French online organic grocery store La Fourche has built a powerful acquisition engine that relies on strong, authentic relationships with KOLs aligned with its niche. In this interview, La Fourche Head of Growth Charlotte de Labrouhe, and Head of Influence Anaelle Antigny, share how the brand has refined its influencer strategy—from diversifying content formats and platforms to balancing fixed fees and affiliate models. They also discuss the growing role of influence within the brand’s marketing mix and the importance of long-term partnerships in driving high-quality customer acquisition.
Anaelle Antigny: Things have changed quite a lot, even though our primary goal—conversion through influence—hasn’t shifted. We know that working with influencers increases brand awareness, but that’s not the KPI we monitor. For us, it’s all about conversion, which is why we have begun to optimise the strategy in certain areas.
A couple of years ago, we were focused on growing our base of influencers and ambassadors. Today, we’ve shifted slightly; we’ve retained our solid base of ambassadors who work with us monthly, which creates a great sense of consistency. This helps us overcome obstacles with potential members. But now, we’re diversifying the types of deliverables.
We used to do almost exclusively Instagram Stories. That still works well for us because the quality-price-conversion ratio is excellent. However, we’re now activating influencers in other ways. We’re focusing more on videos and carousel posts because social media algorithms have changed. These formats let us go deeper into topics, and they resonate particularly well with our older target audiences, who love this type of content.
We’re also expanding to multi-platform strategies: TikTok, YouTube, podcasts… This allows us to reach diverse communities that may not see Instagram Stories but are still loyal to their favourite influencers. It’s a key focus for us now: continuing with Stories but multiplying different deliverables.
We also keep renewing our influencer base. We look for emerging talents and new faces, but we’re more selective. We no longer activate just anyone as we might have done in the past. We’ve realised that quality and alignment are far more important than quantity.
We work with around 70 to 80 influencers monthly. About 90% are women, often with very specific, engaged audiences. We focus on niche influencers with clear positions, like environmentalists, feminists, or advocates for veganism, vegetarianism, and gluten-free diets.
We do both: affiliation and fixed content fees. Historically, we started with affiliation because it was standard when the market wasn’t as professionalised. However, as the industry matured, creators started valuing their work and demanding fixed payments.
The issue with fixed fees is that it makes it harder to control acquisition costs. It’s a gamble. Sometimes you pay €100 and get 20 conversions—great ROI. Other times, you pay €1,000 for just two conversions—total disaster. With affiliation, we align costs with performance.
Now, we’ve brought back affiliation for influencers who are comfortable with it. Many micro and mid-tier influencers prefer this model because they want to prove their value and grow their community. The challenge is finding the right people and balancing performance predictions.
For example, once I activated a small account on affiliation, thinking it was low-risk. At the end of the month, they made 50 conversions—amazing, but if I had paid them a fixed rate, it would have been far cheaper. It’s a constant balancing act.
Charlotte de Labrouhe: Influencer marketing is treated as an acquisition channel, just like Meta or Google. It’s one of our main channels, both in terms of budget and acquiring new customers. What’s unique about influencers is that the leads they generate are highly qualified. Thanks to the formats they use, people who come through influencers understand what we do better, which results in lower churn rates and higher lifetime value (LTV). These leads are more profitable and valuable for us. We track everything using promo codes, which allows us to attribute performance to each creator we work with.
Our offer is quite unique—it’s online-only, exclusively organic, and more affordable thanks to our subscription model. Promo codes apply to the membership, which requires some explanation. It’s much more effective when an influencer explains it directly and authentically, face-to-camera, rather than using ads. Having influencers explain it is very important for us and a key part of our mix, alongside other major platforms.
Anaelle Antigny: Influence has a huge share of our marketing budget, that is separate to other levers like paid ads. In 2024, a quarter of our new members were recruited through influencers. Influence is a major acquisition channel for us because the cost per acquisition (CPA) is low, and the quality of leads is excellent.
Because La Fourche is based on a subscription model, we have developed a KPI called FTC, the Free Trial Churn, which is simply the percentage of people who churn at the end of the subscription trial period. For other acquisition channels the FTC is around 50% but it drops to 25% with influence, demonstrating that influence is a highly qualified, long-term acquisition channel.
Charlotte de Labrouhe: One major challenge is managing relationships directly. We don’t work with agencies, so we handle relationships either directly with creators or their agents if they have one. This can be time-consuming. The key is optimizing processes to make it less time-intensive while maintaining a personal touch.
The strength of our partnerships lies in the long-term relationships we’ve built with certain creators. These relationships lead to higher-quality content, better responsiveness, and more reasonable rates. Tracking performance isn’t an issue for us because of the promo codes. The real challenge is managing the entire process: maintaining relationships, recruiting new influencers, letting go of those who don’t work out, and helping others improve their messaging to better convert their audiences. This daily work of community management, onboarding, and coaching is our biggest challenge.
Charlotte de Labrouhe: It’s essential, though it doesn’t necessarily need to be overly complex. At a minimum, brands need a system that allows them to attribute KPIs to creators in a way that aligns with other channels. For us, the key metric is the start of a free trial, which we can track by source—be it Meta, influencers, or elsewhere. Comparing this KPI across channels is critical.
Some brands might face more complexity, especially those selling through third-party distributors. They’d need to rely on broader methods like A/B testing or blind comparisons. For us, the promo code system has worked well for years, so tracking performance hasn’t been an issue so far.
Charlotte de Labrouhe: Until recently, we didn’t use influence for awareness. Beginning this year, we started with a small budget, but it’s a separate line item from acquisition. We’re still figuring out the right KPIs for awareness, likely focusing on impressions, views, and overall growth impact.
As we grow, all budgets are increasing, but we aim to expand the share allocated to influence. Platforms like Google and Meta are becoming more unpredictable and expensive. CPMs can spike due to competition or platform decisions, making it harder to control costs. They’re like a black box. We have poor visibility over what happens. In contrast, influencer marketing offers more stability and less risk, thanks to the direct relationships we have. With experience and strong relationships, influence can have a more predictable cost.
Charlotte de Labrouhe: Saturation affects everyone as influencer marketing grows. But we focus on creators with strong values, like eco-consciousness or family-oriented content. These creators are selective about partnerships, which helps maintain authenticity. For our niche audience, credibility and trust are essential, so we avoid overexposure to promo codes and collaborations.
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