How Adam Built and Grew Metric Theory: Marketing Insights 101

Hey everyone, welcome to our AMA session with Adam Edwards, an inspiring entrepreneur who built his business from the ground up! Adam has navigated challenges in scaling his company, mastering operations, and managing finances.

Adam spoke to Apoorva Govind, founder of the #1 AI ad assistant, Bestever, about:

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  Overcoming early-stage business struggles

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  Financial management for small businesses

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  Scaling production and sales operations

Let's catch up with them!

Apoorva: Hey Adam, I’d love for you to introduce yourself for our viewers who might not know you yet.

Adam: Thanks for having me! I’m Adam, originally from Hawaii. I studied international politics in college but found my way into tech sales and even worked on the '08 presidential campaign before landing in digital advertising. In 2012, I co-founded a performance marketing agency called Metric Theory. We started off very scrappy—bootstrapped out of my co-founder’s apartment in San Francisco. We grew from there, focusing heavily on paid search advertising, and added services like paid social, programmatic, and performance creative services over the years.

Apoorva: That’s impressive! Metric Theory became a big name. Tell us a little about those early years. What was the secret sauce?

Adam: Honestly, the key was our people. We had a very strong team—sales DNA, digital marketing expertise—and a real commitment to hiring and developing top talent. In a service business like ours, your product is your people, so we leaned into that heavily. Also, performance marketing is a field where if you're good, you can show it quickly. Our ability to demonstrate value helped us grow steadily.

Apoorva: That’s a great takeaway—talent is everything in services. Fast forward to 2020, COVID hit. What was that like for you?

Adam: That was a real gut check. For the first four to six weeks, we thought our business might not make it. We had clients going out of business, ad spend was being paused everywhere. But after that initial scare, things turned around, especially for our B2B SaaS and D2C e-commerce clients. COVID ended up being a tailwind for many, and we got back on track. That led to us exploring an acquisition, which we closed on New Year's Eve 2020 with S/4 Capital, Sir Martin Sorrell’s group. We became the North American performance marketing arm for MediaMonks, and I led that unit until this April.

Apoorva: That must have been a whirlwind. Now, as a founder myself, I know the challenges of building something from scratch. What was the hardest part for you during this journey?

Adam: The challenges never stop—they just change. In the early days, landing that first client is huge. When they ask, "Who else do you work with?" and you’re like, "Hopefully you soon!"—that's tough. Opening a second office in Denver early on was another challenge—keeping culture intact across locations was tricky. And then, of course, COVID was the scariest part, as I mentioned.

Apoorva: It sounds like resilience has been a major theme throughout. Speaking of challenges, AI is the big conversation right now. What are your thoughts? Is it a threat or an opportunity?

Adam: AI is definitely making things more efficient, but I see it as more of an opportunity than a threat. It's not about replacing people—it's about enhancing what they can do. For example, AI can take over repetitive tasks, freeing up marketers to focus on strategy and creative work, where human insight is still critical.

Apoorva: That’s a great perspective. Well, thank you so much, Adam, for sharing your journey and insights with us. I’m sure our viewers got a lot out of it!

Adam: Thanks for having me!