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Scaling with Creators – FreshBooks Streamlines Campaigns and Cuts CAC with Passionfroot
As FreshBooks leaned into creator marketing to fuel growth, they encountered growing pains: managing multiple campaigns became increasingly complex, reporting ROI to internal stakeholders lacked clarity, and branding efforts were difficult to justify without direct conversion data. The team also needed to maintain efficiency across performance metrics like CAC and cost per trial—all while scaling a new, relatively untested channel.
Passionfroot provided FreshBooks with an all-in-one platform to operationalize and scale their creator marketing. The team gained tools for streamlined creator discovery, campaign management, and communication—reducing friction and accelerating execution. With a centralized workflow and simplified coordination, FreshBooks was able to run more campaigns efficiently and optimize their investment in the channel.
The Partner: FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a cloud-based accounting software platform founded in 2003. It’s designed to simplify accounting for small businesses, freelancers, and service professionals, with features like invoicing, expense tracking, and online payments - allowing users to focus on growing their business, not bookkeeping.
Nolan Mikowski, Senior Manager of Demand Generation at FreshBooks, was instrumental in introducing creator marketing as a growth lever. Recognizing the power of creators to drive brand awareness and customer acquisition, his team integrated creator partnerships into their broader marketing strategy to scale reach and fuel long-term growth.
The Challenge
As FreshBooks expanded into creator marketing, several challenges surfaced:
- Organization and Project Management: Coordinating multiple creator campaigns required efficient workflows and clearer oversight.
- Reporting Difficulties: Proving impact to internal stakeholders and communicating ROI across campaigns was a recurring challenge.
- Justifying Top-of-Funnel Campaigns: Branding campaigns that didn’t immediately lead to conversions needed better framing and reporting to gain buy-in.
- Efficiency Metrics: Like many performance-minded teams, FreshBooks tracks metrics like cost per trial and CAC to guide strategy and measure success.
The Passionfroot Solution
Passionfroot provided a comprehensive platform that helped FreshBooks scale and streamline its creator marketing efforts. Key benefits included:
- Creator Discovery and Vetting: Passionfroot made it easy to discover and assess creators aligned with FreshBooks’ values and goals, speeding up the recruitment process.
- Streamlined Communication: By handling initial outreach through Passionfroot’s platform, FreshBooks was able to establish more meaningful connections from the start. As Nolan explains:
“When the messaging is coming straight from Passionfroot, it gives that initial vetting on both sides. We're able to have more robust conversations with creators that otherwise would be difficult if you were just sending cold messages.”
- Simplified Payments and Invoicing: Passionfroot’s wallet payment feature was a standout for the team.
“We’re excited to have the wallet payment now - it’s becoming our favorite feature.”
This has significantly reduced the friction of working with creators, simplifying back-and-forth around invoices and payments.
- Strategic Guidance: With insights into budget allocation and campaign performance, Passionfroot helps the FreshBooks team make informed decisions and continuously refine their creator strategy.
Nolan added:
“It’s been great seeing all the updates that Passionfroot is making, and it’s a pleasure to be along the ride as you expand your platform.”
The Results
FreshBooks has already seen strong ROI from its investment in creator marketing via Passionfroot:
- Rapid Impact: In less than 6 months, the performance of FreshBooks’ creator portfolio began matching results from other paid campaigns they had been running for years.
- High-Performing Creators: Several standout creators were discovered through Passionfroot - most notably Scott Clary, whose campaign performance exceeded expectations.
“We’ve struck gold with several of the creators we found through Passionfroot.”
- Measurable ROI: The team tracks both top-of-funnel metrics (impressions, engagement) and direct conversions to evaluate success.
- Workflow Improvements: While FreshBooks didn’t have a robust creator marketing process before Passionfroot, the platform enabled them to spin up campaigns efficiently and focus on performance without the usual growing pains.
- 2M+ impressions.
- 200% increase in paying customers. Through both direct attribution and indirect indicators, we are able to quantitatively measure the impact of our Passionfroot partnerships.
- 50% more efficient than CPC campaigns, signaling a shift in efficient media spend.
- 100+ signups from newsletters per month: We’ve never tracked sponsored newsletters as a viable customer source. Because of Passionfroot we have doubled down on winning newsletters to showcase the FreshBooks brand.
Advice for Other Marketers
Nolan shares a few key lessons for marketers looking to break into creator-led growth:
- Prepare Your Reporting:
“Whether you’re focusing on brand awareness or direct response, know how you’ll track success from the start. Attribution in creator marketing isn’t as straightforward as paid media - it needs to be set up with intention.”
- Don’t Be Afraid to Fail:
“Creators give you room to test. Unlike traditional channels, you don’t need massive budgets to validate messaging or content formats. Lean into experimentation.”
- Know Your ICP:
“Just because someone has reach doesn’t mean they have influence over your audience. Before investing, do the work to understand what content your audience trusts - and who they trust it from.”
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