Brand
Partner
Slovenian health and wellness brand Golden Tree tested a utility-first messaging strategy on WhatsApp, sending order notifications before marketing messages. The approach built trust with customers and delivered stronger engagement, higher click-through rates and more conversions compared to marketing-only outreach.
2.5X
Return on ad spend attributed to new approach*
2X+
Higher conversion rate, attributed to new approach*
25%
Higher read rate on marketing messages, attributed to new approach*
65%
Higher click-through rate, attributed to new approach*
*Results are self-reported and not identifiably repeatable. Generally expected individual results will differ.
Their Story
Health and wellness supplements
Golden Tree is a European health and wellness company based in Slovenia that offers nutritional supplements, skincare products and educational resources to customers across multiple markets. Founded in 2013, the company has built its reputation on helping people make informed choices about health and wellness. It sells directly to consumers through its online store and relies on WhatsApp as a key communication channel.
“Leading with utility messages rather than a promotion made a significant difference for us. By giving customers the information they actually wanted first, we built trust from the very beginning—and that translated into stronger engagement, more clicks and more than double the conversion rate when we followed with marketing.”
Tjaša Langerholc
Affiliate and Messaging Manager, Golden Tree
Their Goal
Improving customer response
The company had been sending marketing messages to customers without any prior service-based interaction. It wanted to understand whether sending useful, order-related notifications first would improve engagement with later marketing messages. To answer this question, it needed a structured test that could clearly measure the difference.
Their Solution
Helpful assistance first
Golden Tree worked with its partner Spur to design an A/B test comparing the two strategies among 20,000 customers who were split into two equal groups. The test group received order-related utility messages first, including order-received and order-shipped notifications in Spanish, German, Dutch, English and Italian. After these notifications were delivered, the same group received marketing messages. The control group received identical marketing messages with no prior utility message. Spur advised Golden Tree on how the two groups were formed, verified the message templates and calculated the final audience.
“Most brands open a WhatsApp conversation by asking for a sale. Golden Tree earned the right to make an offer first, with a message customers actually wanted, and the same promotion converted at more than twice the rate. Respect for the customer’s attention turned out to be the best growth lever.”
Rohan Rajpal
Co-founder and CTO, Spur
Reaching customers with utility messages before any marketing changed how the promotion performed and drove stronger results across the sales funnel. The notifications were ordinary update messages, telling people that their order had been received and then that it had shipped. They were read by 81.5% of recipients, in every one of the five languages, so most of the test group had already heard from Golden Tree in a helpful context before a single offer arrived.
Their Success
Better engagement and conversion performance
The marketing that followed performed better on every measure. The group that had received utility messages first read more of those messages, clicked through more often and converted at more than twice the rate of the control group. The commercial difference was the clearest signal of all: marketing-only outreach barely returned more than it cost, while the utility-first sequence turned the same spend into a clear profit. The results included:
- 2.5X return on ad spend (up from 1.36X) attributed to utility messages on WhatsApp followed by marketing messages on WhatsApp*
- More than 2X higher conversion rate, attributed to utility messages on WhatsApp followed by marketing messages on WhatsApp*
- 25% higher read rate on the marketing messages, attributed to utility messages on WhatsApp followed by marketing messages on WhatsApp*
- 65% higher click-through rate, attributed to utility messages on WhatsApp followed by marketing messages on WhatsApp*
*Results are self-reported and not identifiably repeatable. Generally expected individual results will differ.
“One of the most valuable learnings was seeing how much the customer journey matters. WhatsApp isn’t just about sending individual messages—it’s about creating the right sequence of communication and giving customers relevant information at the right moment.”
Tjaša Langerholc
Affiliate and Messaging Manager, Golden Tree
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