Running a Giveaway? Here's How to Stop Duplicate Entries
A giveaway with no verification is a giveaway where the most persistent entrant wins, not the luckiest. Here's how to make sure one entry actually means one person.
By Keepp Team
The rule of a giveaway is almost always “one entry per person.” Enforcing it is the part that usually gets skipped. A form with a name and an email field looks like it’s tracking individual entries, but there’s nothing stopping the same person from submitting it five times under five different made-up addresses — and once that’s happened, the giveaway isn’t random anymore. It’s a contest for whoever was willing to fill out the form the most times.
The same problem shows up on an RSVP form, just with lower stakes and a different cost: a headcount padded by duplicate entries means ordering too much food, printing too many name tags, or reserving a table for people who were never actually coming.
Why an email field alone doesn’t solve it
An email field asks for contact info, which makes it feel like it’s screening entries. It isn’t, unless something checks whether the address is real. Typing entry1@fake.com through entry5@fake.com takes no more effort than typing one real address, and a standard form has no way to tell the difference between five people and one person in a hurry. The entry count goes up either way.
What verification actually enforces
Turning on email verification on a giveaway or RSVP form’s identifying field means an entry doesn’t count until the person confirms they control the address they used — a 6-digit code, or a one-click Google sign-in for a form with a single verified field. Five submissions from five made-up addresses stay stuck at the verification step; only entries tied to a real, confirmed inbox make it into the pool you’re actually drawing from.
It’s not a defense against one person using five real email addresses — that’s a harder problem, and most small giveaways don’t need to solve it. What it stops is the far more common version: the same person clicking submit five times in a row under addresses that don’t exist, because nothing was checking.
Unverified entries aren’t deleted — they’re just not in the draw
If someone starts verifying and doesn’t finish — closes the tab, doesn’t click the code link, doesn’t complete the Google sign-in — their entry is still recorded. It shows up in your Data view labeled as unverified, so you can see it, and decide for yourself whether an unfinished entry is worth reaching out about before you draw a winner. It’s excluded from the pool of confirmed entries without being erased from your records entirely.
Setting it up
A custom-shaped form block with a single-select for the giveaway or RSVP option and an email as the identifying field covers the setup — verification is a switch on that email field, off by default, and worth turning on specifically because a giveaway is exactly the case where “one entry, one person” needs to be actually true and not just assumed. Scheduling the block so the form disappears once entries close, and collecting leads and feedback from your page for the form block in full, cover the rest of the setup.
Common questions
Does verification stop one person using multiple real email addresses? No — it confirms each address is real and controlled by whoever submitted it, not that the same person isn’t behind several genuine addresses. For most giveaways, closing off fake addresses is the part that matters.
Can I still see entries that never finished verifying? Yes — they’re kept and labeled unverified in your Data view rather than deleted, so nothing submitted disappears.
Does this work for an RSVP headcount too, not just a giveaway? Yes — the same toggle applies to any form’s identifying field, so an RSVP form gets the same one-person-one-entry guarantee a giveaway does.
Add a verified giveaway or RSVP form to your keepp.link page — free to start. See pricing for the full plan breakdown.