How Replit 10x’d Its Creator Program with Passionfroot

The Partner: Replit

Replit is a game-changing platform that empowers anyone—from beginners to pros—to build, deploy, and share apps instantly using natural language. By making development accessible, lightning-fast, and collaborative, Replit is redefining how software is created and powering the next generation of builders in the AI and no-code revolution.

Raina Saboo, Head of Marketing, and Alex Lin, Growth Marketer, set out to find a way to break through the noise in this crowded space. Their efforts were instrumental in proving creator marketing as an authentic, high-impact growth channel—and in scaling it efficiently.

The Challenge

Replit set out to expand its presence beyond its core user base and elevate its founder’s voice in the broader tech and startup ecosystem. As the company scaled its impact, it faced several key challenges in executing effective creator-led marketing:

• Turning a Viral Moment into Brand Momentum: Following CEO Amjad Masad’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Replit sought to amplify this cultural moment to introduce his story — and the company’s mission — to wider non-technical and AI-curious audiences.
• Building Trust Through Creator Voices: Rather than traditional ads or paid placements, Replit wanted to build trust through the voices of creators who genuinely connected with its mission. Creator-led content offered a way to reach new audiences with credibility and warmth — sparking interest through storytelling.
• Breaking Through Platform Saturation: In an increasingly crowded market of no-code tools and AI platforms, Replit needed a differentiated approach to stay top of mind among builders and early adopters.
• Testing New Channels & Formats: With most of its marketing historically product-driven, Replit needed to explore new creator channels (LinkedIn, newsletters, podcasts) and measure which narratives and formats resonated best.
• Simplifying Global Creator Payouts: Replit also faced difficulties onboarding and paying creators worldwide, which threatened to slow campaign momentum and limit creator participation.

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The Passionfroot Solution

What began as an experiment quickly became a scaled system. Passionfroot helped Replit grow its creator marketing program more than 10x — enabling the team to go from a $1k pilot to a $300k+ program reaching tens of thousands of targeted viewers. Replit partnered with Passionfroot to develop a strategic creator-led campaign that drove awareness, trust, and narrative depth:

• Targeted Creator Curation at Scale: Using Passionfroot’s discovery tools, Replit quickly identified and connected with creators who had niche, high-intent audiences across AI, enterprise, no-code, and entreprenuer storytelling. The platform streamlined outreach and initial vetting — reducing time spent finding the right fits.
• All-in-One Campaign Management: From initial outreach to final invoice and results reporting, Passionfroot kept all creator conversations, deliverables, and approvals in one place — giving Replit full visibility into every ongoing partnership. This eliminated messy spreadsheets and back-and-forths across platforms.
• Real-Time Partnership Overview: Replit’s team had a centralized dashboard view of all live creator engagements, from signed deals to content timelines. This helps marketing, comms, and leadership stay aligned without manual status updates.
• Streamlined Payouts & Finance Ops: With all creator fees handled through Passionfroot’s wallet, Replit only had to deal with a single invoice — cutting down on admin and enabling faster payouts for creators. Finance, legal, and marketing all operated in sync.

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The Results

Replit’s Q2 campaign with Passionfroot turned a timely media moment into a high-leverage brand awareness engine — powered by authentic creator voices and founder-led storytelling:

• Overall Campaign CPM: $14.11, with all content driving contextual, audience-aligned reach well below typical paid media benchmarks
• Validate growth channel: Passionfroot enabled Replit to validate creators as a scalable growth channel through this successful pilot, demonstrating clear impact to their leadership team. As a result, Replit secured approval to scale their marketing investment to a seven-figure annual budget.

• Top CPM Performer: Mushfiq Sajib delivered 22,000 views at a standout $6.00 CPM
• Most-Viewed Post: Founding Journey Newsletter drove 38,431 views through inspirational storytelling and a subtle Replit tie-in

• Highest Engagement: Rocky Bhatia’s LinkedIn post generated 474 reactions, 41 comments, and 5 reposts — fueled by a provocative “programming vs prompting” theme‍
• 85,952+ Total Views across LinkedIn and newsletter content from 5 creators

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Advice for Other Marketers

Based on Replit’s Q2 campaign, here are key insights from Alex for marketers looking to leverage creator-led storytelling:

• Choose Resonance Over Reach: Don’t just look at follower counts — consider whether a creator can speak credibly to your audience. A smaller creator with the right voice often outperforms a larger one with generic content.

“It’s not about volume — it’s about resonance. One powerful story from the right creator can outperform a dozen polished ads.”

• Give It Time to Work: Creator campaigns don’t always show immediate ROI. Think of them like content marketing — compounding over time as trust and familiarity build.

“Some of our best creator campaigns took months to show results. You have to give them space to build the story.”

• Make Good Content Go Further: Don’t treat creator posts as one-offs. The best content can be reused in emails, blog posts, ads, and other places your audience is present.