UpViral vs Viral Loops: Which Viral Marketing Tool is Best?

Whether you are starting a new or existing business, one of the fastest ways to grow it rapidly is by setting up a viral marketing campaign that gets the word going about your business, increasing leads, links to your site, and co-citations, of course, sales.

Two of the best giveaway tools out there are UpViral and Viral Loops.

Which tool has the most user-friendly interface that you do not need to be a techy person to start a giveaway campaign?

Is UpViral or Viral Loops better regarding features, prices, and stability?

That is what you are going to find out in this comparison article on UpViral vs Viral Loops.

UpViral vs Viral Loops: Features

Choosing a better sweepstake software can be challenging if you do not clear the objectives first.

Do you need to increase messenger leads, email list subscribers, and sales on your online shop, grow social media followers, or crowdsource a specific set of tasks like reviewing products on Amazon?

Depending on the objectives, the features you need may vary. In this UpViral vs. Viral loops review, I will explicitly share a set of features of both tools that make a big difference.

Templates

UpViral provides templates based on events and niches.

Plus, you can create a custom campaign from scratch. UpViral already has multiple leads and share pages that you can use.

However, in Viral Loops, you will see a different approach. Campaign templates are made to match the objective.

• The Milestone Referral
• The Startup Prelaunch
• The Newsletter Referral
• The Tempting Giveaway
• Viral Loops for Shopify
• Refer a Friend
• Messenger Bot Giveaway
• The Milestone Referral for Messenger

So, now you see, UpViral and Viral Loops are using different approaches when it comes to contest or giveaway templates. While UpViral gives you the flexibility to use a template based on your niche (i.e., travel, video gaming) or the event (i.e., Black Friday, Halloween, Christmas), Viral Loops limit templates based on the objective.

Builder

When comparing Viral Loops vs UpViral, one thing that distinguishes UpViral from Viral Loops is the builder.

Upviral is one of the few contest tools in the world that offer a drag-and-drop page builder.

You can drag and drop widgets anywhere on the page, edit the source code, and embed HTML widgets such as responsive testimonials widgets (to showcase customer reviews), Accordion widgets (present important details about sweepstakes), live chat support widgets, and logo showcase carousel.

Yes, you can customize the share page as well.

However, Viral Loops is not that feature-rich when it comes to building campaign pages. The Viral Loop’s Campaign Wizard provides several fields; you can customize the appearance by using those. You cannot change the element order, change fonts, or hide or show sections on mobile, for example, in Viral Loops. But the UpViral visual editor makes all these possible.

Script Integration

One of the essential parts of any giveaway campaign is tracking. UpViral is ahead of Viral Loops when it comes to integrating tracking pixels and scripts of any kind.

Although Viral Loops has a Google Analytics integration, its JS script integration allows only code to be run when people submit their details through the Viral Loops form or popup.

Domain

UpViral lets you run giveaways or contests under your domain and Whitelabel referral links with your tracking domain.

Select any domain you have integrated under campaign settings in UpViral.

However, Viral Loops does not allow customizing the referral links.

Fraud Detection

Cheating and fraud can often be seen in giveaways. It’s normal. However a powerful giveaway tool can help you minimize the number of fraudulent activities with anti-cheating features.

Upviral has implemented multiple measures to ensure the leads are high quality and real ones:

• Double opt-in
• Blacklist by email, IP, and domain
• Google Captcha integration
• Integration with EmailListVerify
• Install other real-time email ID verification tools

Viral Loops has also built up a fraud detection mechanism where you will be notified of fraudulent activity.

Post-giveaway actions

One of the remarkable facts about holding giveaways is that people will visit giveaway pages from bookmarks, referral links, or directly. The amount of post-giveaway traffic is non-negligible.

UpViral’s Post-Giveaway actions have three options.

• Default page
• Custom Page
• Redirect to URL

However, Viral Loops does not have a setting for what to do when the campaign is closed.

UpViral vs Viral Loops: Integrations

It does not matter how good a referral tool is if it does not offer the necessary integrations.

UpViral Integrations

UpViral has different integrations that help you run your giveaways smoothly and share lead data with your autoresponder or CRM tool.

Suppose the email marketing tool you are using is unavailable on the UpViral list. In that case, you can use the HTML Form integration method, where you copy and paste the HTML code of the subscription form from the email marketing service.

UpViral has Zapier and Integrately (read the review on Integrately from here) and WebHooks (aka Callback), so you can connect with thousands of apps like Google Sheets, Facebook Leads, Slack, and so on.

A key integration I want to emphasize in this Viral Loops vs UpViral comparison is the ability to run giveaways on hosted UpViral pages and your website simultaneously with UpViral embedded widgets.

Viral Loops Integrations

Similarly, Viral Loops also has multiple direct integrations with email marketing tools, Zapier, Pabbly Connect, Google Analytics, MixPanel, and ManyChat, and it also provides WebHooks.

UpViral vs Viral Loops: Pricing

Cost is a crucial factor when choosing anything. That relates to UpViral and Viral Loops as well.

UpViral does not have a free plan but offers a 14-day free trial for $1. Monthly plans start from $79 per month, all allowing unlimited giveaways.

The starter plan lets you collect up to 10,000 leads per month from unlimited sweepstakes. The best features of UpViral come from the Business plan (25,000 leads, managing up to 3 brands, GEO-restriction, A/B split testing, API + Zapier). The business plan costs $119 per month.

Learn more about UpViral pricing and find details on UpViral discounts and yearly plans over here.

Viral Loops Pricing

Viral Loops has three primary pricing tiers.

1. Start-up – $49/mo – 1,000 participants
2. Growing – $99/mo – 3,000 participants
3. Power – $299/mo – 25,000 participants

The cost for additional participants in Viral Loops is $20 for every 2,000 registrations, and it’s only available from the Growing plan. Some Viral Loops templates are unavailable for the Start-up plan as well.

The removal of Viral Loops branding is only available as an option on the Power plan, which costs $299/mo.

Support, Help Tutorials, and Training

When comparing UpViral and Viral Loops, one factor that cannot be neglected is the training materials and assistance.

Both Viral Loops and UpViral provide email and Live Chat support. However, the available Live Chat support hours might differ according to the time zones.

Viral Loops has tons of good case studies and tutorials on using ViralLoops.

Here is a video from the Viral Loops YouTube channel that demonstrates how to use the Viral Loops Newsletter referral program with Hubspot.

Viral Loops’ Books section includes several highly valuable eBooks that will be very useful, especially if you are a business owner.

1. From Visitor to Ambassador – Ambassador referral campaigns based on the Milestone concept
2. Let The Ca$h Flow – Get a deeper understanding of what can make or break your eCommerce store.
3. An Actionable Guide – The ultimate guide for referral marketing based on 47K campaigns
4. Referral Marketing Wizards – Nailing Word of Mouth – Learn how companies like Airbnb, Gilt, and Mailchimp have become as big as they are.
5. 35K Leads in 20 Days – A gym company built 35K leads using referral marketing with Facebook Messenger.
6. $67B Worth in Referral Programs – Learn how Dropbox, Robinhood, Harry’s, and The Hustle built their referral programs

Viral-Loops case studies section is also filled with lots of informative content.

• The Paypal referral program: Getting to 100 million users (Link)
• Uber referral program: UNLOCKED (Link)
• eCommerce Case Study: How Frank Body made $20M selling leftover coffee (Link)
• Dropbox grew 3900% with a simple referral program. Here’s how! (Link)
• 35K leads in 20 days with a Messenger referral – Case Study (Link)

When comparing Viral Loops vs UpViral support, training materials, and case studies, Upviral is not second to anyone!

From Case studies to training materials to Live shows, UpViral offers one of the best customer education programs for referral marketing.

If you are new to UpViral, the best place to know all about UpViral is UpViral’s Quick Start video training by the founder of UpViral.com, Wilco De Kreij.

Step up your growth marketing knowledge with the Viral Hacking Masterclass.

Get access to PDFs, downloads, and even mindmaps to help you precisely plan, structure, and execute a giveaway campaign.

Case studies can be seen on your UpViral Learning Center or UpViral blog.

Learn more features and case studies of the Upviral contest platform in this UpViral review.

UpViral or Viral Loops?

So, in this comparison of Upviral vs Viral Loops, you found key differences in features and pricing.

People who are behind a company are a significant factor when selecting a service. Wilco De Kreij is the founder of UpViral. Meanwhile, Wishpond, which is another giveaway platform, acquires Viral Loops. (Source)

Areas where UpViral dominates over Viral Loops:

Run rewards and sweepstakes at the same campaign – One of the best features that Viral Loops still does not offer is the ability to run milestones and leaderboard competitions simultaneously.
A/B test lead and share pages and email notifications
Track referral sources with custom ID tracking and UTM tag integration
Custom actions – Get people to complete tasks and earn points

Provide points for social sharing, sign-ups, referrals, and opt-in page visitors – Viral Loops does not let you customize the points structure

Winner selection methods – UpViral enables you to select unlimited winners based on the random weighted draw or most points.

Areas where Viral Loops dominates over UpViral:

ManyChat Integration – Ever wanted to grow your Facebook Messenger subscriber list? Viral Loops makes it easier than UpViral.
Viral Loops utilizes a referral entry system – Whereas UpViral uses a points system that can be confusing or disadvantageous occasionally.
Newsletter referral program – ViralLoops makes it possible to hold newsletter referral campaigns.
Online to Offline – UpViral does not have Online to Offline referral marketing programs but ViralLoops.

Pricing-wise, UpViral offers more value and is cheaper than Viral Loops. It costs $299 monthly to run giveaways that collect up to 25,000 leads. But, it only costs $119/mo in UpViral while getting unique features like A/B split testing and UpViral brand removal.

Essentially, if your objective is to hold giveaways that exponentially grow your email list and increase social followers, UpViral is the best choice. And if you want to build a Facebook Messenger list with the help of ManyChat, Viral Loops is the best choice.

You may also like: KingSumo versus UpViral

Find Words on UpViral vs Viral Loops

Choosing a good giveaway tool that fulfills your requirements is essential. There is no point in using a tool with features like A/B split-testing if you want to grow your email list with hosted giveaway campaigns, for example.

Both UpViral and Viral Loops provide features and tools for a specific set of users.

In the article on UpViral alternatives, I have shared the differences between Viral Loops and UpViral. Check it out if you want more options for Viral Loops and UpViral.

So, which is your choice between Upviral and Viral Loops?