C-MonEtiquette scales seasonal influence with data, discipline and the right creators

About C-MonEtiquette

C-MonEtiquette was born out of a simple but universal family problem: lost children’s belongings. From personalised labels for clothing and books, to lunch boxes, bottles, backpacks, and school accessories, the French DTC brand designs and produces practical, personalised products that help families stay organised and reduce everyday mental load. Designed and produced in France, with in-house illustrators based in Bordeaux, C-MonEtiquette has built a strong reputation among parents looking for useful, thoughtful products that genuinely simplify family life. In recent years, the brand has expanded its business to new  European markets including the UK, Germany, Spain, and Italy.  

The challenge: turning seasonality into sustained impact

For C-MonEtiquette, back-to-school is not just a moment. It is the moment. 

“Three years ago, we were doing influencer marketing, but it was very marginal,” explains Marie Moulinec, Social Media Manager at C-MonEtiquette. “There were a few paid partnerships during summer, but no real structure or long-term strategy.”

As the brand’s social media channels have matured and paid media budgets have expanded, the limits of an organic-only approach became clear. The team needed more authentic content, stronger reach beyond its own channels, and a way to activate influence at scale during its most critical commercial period.

“The content we produced internally was very product-led. We needed more human stories, more real-life usage, and creators who could speak directly to parents like them,” comments Marie.

The strategy: from opportunistic influence to an industrialised model

Rather than treating influencer marketing as a one-off activation, C-Mon-Etiquette gradually integrated it as a core pillar of its marketing mix.

The strategy is clear: focus influence efforts around the back-to-school peak, prioritise Instagram, and build volume without sacrificing relevance. Over time, gifting became the backbone of the approach, complemented by a smaller number of paid collaborations in France.

“Influence became a real performance lever alongside paid media,” Marie explains. “But to make it work at our scale, I needed structure and tools.”

In April 2025, the brand signed with Kolsquare, a move which allowed it to move from a handful of activations to nearly 100 creator partnerships to underpin the Summer back-to-school strategy. Most partnerships were concentrated in France but Marie also began sourcing and activating creators for gifting campaigns traction across Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, with the help of Kolsquare.

Creator selection and content approach: relevance over vanity metrics

One of the biggest shifts in C-MonEtiquette’s approach following the onboarding of Kolsquare into her strategy was reevaluating how creator performance was evaluated.

“At first, I was obsessed with engagement rate,” admits Marie. “But I realised very quickly that it wasn’t the best indicator for us. The creators who performed best commercially were often those with stronger reach, not necessarily the highest engagement.”

Creator selection is now based firmly on data. Most gifting profiles sit between 5K and 60K followers, while paid collaborations can go much higher. Beyond metrics, audience interests are key.

“Our products are for families. If a creator’s main topics are travel or fashion, it doesn’t work. Themes of family life and kids are essential,” she says.

Creatively, the approach is deliberately flexible. Gifting partnerships come with minimal constraints, allowing creators to integrate products naturally into their routines. Paid collaborations allow for more ambitious storytelling, which has proven significantly more efficient in terms of ROI.

“Paid campaigns clearly performed better. On some of them from the 2025 Summer campaign, we achieved five times the initial investment,” Marie notes.

Kolsquare’s role: saving time, sharpening decisions, scaling faster

With the volume of partnerships on a sharp rise increased, manual sourcing quickly became unsustainable. This is why using Kolsquare became a turning point.

“What I was missing was a real sourcing tool,” says Marie. “Finding creators manually through hashtags or competitors’ posts was incredibly time-consuming. With Kolsquare, the filters alone saved me hours.”

Kolsquare is now central to C-MonEtiquette’s influencer workflow, from discovery to campaign tracking. Marie uses the platform to filter creators by audience interests, geography and estimated reach, and to monitor who has been contacted, who has replied and who has gone live.

“It gives me visibility at every stage. I always know where I stand,” she explains.

Kolsquare also plays a key role in performance analysis and benchmarking.

“The reach data gives us a solid base to compare profiles and anticipate performance. It’s also extremely useful for competitor monitoring and spotting creators we might want to collaborate with in the future.”

Results: stronger performance, clearer learnings, smarter growth

The results speak for themselves. By doubling its number of influencer partnerships year-on-year, C-MonEtiquette significantly increased brand visibility during its most strategic period, while maintaining tight control over performance.

Each creator is given a unique promo code, allowing the brand to track sales directly and make informed decisions about renewals and future collaborations.

“We know exactly who drove sales and who didn’t,” says Marie. “That changes everything when you’re planning the next season.”

Perhaps most importantly, the brand now sees influencer marketing as a long-term growth engine rather than a seasonal experiment.

“We’re still learning, but influence is now fully embedded in our strategy. And with the right resources and tools like Kolsquare, we know we can go even further, especially internationally.”

By structuring its influencer marketing, focusing on relevance over hype, and leveraging data to scale intelligently, CMonEtiquette has transformed a seasonal constraint into a competitive advantage.

“It’s impossible to run influence at this scale without a tool like Kolsquare,” Marie concludes. “It saves time, brings clarity, and lets us focus on what really matters: choosing the right creators and building campaigns that work.”

Want to see how Kolsquare can help you professionalise and scale your influencer marketing strategy? Book a demo with our team today.