How ELLE Suisse Turned a Giveaway into a Qualified WhatsApp Audience

A giveaway should do more than simply generate participants. It can also become a powerful tool for audience growth and CRM enrichment. Discover how ELLE Suisse used Sandra to transform a WhatsApp campaign into a lasting relationship with its readers.

The challenge: turning a marketing campaign into a long-term relationship

Giveaways typically generate plenty of traffic… but very little long-term engagement.

Once the winner has been announced, participants often disappear and the value of the campaign comes to an end.

ELLE Suisse had a different objective: to make the most of this moment of attention by building an owned audience, enriching its CRM, and collecting the necessary consent to continue engaging with participants via both email and WhatsApp.

The challenge was also to deliver a simple, seamless and mobile-first experience, without relying on lengthy or complex forms.

The solution: an intelligent conversational journey on WhatsApp

Sandra enabled ELLE Suisse to create a fully conversational experience on WhatsApp.

From the competition landing page, participants were redirected to WhatsApp, where they were guided through the journey step by step.

The experience included:

• an introduction to the giveaway;
• acceptance of the terms and conditions;
• a structured conversational form to collect key information (first name, surname, email address, date of birth, canton, etc.) directly within WhatsApp;
• separate consent collection for the ELLE Suisse newsletter and future WhatsApp communications;
• instant confirmation of participation.

Alongside the main journey, an AI agent automatically responded to participants' spontaneous questions (competition rules, entry process, dates, winner selection, etc.), providing 24/7 assistance without requiring intervention from the ELLE Suisse team.

All collected data is structured and synchronised with the CRM, creating a qualified audience ready to power future marketing campaigns.

Key use cases

Building a WhatsApp audience

Turning a giveaway into the entry point for an owned communication channel.

Collecting qualified customer data

Replacing a traditional web form with a simpler, more engaging and fully structured conversational experience.

Consent management

Collecting separate email and WhatsApp opt-ins to enable highly targeted campaigns based on each participant's communication preferences.

AI-powered conversational support

Automatically answering the most common participant questions throughout the campaign using an integrated AI agent.

Results & insights

The campaign enabled ELLE Suisse to build a qualified and re-engageable audience:

Beyond campaign performance, Sandra also provided valuable insights into ELLE Suisse's audience.

📲 69% of participants opted in to receive future WhatsApp communications

📧 60% also subscribed to the ELLE Suisse email newsletter

Beyond campaign performance, Sandra also provided valuable insights into ELLE Suisse's audience.

The reporting revealed that 47% of participants were between 25 and 44 years old, with a median age of 44. Even more importantly, WhatsApp proved popular across every age group: opt-in rates remained consistently high across all generations, reaching 82% among 18–24 year-olds. A clear demonstration of WhatsApp's ability to refresh audience demographics and engage younger audiences, who are often less responsive to traditional communication channels.

Key learnings

A giveaway should no longer be seen as a simple acquisition campaign.

By combining WhatsApp, conversational forms, consent management and AI, it becomes a powerful tool for building an owned audience.

The project also highlighted the importance of following Meta's best practices. Gradually warming up the account, maintaining high-quality interactions and preserving a strong Quality Score are essential to ensuring long-term performance on WhatsApp.

Customer testimonial

"Thanks to Sandra, we transformed a simple giveaway into a truly conversational experience. We were able to collect qualified customer data, grow our WhatsApp audience and offer participants a modern, seamless experience."
— ELLE Suisse

Key takeaway

he giveaway was only the beginning.

With Sandra, ELLE Suisse transformed a one-off campaign into a qualified, owned audience that can now be re-engaged for future giveaways, events, exclusive content and partner campaigns.