And now, a word from our sponsors

As you can see I've opted in for Google AdSense, I wasn't sure I wanted to let ads on my blog here but I read up about AdSense and decided that it's quite worthwhile for a number of reasons. Sure, I might make a buck or two from it in the long run but honestly the real reason I chose to use it is even more appropriate: It makes finding/linking to sweepstakes easier.

Most of the sweeps I post about are relatively well advertised promotions for big name companies. AdSense scans through what my articles are about and posts ads that are relevant to the topic, for instance I've posted about the Coca-Cola MyCokeRewards program before and sure enough google places an ad for that very same program. So yes Virginia, ads worth clicking do exist.

Speaking of the Coca-Cola MyCokeRewards; today in the mail there was an envelope from Best Buy waiting for me, sure enough it was my Best Buy Pitch-In card I had won from the MyCokeRewards instant win game. Way to go Best Buy with your quick turn around on sending those out... I've yet to check and see if the company running the promotion has loaded it yet though.

With Thanksgiving came the end to a number of the more worthwhile sweeps, no real wins to report I'm sad to say... then again there's always that (fairly large) chance I've won something without being notified so I'll just have to keep checking that old mailbox.

The month of December already looks promising for some potentially excellent (and some potentially great in an awful way) sweeps and promos so we shall see what the future may hole.

Every Little Bit

So, when I first got into sweeps the one thing I wasn't expecting was the small wins. In reality small wins are the majority in most contests and sweeps, gift cards and product samples galore - when it boils down to it that's why these companies do the work to put out a promotion (or hire someone to do a promotion for them - more on that down the line) they want to promote their service or product.

In the past 2 days I've pulled in some fair little wins:

• $10 Best Buy Pitch-In card from Coca-Cola (MyCokeRewards.com) - It's a simple instant win game and if you check the rules there's a way to snag free entries every day. I played this one daily for weeks now but it only takes a few moments to enter and hey, $10? I'll take it.
• $5 Wendy's gift card from their NCAA Big Score promotion. (http://www.ncaa.com/wendys) - This is a great promotional game, you get entered in the full sweeps everytime you enter (up to 5 times daily) there's a simple way to get the codes for free right on the main page AND you get not one but two chances to win instantly every time you enter a code. That's 5 main sweeps and 10 instant games every day. On top of all that even if you don't win anything they still e-mail you codes good for $5 off a purchase at the Electronic Arts online store - just by playing my max entries for 2 days in a row I have $50 worth of discounts I could use (sadly they cannot be stacked... max of $5 off per purchase). If you need a code let me know.
• Free Febreze Air Effects 9.7 oz. from kmart's Mr. Bluelight's Christmas Countdown Collect & Win (link) - Alright, so maybe I'm not the biggest fan of kmart and sure they misspelled the company name on the print out coupon (Febreeze v. Febreze) but hey, on my second or third day playing their game I already had a win so who am I to complain? I'll use it. Their game has both instant win possibilities as well as a collect and win game.
• Free Pace Salsa from Pace's Hand-Pick & Win 2 instant win game (link) - So, unlike some past free products I've won Pace handles their win in a somewhat odd way... they don't send your the product they send you a coupon for $4 off their product - which generally costs less than 4 bucks. In a way it's nice, I can choose which salsa I'd like to try which, in reality, is much more likely to get me hooked then forcing a particular flavor on me. Now I need to win some free chips.

On top of all those wins I got my email notification that 2 of my orders from Club Bing have been shipped (more on Club Bing soon)