I Didn't Set Out to Become a Marketer. I Set Out to Build Something Better.

From building computers at 8 years old to teaching marketing on stages in Los Angeles, and eventually bringing that knowledge home to Colorado.

My name is Tom Gary, and I'm the founder of AdHalla.

Today, I help businesses use SEO, advertising, websites, and emerging search technologies to get more customers. But I didn't start out in marketing. In fact, my career was going in a completely different direction.

I was working for a bank in Phoenix, Arizona when the company went through massive layoffs. Suddenly, I was forced to figure out what I wanted to do next. I had never really loved the banking world, and I knew my strengths were somewhere else.

I'd always been fascinated by computers, the internet, and technology. My uncle had taught me how to build computers when I was just 8 years old, so working with technology had been part of my life for as long as I could remember.

I called my uncle, who was living in San Diego at the time, and asked what he was doing. He told me he was learning marketing from a mentor. I already knew how to build websites; he knew marketing, so we decided to partner up. I would build the websites while he taught me everything he was learning about marketing.

Learning Marketing From the Inside

There was one problem: his mentor's program cost $50,000.

I wasn't a mentee, and I wasn't paying the $50,000 fee. But I wanted to learn.

So I started going with my uncle to the mentorship meetings in Huntington Beach. For the first few weeks, I sat quietly in the back, listened, and tried not to draw attention to myself. Eventually, I started asking questions, and the mentor took a liking to me.

He began teaching me the fundamentals of Facebook advertising, which gave me the foundation I needed. From there, I did what I've always done when something interests me:

I went deep.

I researched. I tested. I studied what was working and started applying what I learned.

Before long, my uncle, our mentor, and I were working with clients on Facebook advertising while continuing to build and rank websites through SEO.

From Learning Marketing to Teaching It

What started as me simply trying to learn a new career eventually became a successful marketing operation.

We began hosting marketing events throughout Los Angeles, and eventually I went from sitting quietly in the back of a room trying to learn marketing to standing on stages teaching other people how marketing worked.

I was teaching Facebook advertising and the strategies we were using to grow businesses.

That experience fundamentally changed the way I looked at marketing.

I learned that successful marketing isn't about following a checklist. It's about understanding the market, the customer, the competition, and constantly figuring out what is changing before everyone else catches up.

Then I Found My Way Back to Colorado

Eventually, I was researching a potential SEO client (a vape shop) and kept running across keywords involving Colorado and Colorado Springs.

Colorado Springs was my hometown.

That got my attention.

I started researching the Colorado marketing industry and was surprised by what I found. The strategies we had been using in California were far more advanced than what many businesses in Colorado were using.

I saw an opportunity.

More importantly, I saw businesses in my own home state that were capable of growing but weren't getting the marketing expertise they needed to compete.

So I made the decision to move back to Colorado and bring everything I had learned in California home with me.

That became the beginning of AdHalla.

Why AdHalla Exists

I didn't create AdHalla because I wanted to build another marketing agency.

I created it because I believe most businesses are capable of getting significantly better results from their marketing than they're currently getting.

The problem is that most business owners don't have the time, or the desire to figure out how Google works, how advertising algorithms work, how websites convert, how competitors are generating leads, or what is changing in digital marketing.

That's where we come in.

We research. We analyze. We test. We find opportunities. And then we build strategies around what we discover.

That's why one of the core principles behind AdHalla is simple:

Don't Guess. Research.

Before we recommend a marketing strategy, we want to understand the market, the competitors, the keywords, the customers, and the opportunities they're missing.

Because the goal isn't simply to make your marketing look good.

The goal is to make it work better than your competition's.

From Phoenix to San Diego to Los Angeles to Colorado

My career in marketing started because I lost a job I didn't particularly want in the first place.

It grew because I was willing to learn from people who knew more than I did.

It accelerated because I became obsessed with understanding how marketing actually worked.

And it ultimately brought me back home.

Today, through AdHalla, my goal is simple:

Help great businesses get the attention they deserve.

Whether that's through SEO, paid advertising, a better website, or the next generation of AI-powered search, we're going to continue learning, adapting, and finding better ways to help our clients compete.

Because the internet is always changing.

Your marketing should too.

I'm Tom Gary.

Founder of AdHalla.

Marketer. Strategist. Researcher.

And I'm still learning what's next.

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