Submitted by CollectivelyAgency IPI Score 72/100

Intuit QuickBooks x Collectively: Annual Partnership

Influencer Marketing

A year-long, 24-campaign influencer program reached small business owners, consumers, and accountants with authentic QuickBooks use cases, generating 434.7M impressions and a $1.18 CPC against a $1.75 target.

$1.18Paid CPC
27.8MEngagements
434.7MImpressions
3.9MLink clicks
$0.38Traffic CPC
$0.71Ask the Expert CPC

About the campaign

Intuit QuickBooks needed to build reputation, awareness and consideration across three very different audiences, small business owners, consumers and professional accountants, in a category where purchase decisions run on peer trust rather than product-feature advertising.

Collectively's answer was to structure a year-long retainer as a portfolio of 24 discrete campaigns, each assigned a specific objective, brand building, engagement or traffic, and staffed with creators drawn from the exact community that campaign targeted, on the insight that a product used differently by an independent business owner and an accountant cannot be served by a single creator voice. Across the year 142 influencers shared authentic stories of how QuickBooks simplified their own work, with five dedicated brand-building campaigns, engagement-focused activations, paid-amplified traffic pushes and a monthly Ask the Expert series in which business professionals addressed specific topics and directed audiences to QuickBooks resources at a reported $0.71 CPC.

The agency reports the program generated 434.7 million impressions and 27.8 million engagements, with 145 million impressions from the brand-building campaigns alone. Paid activity delivered a $1.18 CPC against a $1.75 target, described as 32 percent more efficient, while traffic campaigns drove 2.9 million paid link clicks at $0.38 CPC and total link clicks reached 3.9 million, all agency-reported figures.

Case in 60 seconds

Intuit QuickBooks needed to build brand reputation, awareness, and consideration across three distinct audiences — small business owners, consumers, and professional accountants — through authentic voices rather than direct advertising, while also driving measurable traffic and engagement over a sustained period, as described in Collectively's case study.

A single product used very differently by independent business owners and professional accountants cannot be served by a single creator voice or message; each community responds to peers who share their professional identity and daily reality, a dynamic reflected in Intuit's own emphasis on accountants as primary partners.

Structure a year-long retainer as a portfolio of 24 discrete campaigns, each assigned a specific objective — brand building, engagement, or traffic — and staffed with creators drawn from the audience segment that campaign was targeting, as outlined by Collectively.

Collectively activated 142 influencers across 24 campaigns, including five brand-building campaigns, engagement-focused activations, paid-amplified traffic campaigns, and a monthly 'Ask the Expert' series featuring business professionals directing audiences to QuickBooks resources. Paid amplification was applied selectively to traffic-driving efforts.

The program generated 434.7M total impressions and 27.8M engagements; paid efforts reached a $1.18 CPC against a $1.75 target (described as 32% more efficient), traffic campaigns drove 2.9M paid link clicks at $0.38 CPC, and total link clicks across all activity reached 3.9M. All figures are agency-reported.

Strategy Breakdown

The primary strategy-learning section — interpretation, not a press-release summary.

Three distinct groups were targeted: small business owners, general consumers, and professional accountants. Collectively matched creator selection to each segment, so that content was produced by people with direct, lived experience of the role being addressed rather than by generalist lifestyle creators.
Business software is perceived as functional and impersonal, yet purchase and adoption decisions are strongly influenced by peer trust. The tension between a brand-led product message and the credibility required to reach sceptical business owners and accountants made conventional advertising a poor fit for the goal of building genuine consideration.
QuickBooks is a well-established product in a crowded small business software category. Intuit's partner ecosystem, including accountants described as primary partners, means the brand already has distribution reach; the challenge was converting that reach into genuine affinity and measurable traffic across audiences with different functional needs.
QuickBooks was positioned as a practical enabler of business operations and growth, illustrated through creators' own stories of how the product simplified their work and provided useful insights, rather than through product-feature advertising. The brand's role in the content was as a supporting tool in real working lives, as described by Collectively.
Business owners and accountants are more likely to engage with content that reflects their specific professional context. Segmenting the influencer roster by audience type — and further segmenting campaigns by objective — meant each piece of content could be optimised for the behaviour it was trying to shift, whether that was awareness, engagement, or a direct click to QuickBooks resources.

Creative & Execution System

Assets & channels

  • Organic social content (creator-produced; platforms not specified in sources)
  • Paid amplification applied to traffic-driving campaigns
  • Monthly 'Ask the Expert' series content featuring business professionals

Partners

  • Collectively (lead agency, influencer management and campaign execution) — source

Participation mechanic

  • Creators shared authentic real-life QuickBooks use cases from their own businesses or professional practice
  • Monthly 'Ask the Expert' activations had business professionals address specific topics and direct audiences to QuickBooks resources
  • Paid amplification boosted selected traffic-driving posts to drive link clicks

Creator role

  • Lead storyteller: creators produced content from their own professional experience
  • Subject-matter expert: accountants and business professionals participated in the 'Ask the Expert' series
  • Paid-amplified creator: selected posts from influencers were boosted for traffic objectives

Results & Evidence

MetricValueResult typeConfidence
Total impressions434.7MReachAgency reported
Total engagements27.8MEngagementAgency reported
Brand-building campaign impressions145MReachAgency reported
Organic engagements (engagement campaigns)45,000EngagementAgency reported
Paid CPC (all paid objectives)$1.18EfficiencyAgency reported
CPC target$1.75BenchmarkAgency reported
Traffic campaign paid link clicks2.9MTrafficAgency reported
Traffic campaign CPC$0.38EfficiencyAgency reported
'Ask the Expert' CPC$0.71EfficiencyAgency reported
Total link clicks3.9MTrafficAgency reported
Comment relevancy rate27%Engagement qualityAgency reported

Why Collectively's strategy worked

  1. 1

    Matching creator identity to audience segment — using small business owners to speak to small business owners, and accountants to speak to accountants — increased content credibility within each community, as described by Collectively. Generalist creators would have diluted that peer-trust effect.

  2. 2

    Structuring a year-long retainer as a portfolio of discrete campaigns, each with its own objective (awareness, engagement, or traffic), allowed the program to optimise paid and organic tactics per campaign rather than forcing a single format to serve all goals. This is supported by the varied CPC outcomes across campaign types, as reported.

  3. 3

    Setting a specific CPC target ($1.75) gave the always-on paid program a measurable efficiency frame, making it possible to evaluate paid amplification decisions against a known benchmark rather than reporting impressions alone. The reported $1.18 actual CPC provides a concrete performance signal, even if the benchmark's origin is not disclosed.

  4. 4

    A recurring format — the monthly 'Ask the Expert' series — created structural consistency across the year and gave audiences a predictable touchpoint, while still allowing the content to address different topics each month, per the case study.

  5. 5

    Combining organic storytelling with selective paid amplification on traffic-driving posts concentrated paid spend where a direct click-through outcome was expected, rather than amplifying all content equally. The reported $0.38 traffic CPC suggests this selective approach was efficient relative to the stated benchmark.

Related Case studies