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Getting Started FAQ#

What is KickoffLabs?

KickoffLabs is a landing page builder and a referral engine, all in one! With KickoffLabs you can quickly (and easily) set-up viral giveaways, product launches, and sweepstakes. Choose from our proven campaign templates or integrate with a platform of your choosing!

What is a campaign?

A KickoffLabs Campaign contains all of your landing, status pages, popups, embeds, and anyform in a contest. Each campaign has its own set of leads, scoring, rewards, emails, settings, and integrations. You can create an unlimited amount of landing pages in a single campaign, however, if you’re wanting to target multiple audiences or separate your leads, it is recommended to create separate campaigns.

How do I choose a campaign type?

KickoffLabs offers a variety of campaign types to meet where you’re currently at in your business. Our templates also allow you to seamlessly mix and match or combine contest types, for example a Reward Level campaign + a Leaderboard to award a grand prize to the person with the most referrals. Check out the campaign types we offer here.

Getting started with different campaign types

From prelaunch waitlists to multi level loyalty reward campaigns, there’s something for everyone. We’ve included some of the most popular campaign types to get started with below:

Can I import existing leads?

Yes, leads can either be imported by copying/pasting a list of emails into our import tool, or by sending an external email blast in your CRM with our instant signup link. Leads get a referral link generated in just one click without having to enter any details again!

Can I have more than one landing page?

Yes, you can have as many landing pages as you’d like. Simply add a new page from your campaign dashboard here. We also support copying pages to get more landing pages up and running even faster.

Can I use my own domain/URL?

Yes, you can connect any custom domain of your choosing. We’ve included the steps to do that here.

What if I already have a website?

It’s common for users with existing websites to either design/host their pages with KickoffLabs on a subdomain (contest.yourdomain.com). We also offer the option to integrate with your existing website via Anyform, a popup, or an embed.

How do I change the “points” wording to something else?

This can be changed via your campaign localization settings.

Can I create campaigns in different languages?

Yes, KickoffLabs campaigns are fully localizable. You can edit any of the customer visible text to support your audience, and even publish each campaign to a unique path while matching your branding (ie: kickofflabs.com/fr, Kickofflabs.com/en etc). Learn more about localizing your campaign here.

How do I publish my campaign live and test it?

By default, we automatically publish pages to a .kickoffpages.com subdomain for easy testing. This can be accessed from your campaign dashboard here.

How can leads check their status?

When a lead signs up, we cookie them and add session data. If they go back to a page (on the same device/browser session) we’d know who they are. Additionally:

We generate a unique status URL for them that they can bookmark.
By default our emails include their unique status page so they can check their stats, complete actions, and share with friends.
Leads can also get to their status page by signing up on the landing page (using the same details they initially used to signup). Most people end up going back to their status pages though since we make it easy in the emails we send out.

Can I send emails with KickoffLabs?

By default, KickoffLabs offers four trigger based emails to non-lifetime customers (a normal subscription is required for these features.)

Auto Reply: Thanks the lead for signing up and includes their unique status url so they can check their stats, complete actions, and share with friends.
Reward Milestone: Triggers when a lead hits a specific point milestone (that you set).
Verification (double-opt in): When enabled, leads will receive an email with a link to confirm their participation.
Broadcast: Integrate with AWS/Sendgrid/SMTP to send one off emails to your leads ( ie: sending a reminder nudge to leads with 0 points)

For broadcast/automated email sequences, we always recommend pairing our emails with an external CRM.

How do I download my leads?

Leads can be downloaded into a CSV file at any time via the “Leads” section of your campaign here. We also offer the option to automatically push leads from KickoffLabs into an external platform of your choosing. Learn more about the integrations we offer here.

Do you have any case studies?

Several! We’ve even interviewed our top users, going behind the scenes covering everything from setup to how they marketed their campaigns. Check it out here.

How do I know if my campaign is successful?

On average, conversion rate on campaigns is around 25%+ with a 35%+ viral boost.

What if I need help?

We have a support library full of step by step tutorials, additional resources and guides, and unlimited email based support. Our team is always happy to help! Simply send us an email to: support@kickofflabs.com.

Campaign Dashboard Overview#

Your Campaign Dashboard is the main hub for everything relating to your campaign. From the Campaign Dashboard you can add new pages and widgets, edit your existing forms and widgets, set up automatic reply emails, set up third party integrations, view campaign reports, start an A/B test, download your leads, and a number of other campaign related tasks.

The Campaign dashboard will differ slightly in appearance depending on if you chose a KickoffLabs landing page set-up or an Embed/Popup Box/Anyform set-up when creating the campaign.

Landing Page Dashboard

From the top menu you can access your Account Settings, navigate to your full list of campaigns, or be taken back to the Campaign Dashboard of your current campaign by clicking the campaign name. You can also access Leads, Reports and Setup.
The main screen includes a complete list of all pages and widgets in your campaign. You can use the “Edit Page” button to quickly access the page editor for that page, or use the Setup cog to update things like your Page Settings, tracking codes, or to make a copy or delete the page.
Below the pages, you can select “Add a New Page” to add a new landing or status page, or “New Embedded Form” to add a form embed to the campaign.
Below that are the Common Settings. This area houses your scoring, emails, and rewards for the campaign.
Lastly, is the More Growth Tools section. Here we have the additional campaign widgets such as the Nudge Bar, Popup Box and Anyform.

Popup Box Dashboard

If you instead chose a popup flow during the initial set-up, your dashboard will look like the below.

popup box dash

The top navigation bar will stay the same, however, there are a few new areas to cover.

First in the overview will house the Popup Box. Learn more on customizing your Popup Box here.
Underneath the common settings area, we include the Popup Box installation scripts/steps to easily copy and paste onto your website.
Next we have “Edit Landing Pages.” By default, we include an embedded version of the Popup Box on a page for easy testing. If you wanted to add an additional KickoffLabs landing/status page, no need to start all over again. Simple click the blue “Add a new page” button.
Lastly, to the right we display a live preview of what your Popup Box will look like.

Anyform Dashboard

The Anyform Dashboard will look similar to the landing page dashboard, except the top overview will be swapped out with the Anyform settings along with a KickoffLabs status page. Learn more about Anyform here.

Anyform dashboard

Have any questions? Email our support team at: support@kickofflabs.com!

How can I detect fraud in online contests and viral campaigns?#

No one would ever tell you that a contest platform can’t be gamed. If you are giving away something with significant value then people will try and game any system to take advantage of it.

At KickoffLabs our customers HAVE given away several thousands of dollars worth of credits, products, cash, and other prizes in enormously successful contests. They have done so with confidence that they have the guidance and tools to avoid awarding scammers. Here’s how we can help and how you can help yourself feel more confident.

Automatic Detection at KickoffLabs

Using our Advanced Fraud Prevention, Business and Enterprise level plans get access to smart tools to help stop scammers.

1. Verified lead campaigns

You can enable Campaign Lead Verification. This is the safest solution for contests with significant value because it will require individuals to manually confirm their entry in the contest via email (commonly known as double opt-in).

No reward emails or totals will be sent to people that have not verified. If a verified account refers 100 unverified fake signups those signups will NOT count in their totals.

2. Advanced IP blocking

Using Lead Filtering, all leads should have a unique IP address. Any duplicate IP addresses are automatically marked as suspicious. Leads and referrals from those addresses will not count in any totals that are used for automatic emails or reward distribution.

If you expect multiple signups from a trusted shared network, you can white list IP addresses (for example from an office, university, public workspace, etc).

3. Invalid email addresses are flagged

If an email address bounces we clearly mark it in your Lead Reports. This does require turning on the Automatic Reply Email.

4. Fake addresses are flagged

Additionally, we automatically detect disposable emails (like from Mailinator and 1,000’s of other bad email domains) which are also clearly marked in your Lead Reports.

5. Entries from known sweepstakes sites can be ignored

There are sites where people just post to get referrals to giveaways. You can choose to exclude entries from these sites from your campaign.

6. Captcha can be enabled to prevent robot entries

You can setup a captcha on your campaign. This means leads may be required to answer a visual question before entering.

7. We’d tell you, but we’d have to kill you

We do more behind the scenes to prevent fraud based on our experience but we don’t want to publicly post all those secrets online for people to start working around. 🙂

Need help? Let us know at support@kickofflabs.com!

Campaign Modes Explained#

There are five campaign modes that a KickoffLabs contest can run in. These types range in complexity from beginner to advanced. Let’s take a look at how you can integrate your next campaign with KickoffLabs.

campaign setup

New Landing Page(s)

Choose from a single page or two page set-up. Pages are hosted by KickoffLabs on a .kickoffpages.com subdomain and can optionally be published to a custom domain/subdomain of your choosing!

kickofflabs hosted page

Landing Page Set-up Options

Single Page Contest – This option is great if you’re looking for leads to sign-up and view their status, all from one page. Simply select your campaign type, choose a template, and set a confirmation message. You can also preview the contest to see how a new lead and an existing lead would view the page. See more about previewing your pages here.

Landing Page to Status Page – A two page set-up is the original set-up at KickoffLabs. This option allows you to customize a landing page and a separate status page that the lead sees after sign-up. This is great if you’re wanting to keep the experience separate. Learn more about setting up a two step campaign below.

Pop-up Box

The pop-up feature allows for you to install a pop-up on a page of any website! (aslong as you have access to add HTML to your website). Leads can easily opt-in to the contest via the pop-up and view their stats/share with friends.

contest box popup

Embeds

Our Embeds feature allows for you to directly embed a KickoffLabs powered form onto a page of any website! (aslong as you have access to add HTML to your website). Leads can easily opt-in to the contest via the embedded form and view their stats/share with friends.

embedded form

Already Have an Existing Form Externally?

This option is the perfect solution if you’d like to integrate KickoffLabs with an external landing page, but would still like leads to. be redirected to a unique status page where they can view points/rewards/share the contest with friends. This solution involves a bit of coding knowledge as you will need to paste our Anyform script into the header of your existing website.

anyform script

Getting Started with Reward Level Campaigns#

Reward level campaign is where leads earn rewards for specific actions like signing up, following your brand, and referring friends. The Reward level campaign is available on all KickoffLabs set-ups including KickoffLabs landing pages, embeds, popups, and Anyform. Learn more about the campaign mode options here before getting started.

Reward Level Milestone Campaign Intro

When you first sign-up to KickoffLabs, or create a new campaign, we’ll walk you through a step by step onboarding flow. Our onboarding process will pre-set the scoring/actions/rewards based on the campaign type that you select, making it easier to launch your campaign faster! To get started with a Reward Level milestone campaign, select the campaign type for rewards.

reward level onboarding

You’ll then be prompted to use our (optional) AI builder tool. It’s an extremely helpful tool that can assist with things like generating example page copy, emails, share text and even legal terms and conditions. If you’d like to use it, provide a 1-2 sentence description of your company/product. If you’d like to skip it, simply scroll past to the next step.

ai builder onboarding

Next, select where leads should sign-up. For this example, we’ll be using the KickoffLabs landing pages, but we also offer options to integrate externally. Learn more about Embedded Forms, Popup Box, and Anyform

campaign setup

Now, the fun part..choosing a template! We’ve curated a variety of templates to go with the Reward Milestone campaign type. There’s no right or wrong template to go with, simply choose the layout that you like best.

choose a template

We automatically preset the scoring for a reward level campaign, but if you want to instead only award points for referrals you can change the option in the scoring settings here once the campaign is created.

actions scoring

Campaign Dashboard Welcome Tour

After you’ve finished the onboarding flow, you will be taken to your campaign dashboard. The Campaign dashboard is where all of your campaign settings/leads/integrations/pages are housed. You can learn more about the dashboard here, but to go over a few:

Campaigns: This will take you out to the main list of campaigns that you’ve created at KickoffLabs.

Leads: The Lead section is where all leads who have signed up in a campaign are housed.

Reports: Access in-depth reporting for you campaign’s pages/anyform/contest box.

Setup: This is where all of the campaign wide settings are housed such as any tracking scripts, default social share text, and advanced fraud detection.

Campaign Wide Contest Set-up

The campaign wide settings are housed below the landing pages and house scoring, actions, emails, and reward milestones for the campaign.

common settings

Set Scoring – This section allows you to customize the overall scoring of the campaign, set actions, and also houses optional Shopify Rewards Purchase Tracking and Lead Tags.

Messaging – This section houses all of the messaging options at KickoffLabs such as: SMS, braodcast mails, auto-reply, reward level, and verification emails. You can also customize an email template or your from settings.

Milestone Rewards

This area will display specific settings for the campaign type that you selected. In this example, since we selected the Reward Level campaign, the Milestone Reward settings will display.

KickoffLabs Page Editor

Back at the top of your dashboard, you can choose to edit the page or view the live page to test things out. By default, we publish the pages to a .kickoffpages.com subdomain to make it easy for testing. In this example, we chose a single page landing page set-up.

edit landing page

While we have an in-depth editor tutorial here, we’ve provided a brief overview of some of the options available with a multi-level reward campaign below

If you instead chose the Anyform/Embed/Popup Box during the initial set-up, you still have access to create and edit KickoffLabs pages. They will just be moved to the end of the dashboard where you can select to add templates.

add landing page

Pre-Set Widgets

This will vary depending on what campaign type you chose initially during the onboarding flow. In our Multi-Level Reward campaign example, we add a few widgets by default.

Actions

These are additional actions that leads can take outside of KickoffLabs for additional (optional) points. For example, tweeting about the contest, or sharing via SMS. KickoffLabs currently offers over 50 platform actions to choose from. Learn more about configuring actions here.

Reward Tracker

KickoffLabs automatically tracks how many people each of your leads has referred into your campaign using their unique sharing links on Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks. You can set rewards based on point milestones, optionally include an image of the prize, and trigger an email to leads as they unlock each milestone. Learn more about configuring your campaign rewards here.

Page Level Customization

Replacing a Logo

The majority(if not all) of our templates have a logo placeholder. This can easily be swapped out by hovering over the logo and editing to replace the image with your own.

Editing a Form

By default, our templates include a first name + email field on the form. You can hover over to edit and add any additional custom fields to your form. View all of the form options available here. Keep in mind, best practice is to keep the forms short with the main focus being getting the lead’s email/phone number. If you’d like to ask lead’s additional questions, we also have a post-sign-up option.

Changing the Default Confirmation

In the form editor, you can also change whether to redirect the lead after the signed-up or even display a confirmation message. Learn more about the different confirmation options here.

change confirmation default

Editing the Status Section

If you chose a single page setup, you can edit the area leads see after they’ve signed up from the “Thanks & Status” tab. Here you can edit everything the lead would see after they’ve signed up such as the thanks message, rewards, and actions.

status editor

Adding a Section

Publishing Your KickoffLabs Page

Once you’re ready for the changes to go live, simply select the green “Publish” button in the right corner of the KickoffLabs editor. Next, you’ll be redirected to the page level settings.

Basic Settings – In this section, you can customize the URL the page is published to, along with the browser title/description, and page type. By default, pages are published to a .kickoffpages subdomain, however, you can connect your own custom domain.

Head & Footer Codes – in this area you can set page level scripts. This is rarely used, and most users opt to set the scripts at the campaign level

Embed Page – This option allows you to embed a KickoffLabs page onto an external website, so that the landing/status page lives on your website instead of being hosted on KickoffLabs.

More Campaign Common Settings

Let’s review a couple of other common settings you may want to enable.

Privacy Policy/Terms
We do our best to provide boilerplate guidance here, but we are not lawyers and it’s always best to consult with one for your own legal advice. This text will be showing when people click contest rules or privacy links on your pages and contest boxes.
Setup default Social Share text and images for your campaign
This information will be used in your campaign when people share. Keep in mind that if you are sharing non-KickoffLabs hosted pages you may need to setup the Facebook settings there too.
When your campaign is underway you’ll use the Leads tab to view leads as they come in
You can create saved search audiences, sort by contest score, and check out any leads that may have been flagged for fraud by clicking in to view the lead card and lead activity.
The Reports tab
It gives you a high level view of the ROI for your campaign, the conversion rate, and the viral boost you are getting from that sharing we setup earlier.Once you’ve upgraded to a paid plan I suggest you check out these additional options…
Advanced Fraud Detection and rules (available for customers with Business Plans and above)
By default we restrict Entries to one per IP address and also offer a lot more options such as flagging people from sweepstakes sites or captcha required registration.
Under messaging, setup an Automatic reply
The open rates on these messages are over 40% and it’s a great chance to remind people why they should keep taking actions and engaging with your contest. .
Under your account level menu
You’ll see options for adding your custom domains if you are using landing pages, custom email domains to improve deliverability, and sub accounts to add team members who manage the campaign(s) or clients to view their data. This is also where you can add any custom website domains to your account.
Integrations
Easily connect KickoffLabs to external platforms like MailChimp, Klaviyo, Drip, Convertkit, or other services. We also offer Zapier + Webhook integration.

For best practices check out the resources on our website. You can subscribe to our podcast, blog, and check out the “best of” advice under Marketing Resources for guidance on copywriting, design, and generating traffic.

We also offer custom “Done for you packages” if all of this still feels a little daunting.

We’ve been doing this for over 10 years. We know we can help you get your contest off to a great start.

If you need additional help don’t hesitate to start at support.kickofflabs.com, email support@kickofflabs.com or check out our community.

Getting Started with Waitlist Campaigns#

Waitlist style campaign helps you to generate word of mouth, build an audience, and generate future sales by encouraging people to join and then move up the waitlist as they refer friends and earn points in your contest online.

How do waitlist mechanics work?

A lead starts at the end of the line placed at the position determined by their join date. So if 100 people had already joined they would start at position 101.

If that lead earns a point they would then jump ahead of anyone with zero points and be at the end of people that had earned one point. Leads with 2 points would always be ahead of them unless you removed them from the waitlist.

You may choose to give earlier access to people who are at the top of your waitlist as a reward or even combine it with reward levels where people can move up your list AND earn guaranteed rewards. If you remove people from the waitlist you everyone behind them would move up in line.

We see people run successful waitlist campaigns for new apps, pre-launching crowdfunding campaigns, and online store launches. Check out our Ultimate Waitlist Guide here.

Waitlist Campaign Intro

To get started with a Waitlist campaign, select a Waitlist campaign type. We have a variety of Waitlist options to choose from, depending on what you’re looking for (Crowdfunding prelaunches, mobile app waitlists, prelaunch waitlsit etc). For this example, we’ll be selecting the Prelaunch Waitlist.

prelaunch waitlist

Next you’ll be prompted to use our new (optional) AI builder tool. It’s an extremely helpful tool that can assist with things like generating example page copy, emails, share text and even legal terms and conditions. If you’d like to use it, provide a 1-2 sentence description of your company/product. If you’d like to skip it, simply scroll past to the next step.

Now, we’ll choose how we want the lead to sign-up and share. For the purposes of this guide we’ll choose the KickoffLabs “Single Page” option, but you can choose the option that best suits your needs.

You’ll now be presented with a list of our most popular themes (depending on what you chose in step 4) Remember, there is no right or wrong signup page design for this type of campaign, so choose the one you like best!

Next, you’ll be prompted to review your set-up. If everything looks correct, click the button to make the robots dance! If you need to make any changes, simply scroll up to see the previous options that you selected and make any changes before continuing on.

By default, we set the scoring to actions + referrals for the waitlist campaign. You can change that in the scoring settings here after the campaign is created.

Campaign Dashboard Welcome Tour

Campaigns: This will take you out to the main list of campaigns that you’ve created at KickoffLabs.

Leads: The Lead section is where all leads who have signed up in a campaign are housed.

Reports: Access in-depth reporting for your campaign’s pages/anyform/embeds/popups.

Setup: This is where all of the campaign wide settings are housed such as any tracking scripts, default social share text, and advanced fraud detection.

Campaign Wide Common Settings Set-up

The Common Settings are housed below the landing pages along with options to set the scoring, actions, emails, and rewards for the campaign.

common settings

Set Scoring – This section allows you to customize the overall scoring of the campaign, set actions, and also houses optional Shopify Rewards Purchase Tracking and Lead Tags.

KickoffLabs Page Editor

edit waitlist page

While we have an in-depth editor tutorial here, we’ve provided a brief overview of some of the options available with a multi-level reward campaign below

add landing page