The Brand
From a Neighborhood Pizza Shop to a National Franchise
The Mancino family has been baking from scratch since 1959, when Samuel and Marion Mancino opened Sammy’s Pizza in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. Decades later, Joe and Sandra Mancino took those original family recipes and opened a small carry-out restaurant in Coldwater, MI. The Bellacino’s Pizza & Grinders brand started franchising in 1995 and the brand has grown to 49 locations across 11 states.
Every Bellacino’s location bakes its bread fresh daily using the “Grampa Sam” recipe, a practice that has defined the brand since the beginning. Grinders, pizzas, pasta, salads, and catering menu items are all prepared made-to-order. Each location is franchisee-owned, with corporate serving as a support and standards organization.
With a lean corporate team managing day-to-day franchise relations across nearly 50 active locations, efficiency, consistency, and the right technology infrastructure are not optional. They are essential.
The Challenge
Building Brand Consistency Across an Independent Franchise Network
Before Incentivio, Bellacino’s relied on a legacy provider for its marketing and loyalty needs. While the platform worked reasonably well for individual franchisees running local promotions, it created real friction at the brand level when it came to establishing a consistent brand identity, customer experience, messaging, and loyalty program across the organization.
As Bellacino’s grew, so did the opportunity to make better use of its customer data. The brand needed deeper visibility into what was driving results across the system, from identifying which offers generated the strongest response to reducing customer churn, increasing return visits, and growing average check size.
At the same time, Bellacino’s needed a way to balance franchisee input with brand consistency. Through its franchisee advisory board, operators could help shape programs and promotions before they were rolled out system-wide. Corporate gained greater oversight and a more consistent approach to marketing and loyalty, while franchisees maintained a voice in the process and customers received a more unified brand experience regardless of location.
Why Incentivio
A Platform for Brands that Care About Growth and a Consistent Experience
The decision to move to Incentivio came after a hard look at what the brand actually needed. Where their previous provider had been suited to individual operators running their own offers, Incentivio was built to deliver a unique and familiar brand experience across the system. It gave corporate the ability to build and manage campaigns centrally, ensuring consistency across the entire system, while still giving franchisees a library of pre-built campaigns and offers they deploy locally without going off-brand.
“The Incentivio platform is a high-powered, performance race engine for your small business. Very precise. Very powerful. And the Customer Success team has helped us get the most out of it. We know the experience and branded messaging we want to deliver to our customers, and Incentivio provides the tools, automation, and infrastructure to bring that to life. It helps us stay connected with guests through relevant offers and personalized engagement that keeps them coming back.”
Dan Warnaar, Co-Owner, Bellacino’s Inc.
The Incentivio Customer Success team partnered closely with Bellacino’s corporate and marketing teams to turn data into action. By identifying what was driving performance, uncovering opportunities for growth, and supporting the rollout of system-wide campaigns and offers, the team helped create a more strategic and measurable approach to customer engagement. Online ordering, loyalty, and marketing now operate from a single connected layer, and the corporate team can monitor performance across all locations in real time.
The Results
More Members, Less Churn, Higher Engagement
Bellacino’s loyalty program delivered strong year-over-year growth across every major performance metric. Total loyalty membership grew by 20.7%, active members increased by 19.2%, and loyalty order net sales rose by 21.3%. These gains reflected not only increased program adoption but stronger ongoing engagement from existing members.
The improvement was driven by a combination of strategic program enhancements and more effective customer engagement. One of the most notable outcomes was a significant reduction in deleted loyalty accounts. This reflects not just higher satisfaction with the program, but the impact of Incentivio’s automated customer journeys, including post-signup nudges, first-purchase follow-ups, and winback campaigns triggered at 60 and 120 days. Guests who previously may have drifted away are now being reached at the right moment with relevant offers that encourage them to return.
The brand’s new member offer – a half grinder paired with a drink – also proved more effective than its previous promotion. It drove stronger initial engagement and helped reinforce that Bellacino’s is more than just a pizza brand. At the same time, the team enhanced its loyalty redemption structure, allowing guests to redeem points for higher-value rewards, which improved member satisfaction and encouraged repeat visits.
Beyond campaign performance, access to first-party data through Incentivio’s Customer Data Platform has become a strategic asset. The team now uses loyalty and ordering data to identify high-performing markets, evaluate where new franchise locations might succeed, and give existing franchisees first right of refusal on expansion opportunities in their regions. Data that once lived in disconnected systems is now actionable at a brand level.