Fast Growth, Aligned Teams: How Crakmedia Scaled With Purpose
COMPANY
Crakmedia is a global performance marketing firm headquartered in Quebec, Canada, with an employee-first ethos and modern performance practices. It is known for its creative digital advertising and innovative company culture.
INDUSTRY
Marketing and Advertising
EMPLOYEES COUNT AND COUNTRIES
180+ employees across Canada
HEADQUARTERS
Quebec City, Canada
That’s where Betterworks is critical for us — to have a system where we can get that alignment done, and get it right. When I set a TCO as a COO, we make sure everybody has at least 2-3 key results or goals with an objective that aligns to it, to make sure it gets done. Everyone is working in the same direction.
Olivier Bouchard
Chief Operating Officer
Crakmedia
Challenges
Since its founding in 2006, Crakmedia has grown from a nimble startup to a global marketing powerhouse whose digital ads are viewed over 1.5 billion times every day across 150 countries. Tripling in size between 2018 and 2023, Crakmedia credits its rapid expansion to a vibrant people-first culture rooted in transparency, flexibility, and continuous development. Its core issues? Sustaining rapid growth and a thriving employee culture.
Crakmedia sought to:
Acclimate new hires quickly to ensure alignment, efficiency, and a healthy culture
Increase engagement and ensure employee satisfaction
Reduce turnover
Solution
Crakmedia leaned into structured goal-setting, feedback loops, and employee development — all powered by Betterworks. They introduced 30-, 60-, and 90-day onboarding plans through Betterworks, use SMART OKRs across the business, and emphasize regular check-ins between managers and employees.
Betterworks became the center of gravity for performance management, with full adoption across the organization. Seamless integrations with Slack and Jira ensure that performance conversations happen naturally in the tools employees use daily, rather than being an extra step.
The result has been a unified and agile performance approach that helped Crakmedia scale — without losing its culture or clarity.
Goal Alignment
Quarterly goal-setting of nearly 2,000 goals is done in the flow of work, enabling real-time goal adjustment, tracking, and transparency.
Conversations
Regular manager-employee conversations about goal progress and professional development, mid-year and end-of-year reviews, and improved feedback loops reinforce Crakmedia’s core values.
Everyone from the receptionist up to me and my goals are aligned. Everybody — no exceptions. I can’t manage the organization without Betterworks.
Olivier Bouchard
Chief Operating Officer
Crakmedia
Results
Tools, including Betterworks, have helped Crakmedia maintain clarity and direction, even amid exponential hiring and organizational scaling. The result? Higher engagement, lower turnover, and faster employee productivity.
Turnover reduced by more than half.
Voluntary turnover dropped from 34% in 2019 to 15% by 2023.
Employee engagement soared.
Crakmedia’s engagement score climbed from 7.4 to 8.2 — well above the industry average.
Faster hiring, faster productivity
Time to hire shrank from 52 to 22 days. Time to full productivity dropped from up to 12 months to as few as 3.
100% Betterworks adoption
Every employee — from entry-level to executive — uses Betterworks to align goals and track performance.
Details
Crakmedia’s core values are integrity, partnership, innovation, team spirit, and ambition. The agency’s ongoing learning, employee growth, and internal development are all part of this ethos and central to its success.
Crakmedia’s journey is not just about numbers; it’s about redefining what it means to grow well — and creating a more symbiotic relationship between performance management and company culture centered on the employee experience.
Clear objectives
Goal transparency and alignment promote a collaborative atmosphere where employees can better assist one another in achieving their objectives.
Training excellence
A comprehensive learning platform ensures employees are always up to date on all subjects at the heart of Crakmedia’s mission, and have reasons to stay and grow.
Impact
Employees understand their impact on the company’s growth, success, and total cost of operations.
The Bottom Line
Crakmedia’s story is one of intentional, people-first growth. By aligning every employee to clear goals, investing in continuous learning, and building a flexible yet structured culture, the company transformed hypergrowth into a competitive advantage to maintain a thriving, aligned, and fast-moving organization ready for what’s next.
Ready to scale performance while staying true to your culture?
