Launch an influencer campaign for freelance time trackers
I scroll Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube under a fresh account if I’m marketing a freelance time tracker. I try to put myself in this person’s shoes: US English freelancer, 25-39, already bounced off Toggl reports they cannot send and a Notes app of hours, watches 'I reconstructed my week from Slack' and 'Toggl reports look like a spreadsheet threw up' videos on Sunday invoicing night. Linger, save, like, and comment as if I were them. Once the algorithm is trained I take whoever keeps showing up. Ideally over 50k average views. Below that they quote $700 a post for 1k views. That’s a money sink.
You really need to do this for hundreds of creators a day, because the market is not efficient. Some dumb startup is paying thousands for hundreds of views. I scroll as the person who would pay for this tool on real phones. Scout is $1,500/month. We find creators. Outreach is $2,500 if I should send the emails. Dealmaker is $5,000 if I should negotiate and paper the deal. Creator fees extra. No demo. No download guarantee. I wrote the long version at How I find influencers.
Where people actually look
How I actually launch
01
Not a demographic. Sunday I am guessing Tuesday from Slack because I forgot the timer. They already tried Toggl they cannot report from, a Notes list of hours, and a spreadsheet they fill in from memory on Sunday. Skip the productivity YouTuber selling a $199 time-blocking cohort. Adjacent is Sunday invoices, forgotten timers, not enterprise billable-hour OS. Steal the brief if you want.
02
Fresh account. Real phones. Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Linger, save, like, comment as if I were them. Once the algorithm is trained I take whoever keeps showing up. Ideally over 50k average. Example: someone scrolling Slack to guess Tuesday's hours. Signal: the same Sunday-invoicing face two weeks in a row.
03
I prefer email. The contact is usually in a freelance bio, often a studio gmail. Just send a short note. Name a real video. Ask for the phone number. Don’t start the deal over email. Productivity coaches quote cohort prices. If they won’t give a number, move on.
04
Pay $X for N posts with a floor of Y views. An example that is easy to hold: $2000 / 4 posts / 1M views. Then send the contract while it’s still fresh. Start a timer, stop it, export a week. Start the timer, do 20 minutes, export the week. Send it to yourself as the client.
Why most first freelance time trackers campaigns stall
01
Productivity coaches quote cohort prices. You needed a lot of other names so you could move on. Slack-reconstruction rants already have the audience; a week view a client will accept is the product.
02
People tag #freelancer when they want brands to find them. A database tells you who exists. Your customer lives in a feed you never opened. A rainbow time-block that is not billable.
03
Many times I have read something unprofitable like “$700 a post” from a creator that gets 50k views. On a call I can explain a Minimum View Guarantee. Over email you just get the first number. Do not ask them to time-block a fake CEO week. Ask them to reconstruct one real Tuesday, then show the timer.
What you actually buy
Every plan includes the scrolling. Pay more and I do more of the emailing and the paperwork. Creator pay is extra. No demo. No download guarantee. A working timer plus a client-ready week they can send tonight.
Scout
$1,500/month
We find creators.
Most people start here
Outreach
$2,500/month
We find relevant creators, and do outreach.
Dealmaker
$5,000/month
Outreach, then negotiation and contracts.
Billed monthly, cancel anytime. Creator compensation is not included. You approve every creator and every rate. Measurement is signups to a live tracker, unique link.
Questions
You can learn vocabulary that way. People tag what they want brands to find. I still scroll as the person who would pay for this tool on a fresh account and take whoever keeps showing up. The method essay is How we find creators by scrolling a real TikTok avatar.
No. Anyone who does is lying or running paid. I do the scrolling and, on Outreach and Dealmaker, the contacting. You still approve every creator and every rate. Talent is extra. No demo. No download guarantee.
Productivity coaches quote cohort prices. I want roughly 50k average views or the economics usually break. Below that, $700 a post for 1k views is a money sink. On a call I can explain a Minimum View Guarantee. Example: $2000 / 4 posts / 1M views. Over email you just get the first number. If they will not give a number, move on. If you do this right, ie at scale, you will have many other creators to choose from.
No. It is a different job. The tag is productivity coaches; they want a cohort, not a timer. I read the session the person who would pay for this tool actually gets served. Product page for the general job: campaigns.