1. Reduce Email at your Main Email Address
Even if you follow my tips about Reducing Spam from Sweepstakes Entry, entering sweepstakes comes with a certain amount of extra mail. Entry confirmations, newsletters, win notifications, and the occasional spam mail that sneaks in will all add up over time. Using a separate email for sweepstakes entry will help you keep your main email address uncluttered.2. Treat Your Sweepstakes Email Differently
Having a separate email address for sweepstakes entry lets me differentiate how I respond to emails. For example, I do not like to use spam filters for my sweepstakes email because they block words like "free," "win," and "prize." You can see how that would be a problem for sweepstakes entry!
I also unsubscribe from unwanted email in my sweepstakes email account. Why? Because most of the mail in that account comes from legitimate companies, not from spammers. When I unsubscribe, they really take me off their lists. Now, my regular email address is much more likely to receive spam, and spammers will oftentimes hit people who unsubscribe even harder - after all, they are sure that they have a live account since you responded to them.
3. Reduce the Chances of Overlooking Win Notifications
When mail comes to my sweepstakes email address, I know that there is a chance that it contains a win notification, and I scan it very carefully. On the other hand, if something that I don't recognize arrives at my regular email address, I just delete it. It saves me a lot of time to know that I don't have to scrutinize the mail in my regular email so closely, and I catch a lot of wins that I'd miss otherwise by looking twice at my sweepstakes mail.4. Catch Sweepstakes Scams More Easily
Unfortunately, many sweepstakes scams try to convince people that they have won prizes for the sole purpose of conning them out of money. Whenever I receive something that looks like a win notification at my regular email address, I know it's a fake, and I can simply delete it. This reduces the chances that I would fall for a sweepstakes scam.5. Dispose of Your Sweepstakes Email if It Gets Cluttered
When I was new to sweeping, I entered a certain million-dollar sweepstake and immediately started receiving dozens upon dozens of emails. Every day, my account was totally flooded with junk mail as a result of this one bad sweep. So what did I do? I stopped using that free account, and simply got another one.
This would have been a catastrophe if it had happened with my regular email address. I've had that address for a long time, and I still occasionally get emails from old friends and acquaintances that I haven't heard from in years. Having a separate, disposable sweepstakes email address that I could simply shut down was a real help in managing that spam.
If you need to dispose of your sweepstakes email, here are tips on how to do it without losing your prizes: How to Change Your Sweepstakes Email Address.
