Gumtree wished to increase brand awareness and engagement on Facebook. They developed a sweepstakes app with a celebrity ad guessing game and prize of £500. Users were prompted to like the page and enter personal details. The app increased likes by 41.8% and those talking about it by 6,000%. Promoted posts reached current fans and their friends, boosting entries. While not all potential fans saw it, the viral sharing incentivized organic growth. Gumtree should continue incentivized competitions across platforms for engagement.

1.
Gumtree
Company Background
Founded in London in 2000, Gumtree has
Executive Summary
grown to cover 60 cities across multiple Client:
countries including Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong, Dubai,
France, Poland and more. mycleveragency
work closely with them to develop their
online presence through social media
channels.
Objective
Gumtree wished to increase online social
Objective:
awareness of their brand as well as grow
engagement levels with existing fans on • Increase brand awareness
Facebook and reach friends of fans. All the • Grow engagement with existing
while creating a larger community for their fans
Facebook fan base. • Reach friends of existing fans
• Increase fan base
Approach
Solution: Build an engaging Sweepstake
We developed a Facebook app with a fun
app, and use the help of Promoted Posts
‘Guess the Celebrity Ad’ element, and the
to increase reach and engagement levels
possibility of winning £500.
• Fangate – Non-fans on Facebook
Key Learnings:
prompted to ‘Like’ page before
entering, fans directed to 6,000% increase in those Talking
competition tab as default About This!
• App Authorisation – Pre-populated Promoted posts are a great way to a)
entry fields with basic Facebook info increase affinity with existing fans, b)
• Entry – Guess which celeb ‘posted’ engage friends of fans
a Gumtree ad with multiple choice, For the future, taking advantage of tie-
enter email address and name for in platforms such as radio and the
re-marketing purposes website itself could really boost the
• Thank You/Sharing Page – This competition
provided options to share with Viral capabilities of a sharing app can
Facebook friends, post to Twitter, make up for a minimal budget and
visit Gumtree or visit partner brand enable organic awareness
Capital FM
• Sharing Incentive – Every 10
entries through shares would
provide the sharer with an extra
entry, shared Tweet included
handles of involved brands for
exposure – shared image would
appear on user’s Facebook timeline
“Mycleveragency did a great job at bringing this competition to life. It was the first time that
Capital FM have ever allowed an on-air promotion be mirrored through social media, so
credit goes to Rob and the team for managing the whole process beautifully. Smart use of
Facebook advertising delivered a huge boost to Gumtree’s fanbase, and helped us to set
a new benchmark for an engaging and integrated campaign.”
Sam Diamond, Marketing Co-Manager – Gumtree

2.
Results
13% of app visits came through
referrals, 62% of users signed up
to the Capital FM e-newsletter
Usage peaked on the final day of
the competition with 8,386 people sdgdbfg
Of those who saw the app
authentication, the conversion rate
for app acceptance was 66%
Increased Facebook fans overall
from 58,846 to 84,881 (41.8%
increase, by 25,035)
New ‘Likes’ average pre-
Sweepstake was 85 per day,
increased to 1,788 per day during
Number of people ‘Talking About
This’ went up by nearly 6,000% at
its peak, continued to grow post-
competition
Reach peaked at almost 20,000
people pre-Sweepstake, 578,911
during
Use of Facebook Ads also helped
to promote the competition and
increase Likes (£1.26k spent)
Promoted posts allowed Gumtree to reach current
fans with low affinity, that might not have seen the
post otherwise. (Those who hadn’t been interacting
with the brand or clicking Like recently, for
example.) They also enabled Gumtree to appear in
the news feeds of friends of their fans, both
desktop and mobile. 10% of all entrants used the
Tweet button, while engagement on non-
competition posts rose significantly due to reignited
affinity. Of Gumtree’s 85,000 fans, 17% entered
the competition – because of lack of promotion in
more traditional formats such as radio, Capital FM
display ads, newsletters or Gumtree itself, word of
the competition didn’t reach as many as it could
have done. However, viral features built into the
app-increased awareness organically, and while
the Facebook ad budget was minimal, it let
Gumtree effectively reach current fans and the
majority of fans’ friends.
Next Steps
Incentivised competitions are definitely something
the Gumtree community enjoy, and the company
should look to roll these out regularly for
engagement boosts, with the help of other platform
tie-ins.