What data should a promotion collect?
Only what it needs to run and what you will genuinely use afterwards. In practice that falls into three buckets: the essentials to operate the promotion and reach a winner, the participation signals the promotion generates on its own, and the preferences a customer volunteers. Anything outside those three is weight you will store, secure and never act on.
What are the must-have fields?
The minimum to run the promotion honestly and contact a winner: a name, one reliable contact channel, and whatever the terms require to confirm eligibility, such as age or location where the promotion is regional. That is the floor, not the ceiling. Ask for it plainly at entry and make it clear why each field is there.
What is worth collecting beyond the basics?
The two kinds of data a promotion is unusually good at producing. First, the behaviour it generates: which rewards drew people in, how often they came back, what they took part in. Second, the preferences they state outright when you give them a reason to. Together this is the first-party data that makes the next promotion sharper, and because customers gave it to you directly, you own all of it.
What should a promotion avoid collecting?
Anything you cannot name a use for, and anything a customer would be surprised you asked. Fields gathered just in case, sensitive details unrelated to the promotion, or data you have no system to act on all add work without adding value, because every field you hold is one more you have to store, secure and answer for. A field you never read earns you nothing and still has to be kept safe. Collecting less is also what keeps the exchange feeling honest rather than like a grab.
How do you decide field by field?
Put every field through one question: will this change what we do next, and can we tell the customer why we need it? If both answers are yes it earns a place; if not, it goes. Start light at entry and learn more over repeat participation, so trust and the data grow together. Handled this way on a platform you run and own the data on, a promotion turns a base like Motor Culture Australia's 600,000-plus members into an asset that gets sharper every time it runs.