The 9 Giveaway Metrics Worth Putting in a Client Report

A giveaway report has one job: let the client decide whether to run another one. Most reports do not do that. They lead with the largest figure available, such as total comments or followers gained by the evening of the draw, and stop there. The client feels good for a week, then notices their follower count has slid and their next post is underperforming, and the report that promised success looks careless.

The fix is not more data. It is choosing nine numbers that answer the questions a client actually has: did people take part, were the entries real, did it reach anyone new, did the audience stay, and what did it cost. Below are those nine, with how to calculate each, where to find it, and the mistake that usually comes with it.

Where the numbers come from

Three sources cover almost everything here. TikTok's own analytics shows per-video views, the audience reached, traffic sources, watch time, completion rate, likes, comments, shares and saves, plus followers gained and profile views at account level. Desktop access allows a direct CSV export, while mobile exports are more limited. Your entry export from the draw tool gives you the entry pool itself. And the client's own systems, such as a link-click report, a promo code count, or sales data, cover what happened off the platform.

Take the first snapshot on the day the giveaway closes and the second thirty days later. Several of the metrics below only make sense as a pair, and a report built from a single day-one snapshot cannot show them.

1. Eligible entries

Report the number of entries that met the published rules, not the raw comment count. Raw comments include duplicates, off-topic replies, the host's own replies, and entries that arrived after the deadline. Eligible entries are what the draw actually used.

The figure comes from your export: raw rows minus the excluded ones. Show both numbers side by side, with the raw count in smaller type. Leading with the raw count is the quickest way to overstate participation, and it creates an awkward conversation if the client later sees the eligible figure on the draw record. The guide to proving a draw was fair covers how to keep the export and exclusion reasons so these two numbers can be defended.

2. Eligibility rate

Divide eligible entries by raw entries. If 4,000 comments produced 2,600 eligible entries, the eligibility rate is 65 percent.

This is a quality signal, not a size signal. A low rate usually points to one of three causes: an entry mechanic that was unclear, heavy duplicate commenting, or bots. Duplicates are the most common, and the guide on removing duplicate entries explains how they are handled in a draw. There is no reliable industry benchmark for this figure, so do not quote one. Track your own rate across giveaways for the same client, and look for movement. A rate that falls from one giveaway to the next is an early warning that your entry instructions or your audience quality has changed.

3. Reach and views from outside the existing audience

Views tell the client how many times the giveaway video was shown. Reach, shown in analytics as the audience reached, tells them how many distinct people saw it. The more useful cut is how much of that reached people who did not already follow the account, since new audience is usually why a giveaway was commissioned. TikTok's traffic source breakdown, which separates sources such as the For You feed and the profile, is the closest guide, and where your analytics show a follower and non-follower split, use that too.

Report the figure as a share, for example 70 percent of views from the For You feed, rather than leaving the client to work it out. Be careful not to credit the giveaway for all of it. If the account's normal posts also draw most of their views from the For You feed, the giveaway is not special on that measure. Compare with the client's recent average before claiming a lift.

4. Engagement rate against the client's own baseline

TikTok engagement rate is commonly calculated as likes, comments, shares and saves, divided by followers, multiplied by 100. Social Insider's 2026 benchmark report puts the platform average at 2.60 percent on that definition, down from 3.70 percent the year before, though the report notes that its 2026 figures reflect 2025 data.

Do not hold the giveaway video up against that average. A comment-to-enter giveaway makes commenting the entry mechanism, so its engagement rate will almost always sit far above normal and tell the client nothing. Compare it with the same account's recent ordinary posts instead, and then check the rate on the first normal post after the giveaway. The second comparison is the honest one, because a giveaway that is followed by below-average engagement has attracted an audience that does not respond to the regular content.

5. Shares and saves

Likes and comments are cheap in a giveaway, because the prize pays for them. Shares and saves are harder to buy, since neither is needed to enter. They show whether anyone valued the video itself, which makes them the nearest thing to a genuine interest signal inside the giveaway window.

Report shares and saves per thousand views rather than as raw totals, so the figure can be compared across videos of different sizes. A giveaway with strong comments and almost no shares and saves reached people who came for the prize and left. That is not a failure, but it should shape what the client expects to happen to their follower count next.

6. Net new followers

Followers at close, minus followers on the day before launch. Report it as net, not as the number of follow events, and state the dates used.

The common mistake is to include followers gained from the account's normal activity during the same period. If the account normally gains 150 followers a week and the giveaway ran for a week, only the surplus is attributable. Calculate the client's average weekly gain over the previous four to eight weeks and subtract that baseline, so the report credits the giveaway with what it added rather than with everything that happened to occur that week.

7. Thirty-day retention

Followers still present thirty days after close, as a share of the net new followers at close. This is the number that changes the story most often, and it is the one most reports leave out.

The expected pattern is a drop. A broad body of reporting puts churn after giveaway-driven growth at roughly 40 to 50 percent within thirty days, with low-effort entry mechanics losing more and higher-effort mechanics losing less. The guide to what a TikTok giveaway really costs per follower sets out the ranges by entry type. In the report, show the day-one gain and the day-thirty figure together, with a one-line explanation that some loss is normal. A client who has been told about the drop in advance reads it as expected. A client who discovers it alone reads it as a problem.

Retention can only be measured if someone takes the second snapshot. Put a dated reminder in the register when you send the first report, and send the thirty-day update as a short addendum rather than waiting for the client to ask.

8. Cost per retained follower

Total cost divided by followers retained at thirty days. Total cost means the prize, shipping, any paid promotion, and the time spent running it, and the denominator is retained followers, not the day-one gain.

This is the metric that lets a client compare a giveaway with other ways of growing an audience, and compare one giveaway with the next. It is also the number most likely to look worse than the one in the pitch deck, because it corrects for churn. That is the reason to include it. A cost per follower based on day-one gains will always flatter the giveaway, and clients who work this out later stop trusting the reports.

If the client wants a quick way to run it themselves, the giveaway ROI calculator takes the same inputs. Where the client also wants a cost per eligible entry, divide total cost by metric 1.

9. Actions that happen off the platform

Followers are a means. For most clients the reason for the giveaway is something that happens elsewhere: visits to a landing page, a newsletter sign-up, a promo code redeemed, a product purchased. These are the metrics a finance director will care about.

Set this up before launch, not afterward. Use a tracked link in the profile or the video's link, a unique promo code for giveaway entrants or non-winning participants, or a dedicated landing page, so the activity can be attributed. Without that, any sales bump during the giveaway week is guesswork, and a sceptical client will treat it that way.

Report the count, the conversion rate from link click to action where available, and the time window. Keep the window consistent between giveaways, since a sale that arrives sixty days later is hard to link back and easy to overclaim.

What to leave out

Total likes, because the prize inflates them and they carry no information about interest. Raw follower count on the day of the draw, which is the least reliable moment to measure it. Comparisons to platform-wide engagement averages, for the reason given in metric 4. And any projected lifetime value of the new followers, which turns the report into a forecast that nobody can check.

How to lay the report out

One page works better than five. Put the headline sentence first: what the giveaway cost, how many followers were still there after thirty days, and what the client got for it. Then the nine metrics in the order above, each with a single figure and one line of context. Add the draw details and the evidence references at the bottom, as laid out in the guide to running giveaways across many clients with a clear audit trail, so anyone who wants to check the figures can see where they came from.

Send two versions of the report: a close-out report on the day the giveaway ends, with metrics 1 to 6 and 9 as far as they can be measured, and a thirty-day update adding 7 and 8. Clients learn quickly that the second one is where the real answer lives.

A short checklist

Before launch: take a baseline for followers, average weekly gain, and recent post engagement; set up a tracked link or code; record the dates for both snapshots.

At close: record raw and eligible entries and the eligibility rate, then reach, traffic source, engagement, shares and saves, and net new followers against baseline.

Thirty days on: record retention, calculate cost per retained follower, check the first normal post's engagement, and add off-platform actions within the agreed window.

The bottom line

A client report should be something the client can still trust a month later. Reporting eligible rather than raw entries, comparing engagement with the account's own baseline, measuring retention at thirty days, and dividing cost by followers who stayed will produce smaller numbers than the usual day-one recap. They will also hold up, and a report that holds up is what gets the next giveaway approved.