The best Easter campaign ideas give people a playful reason to visit, play and sign up during a long holiday weekend: an online egg hunt, a scratch-the-egg game, a short Easter calendar or a quiz. Pick one main idea, start planning six to eight weeks before Easter, and use prizes from your own range so the sign-ups you collect are people who want your products.
Easter is the first big retail occasion of the year in much of Europe. People have days off, time on their phones and a reason to buy chocolate, gifts, food and spring clothes. It's also crowded: almost every brand sends an Easter email. Below you'll find when Easter falls, a planning timeline, 11 Easter campaign ideas with the right game format and channel for each, plus prizes, consent and what to measure.
If you use Klaviyo or Shopify and want the technical set-up, read our post on Easter gamification marketing with Klaviyo and Shopify. This article is about choosing the idea.
When Is Easter?
Easter Sunday moves every year. It's the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after 21 March (calculated by a fixed church rule), so it falls between 22 March and 25 April.
| 2027 | 2028 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maundy Thursday (public holiday in Denmark and Norway) | 25 March | 13 April |
| Good Friday | 26 March | 14 April |
| Easter Sunday | 28 March | 16 April |
| Easter Monday | 29 March | 17 April |
In the UK, Good Friday is a bank holiday everywhere and Easter Monday in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Denmark, the Easter break runs five days, from Maundy Thursday to Easter Monday. Our free marketing calendar shows Easter and the other holidays for 18 European countries, so you can plan the whole spring at once.
Easter 2027 is early (28 March), so spring campaigns and Mother's Day in the UK (Mothering Sunday, 7 March 2027) sit close together. More on that in our Mother's Day and Father's Day campaign ideas.
Planning Timeline
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| 8 weeks before | Pick the goal (sign-ups, sales, app downloads, footfall) and one main idea. Book prizes. |
| 6 weeks before | Build the game, write the texts, set up prizes and odds. Draft the terms. |
| 4 weeks before | Connect your email tool or CRM, test the consent flow and the welcome email. |
| 2 weeks before | Tease the campaign in your newsletter and on social media. Print QR codes for shops. |
| Easter week | Go live. Send reminders, change the prize or theme daily if you run a calendar. |
| The week after | Draw winners, send results, follow up with everyone who signed up. |
Running late? A simple game can still work. Dansk Outlet built a last-minute Easter scratch card in under a week and got 13,000 sign-ups from 16,000 visitors, an 81% conversion rate.
11 Easter Campaign Ideas
1. Online Easter egg hunt on your website
What it is: Hide eggs in a picture of a room, a shop window or a product page. Each egg people find is a hotspot. Find them all, sign up and enter the draw.
Channel: Website and social media.
Format: Interactive graphic
2. Scratch the egg
What it is: A digital scratch card shaped like an Easter egg. A few people win a hamper, everyone else gets a discount code or free shipping.
Channel: Newsletter and SMS, as the "open me" moment in your Easter email.
Format: Scratch card
3. Pick an egg
What it is: Three eggs on screen, one tap, one prize. It works well for a free product, which turns the game into sampling.
Channel: Social media ads and your website.
Format: Mystery box or gift surprise
4. A five-day Easter calendar
What it is: One door a day from Maundy Thursday to Easter Monday, each with a small game and a new prize. It fits the long Nordic Easter well and gives you five reasons to email.
Channel: Newsletter, SMS and app.
Format: Campaign calendar
5. Spring memory game
What it is: Turn your spring range into a memory game. Players match pairs of products, which shows off what's new while they play.
Channel: Website pop-up and social media.
Format: Memory game
6. Easter traditions quiz
What it is: Five questions about Easter food, customs and your brand. Add a prize draw for everyone who takes part. It suits food and drink brands, travel and media.
Channel: Newsletter and social media.
Format: Quiz
7. Guess the Easter word
What it is: Give a hint and let people guess the word, such as a new product name or an Easter treat. In Denmark, you can borrow the gækkebrev tradition, where the recipient guesses who sent a riddle letter.
Channel: Social media and newsletter.
Format: Guess the word
8. Easter table photo competition
What it is: People upload a photo of their Easter table, decorations or a bake, and the community votes. You get content you can reuse (ask for permission in the terms).
Channel: Social media and website.
Format: Photo competition
9. Easter gift finder
What it is: A few questions about who the gift is for, their taste and your budget, then a product suggestion. Ask for an email to send the result and a code.
Channel: Website, search and social ads.
Format: Product finder
10. In-store egg hunt with QR codes
What it is: Put up QR codes around the shop or venue. Each scan opens a small game or question. Ree Park Safari ran an Easter egg hunt with QR codes, an interactive map and animal quizzes that engaged around 30% of all visitors.
Channel: Shops, parks, events. See QR codes in store and make the codes with our QR code generator.
11. Catch the eggs
What it is: A skill game where players catch falling eggs or chocolate. Add a leaderboard and give a prize to the best score each day.
Channel: Social media and app.
Format: Drop game with a leaderboard
Want more ideas for your industry? Try the free competition idea generator.
Easter Prize Ideas
The prize decides who takes part. A prize from your own range attracts people who want your products. A generic prize, like a tablet, attracts everyone, including people who only want the prize. Our guide to lead quality from competitions goes deeper.
Prizes that suit Easter:
- An Easter hamper with your products
- A spring wardrobe, garden or home refresh
- A weekend away during the Easter break, if you are in travel
- Many small instant prizes: discount codes, free shipping, a free product
- A gift card as the main prize in a draw
Instant win or draw? Instant win shows the result straight away and is good for many sign-ups fast. A draw suits one big prize. You can combine the two. We compare them in instant win vs prize draw. To set the right number of prizes, use the prize odds calculator.
Collecting Sign-ups and Consent
The game is the reason to sign up, so ask for the email before people see the result. Keep the form short: email and first name is often enough for an Easter campaign.
- Consent: Add a clear, unticked checkbox for marketing. The consent text generator helps you write it.
- Double opt-in: Send a confirmation email where your market or email tool needs it. See double opt-in.
- Fair play: Allow one entry per email address and block throwaway email addresses, so the draw stays fair.
- Terms: State who can enter, the prizes, the closing date and how winners are picked. The competition terms generator gives you a draft.
- Follow-up: Send a welcome email the same day, while people still remember the game. Our welcome email flow shows how.
If people must buy something to enter, check the rules in your market first. Purchase-linked competitions are treated differently from country to country. Our guide on how to run an online competition covers the planning step by step.
What to Measure
Decide before you launch what good looks like:
- Visitors to the game and where they came from (add UTM tags with the UTM builder)
- Conversion rate: how many visitors played and signed up
- New marketing permissions, not just entries
- Code redemptions and revenue from Easter codes
- Cost per lead, compared with your other channels
- What happens after Easter: opens and purchases from the new subscribers in the following month
The campaign ROI calculator turns these numbers into cost per lead and return.
FAQ
When should I start planning an Easter campaign?
Six to eight weeks before Easter Sunday is a good rule. For Easter 2027 (28 March), that means early February. Be live in the week before Easter: in Denmark, for example, the biggest online shopping day is typically the Monday before Easter, according to Dansk Erhverv.
How do I run an online Easter egg hunt?
Hide eggs as clickable hotspots in a picture, or spread QR codes around a shop. Ask people to sign up before they enter the draw, and give everyone who finishes a small instant prize so the effort feels worth it.
What is a good Easter competition prize?
A hamper or bundle from your own range, plus many small instant prizes like discount codes. It keeps the cost down and attracts people who are likely to buy.
How long should an Easter campaign run?
One to two weeks works for most brands: a teaser before, the main push in Easter week and a last reminder before Easter Monday. A calendar can run just over the five Easter days.
Get Your Easter Campaign Ready
Scratcher has 40+ game formats and 150+ templates. Rex, our AI assistant, designs a campaign from your website and writes the texts, so you can have an Easter game ready in minutes. See online competitions and giveaways and prizes and winners, start your free 14-day trial (no credit card needed) or book a meeting and we'll help you plan it.
