One of the most effective ways that we've found to convert existing users over to app users is by running app-only giveaways. For example, DoLA's Beach Goth giveaway earned their team 841 new installs in just its first week live.

To set up an app-only giveaway:

• Begin setting up the giveaway in Radmin as normal
• Within the 'Offer', you'll want to indicate that users need to download the app to enter the giveaway. 
• e.g. - "Enter to win on the DoXYZ App!" 
• Check the 'App Only' box.
• Save your giveaway to make it live.

• On the event page, you'll notice that a 'Win In App' button will automatically populate in place of the normal 'Win' button.

To pick winners for your app-only giveaway, follow the same process as on-site giveaway and use Radmin's Pick Winners tool to email and confirm with the winner(s) over email.

Message Non-Winners: A New Giveaway Feature (Coming Soon)

One of the biggest pieces of feedback we've heard from users is that we don't do an effective enough job closing the loop on giveaways. So, we're building a new feature to:

• Better close the loop on giveaways
• Educate users on other upcoming giveaways
• Drive traffic to our sites
• Give metros another valuable feature to sell into advertising packages

Last week the network as a whole had 77% more site traffic than the previous year. That's a larger YoY increase than any other week in the past year. What's driving the uptick? Lots of things, but primarily growth on Social and Email channels. Let's break it down!

Some social highlights:

• Do250: Always the largest contributors to spikes in audience, festivals have long been the most engaging type of social content for Do250 (see: this live video that received 129K organic reach). Victoria harnessed this trend by leaning on some local tastemakers to contribute to their festival guide. Of course, the success was dependent on the shares from those contributors (here, here, and here). After all was said and one, it was the main contributor to their highest week of traffic in 4 months.
   
• Do206: Seattle continued their success in posting sports-themed content on Facebook, as now their two most highly engaged with posts of the last 60 days were about Kevin Griffey Jr. and Marshawn Lynch respectively. The latter was shared 50 times and helped them hit their highest week of traffic in 23 weeks.  
   
• Do512: After switching to dailies, Do512 hit a new high point in YoY gains by augmenting with some social success. In this case, their WoW FB traffic was up 55% thanks to this post about ACL's plan to improve the festival, which was shared by ACL itself, garnering a ton of engagement and over 5K sessions to Do512. 

While Facebook used to be the domain of increasing dwindling results, recent months seem to see a general reversing of that trend across metros. If you check out the data in this Rasta-themed table showing weekly organic FB reach by market, you'll see that over the past 6 months, 14 of 20 metros saw marked increase in organic reach. For comparison, only 4 metros saw a seasonal increase last year. Hope springs eternal, and shout out to Do502's Amelia for bringing her market's increased reach to my attention.

On to email! Last week had the usual suspects hitting high YoY email traffic (like Do214), but what worked especially well last week?

• Do210: San Antonio really hit their stride in their second full week of sending dailies, with Sound on Sound fest VIP giveaway leading them to nearly 150% more unique clicks than their best ever weekly email and their highest traffic in 5 months.
   
• Do312: Got a great timely giveaway? Do as Chicago did with this super simple content block for Hannibal Burress. By far their highest performing content for the week, and helped them hit their best CTR since Lolla ended.
   
• Do314: St. Louis had their highest traffic of the year thanks to Patios List, LouFest, andOktoberfest list, in that order. Combined, Do314 hit their highest CTR in over 2 years.
   
• Do615: A well timed big show announce content block drove Nashville to 131% YoY traffic growth. We've increasingly seen that these bulleted lists perform best for show announces and top picks, since in this case, it was Kings of Leon that received the vast majority of the clicks, even though they weren't the photo featured in the content block. More data on recommended formats for specific types of content blocks soon.
   
• DoLA: If you've got Kanye tickets, you lead your email with Kanye tickets. DoLA did exactly that, and it was the largest contributor to their whopping 226% YoY growth. Important note: They used subject line of "Win Tickets to Kanye..." rather than just name of the fest he was performing at. Always use specific headliner names in your subject lines when applicable. 
   
• DoTheBay: Right up there with Kanye in the realm of "Email content that's a guaranteed hit," DTB announced the lineup of Treasure Island night shows, helping them notch yet another week of 2X YoY traffic.   

Hopefully you're noticing some patterns about what you should be including in your emails: Festival lineup announcements, big ticket giveaways (Fests/Hannibal/Kanye), big show announcements, relevant seasonal lists, etc. Still have questions about what to include in your daily emails? We've got the subject line hierarchy, a constantly updating list of all the best performing email content in the network, and our undying pledge to dig in with you to help refine your email content selection to a well-oiled, audience-driving machine.

Long update today! But hopefully helpful. A note that we're aware of the recent dip in app sessions with our most recent build release, and we're digging in our end.

Toss in growth ideas if you got 'em, and check out the rest of your stats below:

It was Christmas time all over the network this week, as Do617 celebrated another year of Allston Christmas, and Do512 + DoSD received the audience gifts of Festival Fest. All the details below:

• Do617: Boston built on last year's popular Allston Christmas Block Party with their 2nd annual Allston Christmas event. This year featured the reunion of Boston college radio favorites the Blake Babies. Do617 milked nostalgia for the band with some engaging throwback social promotion, a post that garnered 500+ engagements and 2K+ post clicks, making it their most engaged with post over the past 3 months. The second most was also for the announce of Allston Awesome Christmas fest. When the above combined with the announce of their upcoming Leafly comedy tour show (and some nice referral traffic from the venue), Do617 had their highest week of traffic in all of 2016.
   
• Do512: Austin's average weekly YoY site traffic growth for the first 35 weeks of 2016 was 1%. Last week? It topped 20%. It's no surprise then that last week marked the inaugural week of daily emails for Do512 and simultaneously, Festival Fest. Last week alone, their email traffic jumped 135% from the week prior, with more than half of those clicks headed towards Festival Fest content. Do512 now joins the other major markets (LA/NYC/Chicago) in the group of metros successfully sending daily emails, and we're excited to see the momentum continue as they hone their email strategy over time. 
   
• DoSD: Oh hey another surprise. DoSD kicked off Festival Fest. They received 235% more email traffic than the week previous (on a whopping 30% CTR of those that opened their newsletter), and had their 2nd most giveaway entrants and 5th highest week of traffic of all time.

The clock is ticking on making sure you see the dividends of a Festival Fest or other daily giveaway campaign in your market. We're here to make sure it happens, so reach out with any questions.

Everyone's updated stats await below, and don’t forget to toss some growth ideas our way if you got ‘em: