Climate First Bank recently had the opportunity to talk one of our newest valued business customers. Zach Greenberger is the Founder, CEO & CTO of adMixt. In the interview below, Zach shares how this mission-aligned ecommerce marketing agency navigates the “ethical minefield” of brand marketing and how staying true to its mission and values has led them to long-term company growth and success!

CF: Tell us about adMixt. How did you get started? What does your company do?

Zach: adMixt manages ecommerce marketing for some of the best brands in the world.

I started my career as an ecommerce developer, helping merchants build and optimize their storefronts. But in 2010 I got fired from a job I should never have taken in the first place. It’s one thing to fail at something you believe in, but it hurts in a special way when you don’t even respect yourself for trying.

So I was kind of aimless. I tried to launch a non-profit to raise money for charities through a network of religious organizations. Coming from ecommerce, I thought ads promoting this project would be easy. But I was horrible at it! I ended up writing an algorithm to optimize the ads for me, and it worked better than I expected.

Around the same time, I was messing around building Facebook Apps, and this silly thing I made (it helped users customize their profile page) went viral. Over the next year I got 22 million installs, and decided to go all in on Facebook advertising.

Twelve years later and we’ve managed hundreds of millions in ecommerce ads, helping some of the most sustainable brands reach new customers. We’ve worked with The Honest Company, MeUndies, FIGS, and Glossier, among many others.

CF: Congratulations to adMixt and celebrating ten years in business! What do you think has been key to the company’s longevity and success?

Zach: Thank you! It’s been a journey. Ironically, what started as an early failure has turned into a saving grace. I was spending a lot of time at startup events, socializing with other founders. It’s part of that culture to go around meeting with investors and pitching. They were not interested in my non-profit, but when I started talking about ad optimization, I felt very popular. But after months of meetings, the investment offers I was getting seemed like bad deals. We were already profitable, and investors kept introducing me to advertisers I wasn’t interested in working with.

Staying independently owned has given us the freedom to invest our time and resources inline with our values. The freedom to grow at our own pace, or even to resist growing if that’s what we want.

I think this freedom also appeals to the type of people I want to work with. There were times in the past when I had close connections, and deep respect, for a few coworkers. But often those people seemed like islands in the storm. The team I get to work with at adMixt is a dream.

CF: With the ever-evolving landscape of eCommerce and social media, how do you and the team at adMixt stay on top of the latest trends and technology?

Zach: Trends are a double-edged sword. Some of our largest missteps have been big bets on shiny new things. Yet being agile, and ready to jump on new opportunities was key to our early success.

We talk about this a lot, internally. How do we stay responsive, while also investing in process and standardization? I think this balance is key for all organizations, each drawing their own line.

I like to set my sights on where I want to be next week, while keeping an eye on three months from now. Any further in the future and global volatility seems to laugh at my plans. This short-sighted thinking has likely held back our growth, but it’s also ensured we’re right-sized for the moment.

CF: How does the company approach corporate social responsibility?

Zach: Social responsibility has been near-effortless once we reached a level of success where it was obvious we could afford to live by our values. What I struggle with is the paradox that only a large surplus tempers the anxiety we all feel over scarcity.

Time and again when I see people, and corporations, failing to meet their responsibilities, there’s an obvious trail pointing to an insecurity or anxiety over scarcity.

And yet it’s this anxious behavior (growth at any cost, for example) feeding the social problems we’re now struggling against. The end result is a vicious cycle trapped inside a catch-22!

While we try to offset this damage as much as one small company can, much of our activism is to raise awareness on how far we are from where we need to be. It’s a regulatory failure that many companies can offset their costs through unethical practices. We see many advertisers making their margin by exploiting one resource or another. If they were forced to pay the true cost to run their business, it would not only be more sustainable, but they’d then compete on a level playing field with companies already living by their values.

CF: How do the values and mission of the company factor into who the company chooses to work with?

Zach: While it’s difficult to participate in any industry without tip-toeing through ethical minefields, we find solace that the many ecommerce leaders have been on a path towards sustainability over the past ten years. In 2014 when we started working with The Honest Company, our eyes were opened to the amazing growth an ethical brand can find when they offer a high quality product and connect authentically with their audience. They became the model for our ideal client, and we’ve been lucky to work with many other ethical brands.

And while no corporation is perfect, clients needing to work on their operations are an opportunity for our values to spread. Likewise we hope our competitors realize the best companies in the world want to work with value-driven service providers. If they’re not keeping up, they’re falling behind.

Withholding our services from unethical companies is a real win-win scenario. We avoid the guilt, while also avoiding contact with the unethical people we’d have to work with. If more service providers made those choices, the marketplace would be a lot more favorable to ethical companies.

Rapid Fire Questions
CF: Favorite food?
Zach: Shrimp and grits
CF: Guilty pleasure?
Zach: TikTok
CF: Dream vacation?
Zach: Off-grid glamping

You can learn more about adMixt by visiting their website, twitter, instagram, and linkedin.

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