Instant Drop vs Complete & Reveal vs Live Drop: Which Ramble Campaign Fits Your Business?

Ramble has three campaign types, and the right one depends on a single question: what do you want from the people who see it? If you want quick foot traffic, choose Instant Drop (€29): the reward is on the map straight away, with no task. If you want people to engage with your brand and then visit, choose Complete & Reveal (€59): players complete your task first, and only then does the reward appear. If you want an event that gets the city talking, choose Live Drop (€149): players qualify in advance and race to the reward at a set time.

This guide compares the three formats side by side, gives you a simple decision tree, explains what the €1 first campaign includes, and walks through three example campaigns for a café, a gym and a brand. It is written for businesses in Riga and the Baltics planning November and December, but the logic works for any city.

What are the three Ramble campaign types?

Every Ramble campaign ends the same way: a player walks to a real place, collects the reward in person (the location is checked by GPS) and redeems the coupon at your venue with a code or QR. What changes between the formats is what happens before the walk.

• Instant Drop. Your reward is visible on the map from the start. Players spot it and head there. There is no task.
• Complete & Reveal. Players first complete your task, which is your own set of questions, and only then does the reward's location appear on the map. You get engagement and a visit in one campaign.
• Live Drop. Players complete your task to qualify. You announce a time, and at that exact moment the reward appears on the map. The first player to get there wins it.

In all three, taking part is free for players, and players must be 18 or older. A Live Drop never requires anyone to buy anything: the winner is decided by finishing the task and arriving first, not by a draw.

Instant Drop vs Complete & Reveal vs Live Drop: side-by-side comparison

Across all formats you choose and provide the reward yourself: a discount, a gift or a free service. The Ramble price covers the campaign only, with no subscription. You also decide how long a reward stays valid after it is collected, and on which days and hours it can be used.

Which Ramble campaign should I choose? A decision tree by goal

Start with the result you need this month, not with the format. Then follow the branch.

1. Do you mainly need more people through the door, soon? If yes, and you don't need anything else from them, choose Instant Drop. It has the fewest steps between seeing the offer and walking in. Set the reward to work during your quiet hours so new visitors fill empty seats instead of queueing at peak time.
2. Do you also want to learn something, or be remembered? If you want answers to a menu question, people reading your price list, sign-ups for your news or friends brought along, choose Complete & Reveal. The task is where your marketing happens; the reward makes it worth doing.
3. Do you have a date that matters? An opening, a product launch, a holiday or an anniversary is a natural fit for a Live Drop. The days between qualifying and the drop are free publicity, and the race itself is a story people tell.
4. Still unsure? Pick Complete & Reveal. It is the format we recommend for most businesses, because one campaign gives you both an action and a visit.

One more test: how big is your reward? A small everyday reward (a free coffee, 20% off a class) suits Instant Drop or Complete & Reveal, where many people can each collect one. A single standout reward (dinner for two, a year's membership, a new product before launch) suits a Live Drop, where many people compete for it and the scarcity is the point.

Why does a task before the reward work?

It can feel counter-intuitive to make people do something before they get a reward. But effort changes how people value what they get. In a well-known experiment by Norton, Mochon and Ariely, people who assembled an IKEA storage box themselves were willing to pay a 63% premium for it compared with people who got the same box already built (Norton, Mochon & Ariely, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2012). A reward that was earned feels like more than a coupon that was simply found.

There is a second reason. Traditional loyalty schemes often bore the people brands most want to reach. In Euromonitor's Voice of the Consumer: Loyalty Survey 2025, 27% of Gen Z and 25% of millennials described loyalty programmes as "not fun" (Euromonitor, October 2025). The same analysis found that 89.2% of interactions with gamified loyalty happened online and only 10.8% in store. That is the gap Complete & Reveal and Live Drop are built for: the game happens on the phone, and the reward happens at your door.

Can Ramble visits help your Google Maps visibility?

Possibly, but treat it as a side effect, not a promise. Whitespark's Local Search Ranking Factors 2026, a survey of 47 local search experts published in November 2025, includes "Quantity of Requests for Driving Directions From GBP" at 41st and "GBP Popular Times Section Shows Business as Busy" at 77th of 187 factors for the Google Maps local pack (Whitespark, 2026). The report's author also notes that Google seems to be leaning more on user behaviour signals.

That is expert opinion, not confirmation from Google, and it ranks well below basics like your primary category and reviews. So fix your profile first with our Google Business Profile checklist. Real visits help your business directly; any ranking boost is a bonus.

What does the €1 first campaign include?

Your first Ramble campaign costs €1, one time. There is no subscription and no credit card. It includes:

• up to 50 coupons;
• up to 5 locations;
• 7 days on the map.

Why €1? Because the honest way to judge a new marketing channel is to watch real people walk in, not to read a sales page. After the first campaign you pay per campaign at the regular prices above, only when you launch one. We also help you set up the first campaign: choosing the task, the reward and the timing.

How much does each visit cost? A simple calculation

Because every coupon is redeemed in person, you can work out the cost per visit. Divide the campaign price by the number of redeemed coupons, then add the cost of the reward itself.

Example: if 100 coupons from a €59 Complete & Reveal campaign are redeemed, Ramble costs €0.59 per visit. If 50 coupons from a €29 Instant Drop are redeemed, it is €0.58 per visit. These are illustrations of the arithmetic, not results: your numbers depend on your reward, location and timing. Your dashboard shows the full funnel (offer viewed, task started, task completed, coupon claimed, coupon redeemed), so you can see exactly where people dropped off.

Three example campaigns: a café, a gym and a brand

These scenarios are hypothetical. They show how a business might match a format to its goal.

A café in Riga's Old Town: Instant Drop

Example: a café is busy at lunch but quiet from 14:00 to 17:00 on weekdays. It runs an Instant Drop with a free pastry with any coffee, valid only on weekdays from 14:00 to 17:00 and for two hours after collection. There is no task, so the path from seeing the reward to walking in is as short as possible. Goal: fill afternoon tables during the dark November weeks. For more ideas for the cold months, see how to increase foot traffic in winter.

A gym or bouldering centre: Complete & Reveal

Example: a gym wants new members before the January rush. Its task asks three questions: how often you train, what stops you from starting, and which class you'd try first. One question sends players to the gym's website to find the price of a monthly pass. The reward is a free first session. The gym gets real answers for its January planning, people who have already looked at its prices, and new faces at the front desk.

A drinks brand launching a winter product: Live Drop

Example: a brand launches a seasonal product in late November. Players qualify through a short brand quiz during the week. On Friday at 18:00 the reward appears on the map: a gift box with the new product and a voucher for two. The brand posts the time on its social channels beforehand, so the wait itself spreads the word. Read how Live Drop events work for the full mechanics.

When should you launch a campaign in November and December?

The weeks before Christmas are crowded with offers, so timing matters. In 2026, Mārtiņi falls on 10 November, Black Friday on 27 November and the first Sunday of Advent on 29 November. Proclamation Day on 18 November is a national holiday; if you plan anything around it, keep the tone respectful rather than promotional.

• Instant Drop: takes minutes to set up. Use it for slow weekdays between the big dates.
• Complete & Reveal: give it at least a week, so players have time to discover the task.
• Live Drop: announce it 5 to 7 days ahead, so people can qualify and talk about it before the drop.

Ramble launches city by city, starting with Riga. If you want to test a format before the holiday season, you can start your first campaign for €1.