We deliver unmatched creativity and agile responsiveness to meet the ever-changing demands of the media landscape.
Optimum Contests is an innovative, 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 and reesults. With a sales team of over 30 subject matter experts, it has never been easier to earn ongoing revenue. Simplify your contest management and boost voter engagement with Optimum Contests.”
2025 Audited Results
PLATFORM
Once you experience Optimum Ballots, you’ll never want to use anything else.
Nominations
Optimum Ballot’s platform, included with Optimum Contests, simplifies open nominations with powerful built-in features. Each ballot includes Google Places Autocomplete, allowing business name, address, phone number, and website fields to populate automatically. Our advanced technology also verifies that submitted email addresses are valid and “emailable”, ensuring a seamless nomination process.
With organized main categories and nested sub-category options, the single-page form is intuitive and easy to use across devices — whether on a computer, tablet, or mobile phone.
Voting Ballot
Optimum Ballot’s 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 sub-categories. 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 follow a more linear path. Voting frequency is configurable — allowing for either one ballot per day or a single ballot for the duration of the contest.
Management
Optimum Contest 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 field-based flat files, streamlining sales workflows and client management.
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 thanks 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 31 million votes processed in 2025 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, which includes a notorized certificate that can be displayed on the results website, all helps to delivers confidence to both 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 promote your contest organically and expand its reach. Let your audience do the marketing — automatically.”
SUPPORT
Once you experience the NERUS Team,, 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 configure 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, text 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.