspire trust.

But it also needs to work:
You need functionality, not fluff: There are lots of features that will increase your customer lifetime spend, increase frequency of spending, and increase average order value.

Your site should include:

• Secure payment processing
• Mobile optimization
• Fast loading times
• Clear rules and trust signals
• Automation for managing comps

Your site must also scale with the levels of traffic you’d expect for competition sites.
Many competition sites are hosted on basic hosting like “GoDaddy or 123-Reg.
Do NOT make this mistake.

Your site MUST be hosted on a secure, hardened, and scalable environment to run smoothly and safely as your traffic increases.

3. A digital marketing Strategy to Drive Traffic to Your Raffle Site

You can’t just launch the website and hope people show up.

Traffic is what turns your prize listings into profit.

Start with organic content:

• Share your story
• Show behind the scenes
• Build in public
• Connect with your niche

Then layer in paid ads:

• Facebook and Instagram are your go-to
• Use retargeting to catch the fence-sitters
• Don’t just boost posts — run actual campaigns

Add affiliate marketing:

• Pay influencers to promote your comps
• Give customers referral bonuses

Keep growing your list:

• Email and SMS are where the repeat buyers live

Marketing isn’t optional. It’s the engine.

Without it, even the best raffle sites stall out.

Here’s my top x5 techniques for promoting raffle sites.

Raffle Sites Aren’t Get-Rich-Quick — They’re Build-Right-First

There are no shortcuts here. But there is a clear path.

If you want your raffle site to make real money, stop chasing hacks.

Instead:

1. Nail your niche and build a brand around it
2. Build a high conversion website that scales with your business.
3. Drive consistent traffic for scaleable profit.

If you do this right, you won’t just make money, you’ll build a leveraged scaleable business that lasts.

Want help building a raffle site?

We’ve helped clients go from zero to £380k/month in under 6 months. And we can help you do it too. Here’s how we can help:

1. You can grab my indepth, step by step guide to launching a raffle site
2. You can book a consultation call