Still running your Best Of the same way every year? These setup hacks and hidden gems can take your program to the next level.
Many media companies run their Best Of programs the same way year after year. The problem? Audiences change, advertiser expectations evolve, and new platform features are constantly being introduced.
If your ballot setup hasn’t evolved, you could be missing opportunities to increase participation, improve the user experience, streamline processes, and generate additional revenue.
Check out 10 of the of the most overlooked setup features, customization options, and efficiency tools available for your Best Of program.
1. Save Time With Smarter Ballot Creation
Building a ballot from scratch isn’t always necessary. If you’ve run a successful Best Of program previously, you can copy both the design and existing entrants from prior years to speed up setup. Teams can also import unapproved entrants, making moderation and ballot population significantly easier.
Another time-saving feature is keyword importing, which can be completed during or after ballot creation. This provides more flexibility when managing large programs with numerous categories and entrants.
2. Customize Categories for Better Quality Nominations
Small configuration changes can have a major impact on ballot quality. There are several category customization tools, including:
- Google Business integration for easier business selection
- Category sorting options
- Geographic radius restrictions for business suggestions
These settings help create a cleaner, more relevant nomination experience while reducing unwanted submissions and reducing time spent moderating.
3. Take Greater Control of Entrant Pages
Entrant pages have become an increasingly valuable asset for both participants and advertisers.
Several lesser-known customization options include:
- Limiting unique URLs to featured entrants only
- Displaying additional business information exclusively for featured entrants
- Accessing entrant page URLs directly from entrant setup
- Bulk updating entrants across categories
These features not only improve administrative efficiency but also create premium upsell opportunities for featured entrant packages.
4. Fine-Tune Visibility and Winner Settings
Many Best Of moderators overlook important controls that influence how and when audiences engage with the ballot.
- Restricting participation to users within a designated area
- Choosing whether entrants appear immediately after approval or only during live phases
- Controlling how ties are handled in winner rankings
These seemingly small decisions can have a significant impact on fairness, user experience, and overall program management.
5. Unlock New Revenue Through eCommerce
Monetization innovations are the biggest opportunity when it comes to expanding your Best Of program. eCommerce is built into the platform and is FREE to use, so there’s really no reason not to!
- Sell à la carte advertising placements
- Create custom advertising packages
- Enable advertiser self-service purchasing
6. Maximize Every Advertising Opportunity
Many organizations focus only on featured entrants and category sponsorships, but there are numerous additional ad placements available throughout the ballot experience:
- Groups page ad
- Group
- Category ads
- Category interstitial ads
- Featured entrant page ads
Even better, ads can be imported in bulk, duplicated across placements, and automatically rotated as ballot phases change. This reduces setup time while increasing inventory value.
7. Encourage Repeat Participation
Keeping audiences engaged throughout the program is one of the biggest challenges for Best Of campaigns.
One highly effective tactic is requiring users to nominate or vote within a certain number of categories to qualify for a sweepstakes. This encourages deeper ballot engagement and increases overall participation.
Reminder emails also remain one of the most effective engagement tools. They can reinforce key voting dates, promote sponsors, and encourage users to return throughout the campaign.
8. Stop Ignoring Your Brand Experience
One of the simplest improvements organizations can make is updating the look and feel of their ballot.
Updating primary colors to align with program branding branding and leveraging innovative design tools to creates a more polished experience, both for your audience AND your advertisers.
- Use custom hex codes or extract colors directly from logos or graphics
- Create urgency with countdown timers
- Add branded buttons and promotional elements
- Build custom landing page experiences
The ballot no longer has to be a basic voting page. It can become a fully branded audience destination.
9. Experiment With New Layout Options
Different types of audiences engage with content in different ways, which is why multiple ballot layouts are available.
- Category Drawers
- Category Pages
- Wide Scroll
- Narrow Scroll
These layouts allow organizations to tailor the voting experience based on audience behavior and content volume.
10. Use Tools That Make Moderation Easier
Best Of administrators often spend countless hours managing nominations, but there are several hidden gems designed to simplify administration:
- Manually adding votes to resolve ties
- Dismissing unnecessary merge suggestions
- SMS fraud prevention tools
- Fraud bypass lists for approved users
- Bulk keyword imports
Together, these features reduce manual work and help teams confidently manage large-scale ballots.
The Takeaways
If you’re running your Best Of program exactly the way you did last year, you’re likely leaving engagement, efficiency, and revenue opportunities on the table.
From smarter imports and category controls to enhanced branding, eCommerce tools, new ad inventory, and moderation shortcuts, today’s Best Of platform offers far more flexibility than many organizations realize. Taking advantage of even a handful of these hidden gems can create a better experience for your audience, simplify management for your team, and open new revenue opportunities for your business.
Expecting different results while doing the same things year after year is a recipe for stagnation. The most successful Best Of programs continue evolving, testing new features, and finding better ways to engage audiences and advertisers alike!
Need more ideas?
Sign up for our Lab Newsletter to get best practices, timely articles, and case studies sent right to your inbox!
