With WhatsApp and Google Messages ranking among the top 10 apps with the highest number of monthly active users worldwide (Sensor Tower 2025 ranking), conversational marketing, i.e., all direct and instant exchanges between a brand and its customers (information, advice, commercial offers), is emerging as a key engagement lever. For brands and retailers, messaging apps used daily on a large scale are a strategic point of contact with users. “Conversational marketing is no longer an option: it is a key driver for customer relations and conversion”, according to Thomas Rudelle, Co-Founder of the conversational strategy consulting firm Messaging Me. By 2027,Emarketer estimates that the global mobile conversational marketing market will reach US$78 billion, up from US$48 billion in 2022.
Today, two mobile messaging solutions stand out in the retail sector: WhatsApp Business (Meta) and RCS of Google (Rich Communication Services is similar to an enhanced SMS, with a maximum 2,000 character count compared to 160 for a standard SMS, Editor’s note). When asked about the relevance of social networks in retailers’ marketing strategies, Jérémie Renault, CMO at Notify, said: “Where Instagram and TikTok exceed expectations in product discovery, WhatsApp and RCS dominate actionable 1-to-1 customer relationships. Phone numbers enable cross-device and cross-journey continuity, whereas social graphs (representations of internet users based on data provided by social networks, Editor’s note) are not considered stable CRM identifiers”.
In France, these two levers represent a similar base of users. WhatsApp had 50 million active users at the end of 2025, compared to 45 million at the end of 2023, representing an 11%-growth in 2 years. Historically considered an expensive channel of interaction, the price of marketing messages on WhatsApp fell by 42% on January 1, 2026, from 12 to 7 cents.
Journaliste économique pour mind Retail depuis 2024, j’analyse la transformation digitale du commerce.