We deliver unmatched creativity and agile responsiveness to meet the ever-changing demands of the media landscape.
Optimum Ballot, an innovative standalone solution set to revolutionize your balloting experience. Building upon our industry-leading, fully managed "Best Of" contests, Optimum Ballot empowers media partners to seamlessly handle every step—nominations, voting, and secure third-party validation of winners. Simplify your contest management and boost voter engagement with Optimum Ballot.
2024 Audited Results
PLATFORM
Once you experience the Optimum Ballot, you’ll never want to use anything else.
Nominations
The Optimum Ballot platform simplifies open nominations with powerful built-in features. Each ballot includes Google Places Autocomplete, allowing business name, address, phone and website fields to populate automatically. Advanced technology also verifies that submitted email addresses are valid and emailable, ensuring a seamless nomination process. With organized main categories and nested subcategory options, the single-page form is intuitive and easy to use across devices—whether on a computer, tablet, or mobile phone.
Voting Ballot
The Optimum Ballot platform delivers a best-in-class voting experience with every ballot cast. Its user-friendly interface visually guides voters through a well-organized structure of main categories and nested subcategories. Each initial ballot includes 150 popular categories with clearly defined criteria, ready for immediate deployment. Ballots can be customized to include as many or as few categories as desired. Flexible navigation allows voters to move freely across the ballot or vote in a more linear fashion. Voting frequency is also configurable—allowing for either one ballot per day or a single ballot for the duration of the contest.
Management
The Optimum Ballot platform simplifies contestant management. Each contestant can be organized and assigned to designated sales representatives responsible for managing advertising opportunities. All contestant data can be easily downloaded and imported into CRM systems that accept fielded flat files, streamlining sales workflows and client management.
YOUR LOOK & FEEL
Once you experience the Optimum Ballot, you’ll never want to use anything else.
Your contest ballot should look and feel like you.
The Optimum Ballot is built to reflect your brand’s unique identity and performs flawlessly across all platforms—desktop, tablet, and mobile. To make it your own, we provide a customizable design template and installation guide, making it easy for your designer to create a background that visually represents your contest and connects with your audience.
Key Features
Fully responsive across all platforms all from a URL. Nothing to download.
Fraud Metrics
Optimum Ballot’s advanced fraud prevention metrics are a key advantage of our platform. The common concern of "stuffing the ballot box" is significantly reduced due to our robust detection capabilities. Our sophisticated algorithms identify and block bots, trolls, suspicious voting patterns, and orchestrated mass voting attempts, ensuring every ballot reflects genuine voter intent. With nearly 25 million votes processed in 2024 alone, we have extensive real-world experience, allowing us to stay ahead of emerging fraud tactics and continuously refine our security measures.
Third Party Certification
With Optimum Ballot, election integrity is a top priority. Every contest is thoroughly reviewed by our operations team to ensure accuracy and fairness. Each vote is verified through a human audit before winners are officially cast—up to five placement levels. Once confirmed, results are exported in a clean, comma-delimited file, ready for import into your website, special sections, or print pages. Our certification process delivers confidence—both to your readers and your advertisers.
Social Sharing
After voters experience the ease and elegance of casting their votes, Optimum Ballot takes engagement one step further. As the ballot concludes, voters are seamlessly directed to a designated landing page—where a pop-up encourages them to share that they’ve voted on their social media channels. With a built-in social share image feature, every vote has the power to organically promote your contest and expand its reach. Let your audience do the marketing—automatically.
SUPPORT
Once you experience the Optimum Ballot, you’ll never want to use anything else.
Operations
Onboarding and ongoing support are provided directly from our Oregon headquarters, ensuring responsive and knowledgeable service every step of the way. All support, design, and programming are handled exclusively within the United States. With no software to install, your contest can be up and running in just a few days. Our team works closely with you to customize and condition the ballot to match your vision. Already have a contest? We can easily transition your current or past contest to the Optimum Ballot platform for a seamless upgrade.
Organized For Results
The Contestant Status Dashboard (CSD) is the central nerve center of the Optimum Ballot platform. Purpose-built to manage each individual contestant, the CSD is a powerful tool your sales and management team will rely on for success. Contestants can be assigned to specific sales reps, allowing for seamless tracking from nominations through voting and all the way to final results.
Management
Optimum Ballot is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly—no IT support or advanced technical skills required. The platform features a clean, texr link and button-driven interface with a logical flow that makes it easy for managers and sales representatives to navigate and control large amounts of data. When deployed across a contact center or business development team, multiple users can access the Contestant Status Dashboard simultaneously. Permission-based access levels ensure the right team members have the right tools at their fingertips.
OPTIONS
We've made it flexible to add other services to your program, on an as needed basis.
Effective and cohesive branding is essential for a successful contest. Our branding package includes designing your primary contest logo, voting-related graphics, and winner announcement visuals. Collaborating with our Oregon-based design team, we’ll either establish a fresh, impactful brand identity or enhance your existing contest brand for lasting recognition. Designed and licenced for one market,
While your team manages the sales of ballot advertising, our creative experts handle the visual design. Our designs support Ballot Buttons, Main Category Banners, and Sub-Category Banners. All creative requests are conveniently submitted online and completed within 24 business hours. Licensed for contest use only,
Engage your audience effectively with contemporary promotional materials. We provide digital assets in three popular web-friendly sizes designed specifically for nomination and voting phases. Additionally, newspaper partners receive quarter-page ad designs, radio partners receive a live-read script with optional prerecorded audio, and television partners receive professionally produced :10 and :30 promotional spots. Designed and licenced for one market,
Leverage our market insights with a comprehensive analysis of your current Best Of contest. We’ll deliver a detailed SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats), and provide recommended advertising packages and pricing strategies tailored to optimize your ballot’s impact and revenue potential.Includes complete analysis and written plan.
Looking for More?
For a fully turnkey contest solution, choose our Optimum Platinum program. Our team manages every aspect—including sales strategy, custom URLs, dedicated marketing sites, media kits, online ordering, social media management, and direct sales support. Services also include producing a full color glossy magazine and results website. With the NERUS Power of One, you can confidently launch a fully-managed and profitable contest experience.
