Your shop might have a lot of good products in it that your newer subscribers have never seen. You've sent emails about them before, but people don't always click through. Older products end up sitting on a page nobody visits.
A scavenger hunt promo is a fun way to get people looking at your products again. You hide clues or codes across your content, people go find them and the ones who finish win a prize or a discount. This post walks you through how to plan one, where to hide the clues, how to keep it fair and how to turn the hunt into sales. It's one of the ideas from my full list, 99 Ways to Make Sales Every Day Without Launching. It's in the section called out of the box ideas to test.
What a scavenger hunt promo is
It's a short promotion where people hunt for hidden pieces across your content and products. Each piece might be a word, a letter or a small code. Once someone has found them all, they put them together and enter them somewhere, like a form or a checkout page, to get the prize.
The prize can be a discount, a free product, a bonus or an entry into a drawing. The point is to get people to visit pages they wouldn't usually visit, like your shop page, your product sales pages, your blog posts and your freebies. Along the way they see what you sell and some of them buy.
It works well for digital product creators who already have a lot of content and products, because you can use what you've made and hide the clues in places you want people to see.
Decide what the hunt is for before you plan it
A hunt can do a few different jobs and the one you pick shapes everything else, so choose one main goal:
- Show people your whole shop. Hide clues on the sales pages of products you want more people to see.
- Get people reading your content. Hide clues in blog posts, podcast episodes or videos that each point to a product or freebie.
- Grow your list. Make people sign up for a freebie to get one of the clues.
- Sell one bigger product. Make the prize a discount on that one product, so everyone who finishes the hunt has a reason to buy it.
Write your goal down in one sentence, like "I want people to see my five newest templates and buy at least one." Then every clue location and every prize decision can come back to that sentence.
How to plan the hunt
Pick your clue locations
Choose five to seven places where you'll hide clues. Pick pages you want people to see, like product sales pages, blog posts and freebie pages.
Choose the clues
Pick a word, letter or short code for each location. If you want the clues to spell something when they're put together, choose a word that ties to your brand or the prize.
Pick the prize
Decide what people get when they finish. A discount on one product, a free small product or entry into a drawing for something bigger all work.
Set the dates
Give the hunt a start and an end. Five to ten days is long enough for people to join in and short enough to keep it moving.
Where to hide the clues
Each clue should be easy to find once someone is on the right page, but they should have to look at the page to find it. Here are some places that work well:
- A small image or line of text on a product's sales page, near the part that explains what's inside
- A sentence inside a blog post that points to one of your products
- The last page of a freebie, so people have to sign up and open it
- Your shop page, next to a product you want more people to see
- A podcast episode or video, said out loud near the end
- An email you send during the hunt, for people on your list
- A post in your free community, if you run one
Mix the places so people visit different kinds of content. If every clue is on a sales page, it can feel like one long ad. If some are in helpful content too, the hunt feels more like a game.
How to make the clues findable
Give people a hint for each location. The hint can be a short line in your announcement email, like "Clue three is on the page for the template that helps you plan a month of emails." That way people know roughly where to go but still have to look around.
Make every clue look the same, like the same small graphic or the same colored box, so people know when they've found one. Tell them what to look for in the announcement email.
Test every location on your phone. A lot of people will do the hunt on their phone and some page sections don't show on mobile.
Turn the hunt into sales
The hunt brings people to your products, but you also want some of them to buy. Here's how to make that happen without making the whole thing feel like a pitch.
- Hide clues on pages with something to buy. If someone is on a product's sales page looking for a clue, they're also reading about the product.
- Make the prize tied to a purchase. A discount on a product, or a bonus with a purchase, gives finishers a reason to buy right then.
- Give the prize a deadline. The discount or bonus should end when the hunt ends, so there's a reason to use it.
- Put the lower price on its own checkout. Instead of a public code that stays out there forever, use a checkout page that only people who finish the hunt get. I explain why in Stop Leaving Your Discount Codes Out in Public.
- Follow up with everyone who started. If people sign up for the hunt with their email, you can send a reminder halfway through and a last-day email.
Pick one prize that everyone who finishes gets, like a discount on one product or a free small product. If you also want a bigger prize, make it a drawing. Then write down the rules so everyone knows how the winner is picked.
How to announce it
You'll want a short announcement email, a page that explains the hunt and a few reminders. Here's what to include in the announcement:
- What the hunt is, in one or two sentences
- What people win when they finish
- How many clues there are and what they look like
- The hints for where to find each one
- Where to enter the answer once they've found them all
- When the hunt ends
Send the announcement as a broadcast to your whole list, since this is a promo with set dates. Then send a reminder in the middle and one on the last day. You can also post about it on social media and in your community if you have one.
If you want people outside your list to join, have them sign up on a simple page to get the hints. That way everyone who plays ends up on your list and gets your welcome series afterward. If you don't have one of those yet, The Welcome Series That Makes Your First Sale for You walks you through it.
Keep it fair and legal
If your prize is a drawing, the rules for giveaways and contests can be different depending on where you live and where your players live. Look up the rules that apply to you, write simple official rules and post them on your hunt page. A prize that everyone who finishes gets, like a discount, is usually simpler to run than a drawing.
Also be clear about what counts as finishing. Say whether people need all the clues or most of them. Also say what happens if someone shares the answer. Answers will get shared in groups and that's okay. People who find the answer that way still end up on your checkout page.
Mistakes to avoid
- Making the clues too hard to find. If people get stuck on the first clue, they stop. Give clear hints and make the clues easy to spot on the page.
- Too many clues. More than seven starts to feel like work. Five to seven is plenty.
- Hiding clues on pages that don't help your goal. Every clue location should be a page you want people to see.
- A prize with no deadline. If the discount works forever, there's no reason to buy now.
- Forgetting to take the clues down. When the hunt ends, remove the clues from every page and turn off the prize checkout.
- Not testing the entry form. Enter the answer yourself before the hunt starts and make sure the prize shows up.
A hypothetical example
This is a made-up example with round numbers so you can see how the pieces fit together.
Say you sell digital planners. You have a $17 weekly planner, a $27 budget planner, a $37 meal planner, a $47 bundle of all three and a $19 a month planner membership. You want more people to see the bundle and the membership.
You plan a seven-day hunt with five clues, where each clue is one letter and together they spell PLANS. You hide one letter on each product's sales page and one on the membership page. You put the same small gold star next to every letter so people know what to look for.
Your announcement email explains the hunt, gives one hint for each clue and says that everyone who enters PLANS on the hunt page gets the $47 bundle for $37 until the hunt ends. The hunt page sends finishers to a checkout made just for the hunt, with the $37 price and the membership as the upsell, which is an offer that shows up right after they buy. You send a reminder on day four and a last-day email on day seven.
When the hunt ends, you take the letters off every page and turn off the hunt checkout. Anyone who signed up to play is now on your list and gets your welcome series and your weekly product email.
"Every clue location should be a page you want people to see."
Dr. Destini CoppHow this fits with the rest of Sales on Repeat
A scavenger hunt is a promo with dates, so it's different from the always-on ideas on the list. But it works well alongside them. The new subscribers it brings in go into your welcome series. The products people saw during the hunt can show up in your weekly product email afterward. And if you track sales every morning with a daily sales briefing, you'll see which products people bought during the hunt. I explain that in The Daily Sales Briefing: Know What Sold Before Your Coffee.
If you're not sure whether a hunt is the right idea to try first, the free Sales on Repeat skill can help. It's a Claude skill that asks a few questions about your business and picks the first three Sales on Repeat ideas you should set up.
Wrapping up
Start by writing down your one-sentence goal and listing the five to seven pages where you'll hide clues. Then pick the prize, set the dates, build the hunt checkout and write your announcement email. You can see every other idea in the series on the full list of 99 ways to make sales every day without launching.
See if a scavenger hunt should be one of your first three
The free Sales on Repeat skill asks a few questions about your business and picks the first three ideas you should set up first.
Get the free Sales on Repeat skill →Frequently asked.
How do I run a scavenger hunt promo for my online business?
Pick one goal, choose five to seven pages to hide clues on, pick a prize and set start and end dates. Announce it to your list with a hint for each clue and a place to enter the answer. Send a reminder halfway through and a last-day email.
Where should I hide clues in a scavenger hunt promo?
Hide them on pages you want people to see, like product sales pages, your shop page, blog posts that point to a product, the last page of a freebie or an email. Mix helpful content with sales pages so it feels like a game. Test every page on your phone.
What prize should I offer for a scavenger hunt?
A prize everyone who finishes can get is simplest, like a discount on one product, a bonus with a purchase or a free small product. Give it a deadline that matches the end of the hunt. If you add a drawing for a bigger prize, write simple rules and post them.
How long should a scavenger hunt promo run?
Five to ten days is long enough for people to join in and short enough to keep it moving. Keep the number of clues between five and seven so it doesn't feel like work.
Do I need official rules for a scavenger hunt giveaway?
If the prize is a drawing, giveaway and contest rules can vary depending on where you and your players live, so look up the rules that apply to you and post simple official rules. A prize every finisher gets, like a discount, is usually simpler to run.
Dr. Destini Copp helps digital product creators build sustainable, systems-based businesses through the Creator Growth Flywheel framework. She's the founder of Creator's MBA and HobbyScool, and has been teaching online business strategy for over a decade. Learn more →
