Contest campaign calendar: 7, 14 and 30 day plans, day by day

Which calendar length fits your contest: 7, 14 or 30 days?

The one that matches the voting time you actually have left. Start the count on the day you begin work or the day voting opens, whichever is later, and finish on the last minute of voting.

Three decision rules

• If your time falls between two lengths, take the shorter one and use the spare days for preparation.
• Never stretch a short contest across a long calendar. Repeating the same ask for weeks tires supporters.
• Before any of them, read the rules. The rules and risk check tells you whether outside promotion, and paid promotion in particular, is allowed at all.

Each plan below shows the work in the order it should happen. Where a step says ads, it means ads bought inside a platform's own ad system, as described under paid promotion of contest entries. If the rules forbid paid reach, keep the organic steps and drop the ad steps.

What does a 7-day contest campaign look like day by day?

It looks like one day of preparation, a quick launch, a single test and a firm finish. There is no room for a second round of setup, so the first day carries the most weight.

What to protect

Day 1 is the one day you cannot skip. Without approved creative and a written list of steps, every later day loses time. Day 6 and day 7 are the two days when supporters who already know the entry are most likely to act, so keep part of the budget for them. The vote-request templates give the wording for days 2, 5, 6 and 7.

What does a 14-day calendar look like?

It adds a midpoint review and one deliberate change of creative. The extra week gives the data time to mean something.

The midpoint review

On day 8 answer three questions: which angle earns completed votes, which step loses supporters, and what budget is left. If the numbers are too thin to answer, extend the test by a day instead of guessing. Our methodology explains how we read them.

How is a 30-day campaign paced week by week?

In phases, with a review on a fixed day each week. A month is long enough for supporters to get tired, so the work is to vary the message and rest the audience at the right moments.

The rhythm inside the weeks

A long campaign does not need a post every day. Three or four touch points a week on your own channels is a sustainable rhythm, with paid ads running steadily in the background. The calendar earns its keep in the quiet middle. Use the weekly review to decide whether to keep going, change the angle or pause, and compare the plan against the budget in the budget planner.

How and when should creative be rotated?

Rotate when the same people have seen an ad often enough that it stops earning clicks, and not on a timer. Keep the winner running while a challenger is tested.

Four angles to hold in reserve

• Personal: who you are and why you entered.
• Craft or cause: what the entry is, shown through the work itself.
• Proof from supporters: comments, photos or messages, used with permission.
• Deadline: a plain reminder of the closing time and the voting steps.

Rotation rules

1. Change one thing at a time: the image, the headline or the ask, not all three.
2. Retire an ad when clicks fall while the audience stays the same, and keep its audience notes.
3. Move to the deadline angle in the last third of the calendar.
4. Re-approve every new piece before it goes live.

For a campaign longer than a week, plan two or three angles before launch, so rotation is a decision on a date and not a scramble. Our creative and copy service produces the pieces, and our process page shows where approvals fall.

What belongs in the final 48 hours and after the close?

Confirmation, two well-timed reminders and a clean shutdown, then a wrap-up while the data is fresh.

The final 48 hours

• Confirm the closing time and its time zone on the voting page, not from memory.
• Send the day-before reminder to everyone who has not declined.
• Run reminder ads to people who have already seen the entry.
• On the last day send one reminder in the morning and one at midday, and no more.
• Pause every ad at the close.

After the close

1. Send the thank-you the same evening.
2. Save the platform reports, the creative files and the audience notes.
3. Note the result date and the channel where the organizer will announce it.
4. Write down which angle, audience and step mattered, for the next contest.
5. Keep the ad accounts, which stay yours with their history.

Whatever the result, you keep the same notes and a tested audience for the next contest, which beats starting again from zero.

What do you do when something changes during the contest?

Change the calendar, not the principles. Most disruptions fall into a handful of cases.

• The organizer changes a rule. Read it, pause anything it affects and ask in writing. If outside promotion is now forbidden, stop.
• The voting page is down. Pause ads and reminders until it works, then restart with a short apology and the corrected closing time.
• A platform declines an ad. Fix the wording or move to another channel; do not retry the same ad repeatedly.
• A rival jumps ahead. Do not double the budget. Wait for your fixed review day and decide on data.
• A supporter withdraws consent, or a parent does. Remove the material and stop the ads that use it.

Two limits remain outside any calendar: the organizer's reading of its own rules, and the review each platform applies to an ad before it can run. We keep a few days of slack in longer plans for exactly this reason.

Send your dates and rules through the free contest analysis, and we return a calendar with owners and approval dates, built for your contest.

How it works

1. Pick the lengthCount the voting time left and choose the matching 7, 14 or 30 day plan.
2. Write the dates into the tableReplace day numbers with real dates and the closing time with its time zone.
3. Prepare the creativeApprove two or three angles before day one, so rotation is a decision on a date.
4. Run with a fixed review dayRead results on the same day each week and change one thing at a time.
5. Close and wrap upPause ads at the close, send the thank-you and save reports and audience notes.