ApproveThis manages your NorthStar by GrowthHackers Integration approvals.

Two Platforms, One Growth Engine

When NorthStar by GrowthHackers shakes hands with ApproveThis through Zapier, marketing teams gain an unprecedented ability to align strategy with execution. NorthStar's strength lies in organizing growth experiments and strategic initiatives, while ApproveThis brings surgical precision to decision-making processes. Together, they create a closed-loop system where ideas are validated, approved, and activated without bureaucratic friction.

Consider this: 68% of marketing teams report delays in campaign launches due to approval bottlenecks. By connecting these platforms, you're not just automating tasks – you're institutionalizing a culture of rapid experimentation backed by structured governance. The integration acts as connective tissue between strategic planning and operational rigor, particularly valuable for growth teams balancing speed with accountability.

Core Capabilities Supercharged

NorthStar excels at visualizing growth pipelines, tracking experiment results, and maintaining team alignment across multiple initiatives. ApproveThis complements this by adding layers of financial control and compliance through features like:

• Multi-tiered approval chains mirroring organizational hierarchy
• Real-time budget guardrails using calculated fields
• Automatic delegation during PTO periods

Where NorthStar cards track what needs to happen, ApproveThis manages who decides it happens. This division of labor becomes powerful when connected through Zapier – approvals become contextual to specific initiatives, not isolated administrative tasks.

Real-World Workflow Accelerators

Use Case 1: From Brainstorm to Board Approval

When a marketing team creates a new NorthStar card for a proposed campaign, the integration automatically generates an approval request in ApproveThis with pre-populated details:

Example: A SaaS company's growth team proposes a $50K influencer marketing test. The NorthStar card includes projected CAC targets and experiment design. ApproveThis routes this to the CMO (for brand alignment), CFO (for budget approval), and Legal (for compliance review) simultaneously. Approval thresholds automatically greenlight the request once two of three stakeholders approve, preventing gridlock.

Use Case 2: Approval-Driven Project Tracking

Conversely, when an ApproveThis request originates from a source like an ERP system or CRM, the integration can spin up corresponding NorthStar cards to maintain a single source of truth.

Example: A retail company's procurement team submits a vendor contract renewal through ApproveThis. Upon approval, NorthStar automatically creates a card tracking implementation timelines, assigning owners, and setting OKRs for supplier performance improvements.

Use Case 3: Closed-Loop Learning Systems

Approved initiatives automatically become tracked experiments in NorthStar, while rejected requests generate learnings documented directly in cards. This creates an institutional memory bank that's particularly valuable for:

Example: An e-commerce company's denied request to expand to Germany gets logged in NorthStar with rejection reasons (logistics complexity, market saturation). Six months later, when reopening the discussion, the team references historical context directly within their growth platform.

Team-Specific Advantages

Growth/Marketing Teams

Accelerate experiment velocity while maintaining budget control. Conditional approval logic lets junior staff greenlight small tests (<$5K) while automatically escalating larger bets to executives. Real-time dashboards show both approval statuses and experiment results side-by-side.

Finance Teams

Embed fiscal governance directly into growth workflows without becoming a bottleneck. Approval thresholds auto-approve requests under predefined amounts, while calculated fields prevent duplicate spending across overlapping initiatives.

Cross-Functional Teams

External partners and client stakeholders can approve requests via email without needing NorthStar licenses. An agency pitching a new campaign concept gets frictionless approvals while keeping all documentation within the client's NorthStar environment.

Implementation Made Simple

Connecting the platforms takes three steps through Zapier:

1. Create your Zap trigger (NorthStar card creation or ApproveThis request)
2. Map critical data fields between systems (e.g., card title -> request description)
3. Set conditional logic (only escalate requests over $25K, flag high-risk initiatives)

Pro Tip: Use ApproveThis' calculated fields to auto-populate NorthStar card metrics like ROI projections or estimated resource hours based on approval request data.

Why This Integration Wins

Unlike generic automation tools, this pairing addresses specific pain points in growth management:

Context-Rich Approvals: Approvers see NorthStar card details (test hypotheses, historical benchmarks) directly within approval requests, enabling informed decisions.

Bi-Directional Accountability: Rejected approvals automatically update NorthStar cards with action items, creating clear audit trails for compliance purposes.

Resource Optimization: Vacation delegation in ApproveThis prevents stalled initiatives, while NorthStar's capacity planning tools adjust timelines based on approval velocity.

Getting Started

Marketers ready to eliminate approval lag can start in minutes:

1. Explore NorthStar for growth initiative management
2. Register for ApproveThis (free 14-day trial)
3. Connect via Zapier using pre-built templates

For complex implementations, request a customized demo showing how to mirror your org structure in approval workflows while maintaining NorthStar's agile experimentation framework.

The Final Word

In growth marketing, velocity and governance often pull in opposite directions. This integration lets teams have both – moving fast with guardrails. By embedding structured approvals directly into growth workflows, organizations can finally break the cycle of "hurry up and wait" that plagues modern marketing teams.

The future belongs to companies that learn faster. With ApproveThis and NorthStar working in concert through Zapier, every approval becomes a building block for institutional knowledge, not just a procedural hurdle. That's how smart teams scale growth without sacrificing control.