Max Factory doubles customer base with Vonage messaging

Italian retailer Max Factory doubled its active customer base after adopting Vonage's messaging tools across WhatsApp, RCS and SMS.

Max Factory, which operates 48 stores across seven regions in Italy, shifted its marketing from printed promotional materials to digital messaging campaigns tailored to individual customers. The move gave the retailer clearer performance data and reduced manual work for its marketing team.

Max Factory recorded a 65% read rate for personalised campaigns tailored using customer purchase history, location and stated preferences.

Before the switch, the retailer relied on printed flyers and other paper promotions, which offered limited scope for targeted outreach or detailed measurement. That made it harder to assess campaign performance and support growth in a more structured way.

Marketing shift

The set-up combined the Vonage Messages API with its Conversational Connect platform, which lets companies create and manage campaigns across several messaging channels from a central system. For Max Factory, that meant running customer communications across WhatsApp, RCS and SMS from one place instead of through separate processes.

Centralised campaign management reduced operational errors and cut manual workload. The retailer also said moving away from paper flyers lowered costs and reduced the environmental impact of its marketing activity.

Giacomo Cinelli, Head of Marketing at Max Factory, said the retailer used the platform to refine how it reached shoppers.

"Vonage gave Max Factory the tools to reach our customers efficiently and securely via the messaging channels that resonated with them," said Giacomo Cinelli, Head of Marketing at Max Factory.

"Vonage's solutions allowed us to deliver personalised, targeted promotions directly to customers and empowered our team to tailor content dynamically based on individual purchasing history, location and preferences - capabilities that traditional advertising channels simply cannot match."

Retail use

The announcement points to a broader shift among retailers seeking more measurable digital routes to customers while reducing reliance on mass printed promotions. Messaging services such as WhatsApp and SMS are increasingly used for direct marketing because they can be linked to customer data and tracked more closely than paper campaigns.

For retailers with large store estates and broad regional coverage, this can help align local promotions with shopping behaviour in different markets. Max Factory's footprint across seven Italian regions means messaging can vary by customer location as well as purchase history.

Vonage, part of Ericsson, has been expanding its communications software business around application programming interfaces and multichannel contact tools. Its offering spans messaging, voice and customer contact products used by companies to manage digital interactions with consumers.

Fredrik Gessler, Head of API Product Management at Vonage, said the Max Factory project showed how retailers were changing their approach to customer outreach.

"Max Factory's transformation is a powerful example of what becomes possible when retailers move from one-size-fits-all outreach to intelligent, personalised and omnichannel communications," said Fredrik Gessler, Head of API Product Management at Vonage.

"By leveraging the Vonage Messages API via WhatsApp and Vonage Conversational Connect, Max Factory was able to reach customers more reliably, engage them more meaningfully and scale its marketing operations with unprecedented efficiency. This is exactly the kind of transformation we enable for enterprises around the world."

Max Factory was founded in 2005 and sells clothing, home goods, kitchenware, décor, stationery, pet products, toys and DIY items. The group has positioned itself around combining physical stores with digital customer touchpoints.

The reported results suggest direct messaging is becoming a more prominent part of that mix, particularly for retailers seeking to replace broad paper-based campaigns with communication that can be tracked customer by customer. According to Vonage, that approach helped Max Factory achieve a 100% increase in its active customer base within one year.