crooton and Caraffi - the perfect fit

Caraffi is a talent consultancy that works with organisations to advise, build, operate and transform in-house talent acquisition teams. They do this through project based consultancy, their bespoke build, operate and transform (BOT) outsourcing model or through their managed service programme (MSP).

When Caraffi partnered with a large retail logistics company to deliver high-volume delivery driver recruitment, they already knew the geographic areas where candidate attraction was underperforming. Emma Coleman, Talent Experience and Culture Team Manager at Caraffi, said: “The biggest challenge we faced was generating the volumes of applications we required to fill our delivery driver roles whilst also telling our clients story. We wanted to generate volume of applications initially and keep this ticking over via realised awareness - whilst we moved internally toward improved quality.”

Caraffi’s connection with crooton stemmed from long-standing industry relationships and reputation within the talent space. Emma already knew about crooton and said that when evaluating partners for the campaign, the decision ultimately came down to the right fit. “We needed a solution that would give us high touch and visibility, with quick reflexes - and crooton and the team we worked with enabled us to do this.” Said Emma. 

The crooton team implemented a location-intelligent recruitment marketing strategy. By mapping workforce density and analysing commuter patterns, we identified exactly where potential drivers were located and how they moved through their local areas.

To reach these candidates, we developed a campaign that included:

• Geofencing - reaching people who currently work as delivery drivers by targeting supermarket collection areas and logistics hubs
• Keyword contextual advertising - advertising on specific web pages where the content includes particular keywords about working within this sector
• Placements - advertising on a focussed list of very specific high traffic websites 

Charlotte Jackson, Customer Success Director from crooton said: “We layered a combination of upper funnel and lower funnel tactics to increase brand awareness whilst also driving more applications. 

“The campaign focused on both attracting quality applicants and reducing wasted impressions. We used geofencing and demographic data to identify areas with a higher density of potential candidates and targeted them with adverts about job opportunities.

crooton functioned as a strategic partner, taking on the heavy lifting of campaign execution and data analysis. Emma said: “They truly partnered with us to understand what we were hoping to achieve. They quickly became an extension of our creative team and with a very busy but lean team they took on the heavy lifting reporting back regularly to give us the insights we needed to generate the results we were looking for.”

Transparency was key to maintaining a successful working relationship. While Caraffi provided deep industry insight, crooton translated those priorities into multi-channel performance. Emma described the working relationship as “smooth and seamless. crooton did a lot of the heavy lifting and kept us abreast of everything.”

“The Caraffi campaigns are a joy to work on as we get such valuable insights back from the team. This allows us to heavily optimise the campaign whilst it’s running, and really maximise Caraffi’s investment.” Said Charlotte. 

The partnership delivered a measurable uplift in both application volume and candidate quality. In previously difficult locations, the increase in applicant flow helped stabilize driver hiring and reduced the pressure on time-to-fill.

The impact was particularly evident in Nottingham where a recently built hub was launched to service Nottingham and surrounding area. The partnership reduced the strain on internal resources and provided a structured, data-led approach to attraction.“The quality and volume of applications has always risen in areas supported by crooton and our Nottingham warehouse launch drove an elevated quality of candidates,” said Emma.

The commercial efficiency was matched by a strong cultural fit. Emma noted the unexpected benefits: “meeting the team and truly feeling like they have our clients best interests at heart and are as committed as we are to the success of each campaign.”

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