Ace Metrics

Peter Dubbal came out of a 10-year career in digital media—including stints as CEO of BunchBall, Chief of Insights at Yahoo, and President/CEO of comScore—with a unique observation: the advertising industry was obsessed with measuring everything *except* what mattered most: the creative itself. "They measured everything else," he recalls. "They measured how much we bought, how many eyeballs we hit... but they didn't measure the what." Everyone intuitively knew a great ad when they saw it, but the industry had no systematic way to test creative quality at scale. In 2010, the TV advertising market hadn't fundamentally changed in over a decade—ads were still bought and sold the same way. Peter saw the opportunity.

Ace Metrics launched with a radical philosophy: test *every* ad in the United States, not just occasional client work. The company built automated technology to grab video ads from TV and digital channels, test them with 500+ geographically balanced participants per ad, measure attention, likability, information retention, brand recall, and emotional drivers, and deliver results in 24 hours—compared to the 4-6 weeks traditional agencies required. They built a syndicated database model (inherited from Peter's comScore days) where data is collected once and sold many times, delivering unit economics that are "unheard of" for research companies. Within two years of launching on TV, they expanded into digital video, eventually covering "anything that moves—from six second ads right on up to five minute long form."

Initially, Ace Metrics tried traditional marketing avenues—Facebook ads, Google ads, trade publications like Ad Age. None of it stuck. The breakthrough came when Peter and the team realized their real competitive advantage wasn't just the data; it was their insights. They pivoted to highly personalized outreach: they'd analyze ads already in their database (which grew to become "the largest ad database in the world"), spot a campaign by a non-client advertiser, and email the CMO directly with unsolicited insights and recommendations. "Here's an ad that broke last night on The Voice. We thought you'd be interested to know how this stacked up against everything else in your category." As Peter puts it, "If you're a CMO somewhere, are you gonna open that email? Of course you are." The personalized, value-first approach became their dominant acquisition channel.

The team learned that TV research buyers expected relationships, not just tools. Rather than trying to land massive annual contracts upfront, they started with $10K pilots focused on pre-testing: "Here are ten ads you're building for your next campaign. Let's test them before you blow your media budget." That pilot converted into ongoing subscription revenue and relationship deepening. They raised $20M in venture capital and scaled to 95-100 top advertisers (massive brands spending millions on creative annually). The company achieved over 80% gross margins by deliberately investing in a service layer—client success teams who would explain and apply insights rather than just handing clients a tool. Churn stabilized around 10% annually (90% retention), well above industry norms. Critically, they discovered that traditional ad-tech incumbents like Nielsen were stuck in recall-based measurement and outdated processes. Ace Metrics' automation, speed, and focus on creative quality (not just media delivery metrics) left competitors behind.

By late 2017 (when this interview was recorded), Ace Metrics had reached approximately $1M in monthly recurring revenue—$12M annualized—growing at 20-30% year-over-year, with a team of only 45 people (overweight on engineering to stay ahead technologically). They had reached profitability, giving them freedom to invest and innovate without constant capital pressure. Their customer acquisition payback period was roughly 12 months—one annual contract covers the cost of acquisition. They'd published research analyzing what made ads win industry awards (like Cannes Lions) by comparing emotional drivers in winners versus the broader database. Peter's vision—that great creative deserves rigorous, fast measurement—had become a billion-dollar-plus market opportunity as brands increasingly produced hundreds of pieces of creative monthly but had no way to predict what would resonate before spending millions on media.