Stephen Kommer is known worldwide as a highly-skilled ad wizard. He’s a marketer that helps to scale brands from six to seven, and even seven to eight figures in as little as 90 days using his advanced state of the art, proprietary marketing system he calls, “The Digital Ads Matrix.” He and his team have generated over $10M+ in revenue for a few businesses, and almost $70M across his current client network using his system.
On top of this, he’s coached over 1200 aspiring marketers in a group setting and more than 50 via one-on-one mentorships. He’s very caring and helpful when it comes to his students, always willing to help fellow marketers in the space grow and become more knowledgeable. He wants to make a good name for himself in the social media marketing space, without the sort of stigma it often has from people offering services that they don’t know how to render.
He aims to maintain his consistent desire to be “value first.” The approach he takes puts forth more value to others than he gets in return, and is always given to others, his clientele, and the entrepreneurs he connects with that are looking to break into this field along the way; this goodwill has led to a positive outcome so far.
Early on, Stephen realized like most entrepreneurs, he wasn’t a fan of listening to unjustified authority, quickly realizing that a traditional 9–5 office job just wouldn’t work for him. “More people are exceedingly incompetent than you might think, and it makes life hard when having to listen to people who don’t know what they’re doing to keep their job just so that you can keep yours,” he said when discussing why a traditional job wouldn’t be in his best interest. In his perspective, being a slave to the system just wasn’t for him. He had to play by his own rules and carve out his own path toward success.
Shortly after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, Stephen created the company Ascension Digital, and considers it to be the pinnacle of his entrepreneurial endeavors. Ascension has been servicing clients for the better part of a decade by helping business owners and entrepreneurs scale their businesses to new heights.
After several changes internally over the last couple of years, Ascension is now on it, full throttle, no holds barred thanks to their system and how it works, making cookie tracking a non-issue for Ascension; even following the implementation of iOS 14.5, which is and continues to be a looming threat to ill-equipped agencies, marketing freelancers, and business owners reliant on growth to scale their business.
Ascension is a fully vertically integrated agency, meaning that it’s the one-stop-shop for product, service, and eCommerce-based businesses to scale to the levels that they’ve dreamed of. Need email marketing help? Ascension does it. Need a top quality content team? Ascension does that too? SEO? Paid ads? Websites? Ascension does it all, and that’s what makes Steve and his team so versatile.
Ascension primarily services eCommerce businesses, brokerages, including insurance brokers, real estate brokers, loan officers, staffing agencies, travel agencies, etc., and local professional services including credit repair agencies, doctor’s offices of all kinds, attorneys, and accountants. Although, the list of businesses that they work with is much longer if you consider all other clients that they service. See their website for details and whether or not your business qualifies.
Building His Own Path Outside The 9–5
Stephen started Ascension Digital over 5 years ago as a parallel to what is now the white-label side of the agency, EKommerce Digital Marketing, which was started several years before Ascension. Ascension Digital is now the in-house branch, servicing clientele specific to Ascension. Stephen says, “I started EKommerce as an initial foray into self-employment and the digital services space, which over the last several years has become something larger than I ever hoped.” In the present day, Ascension is considered to be the mothership of Stephen’s digital services, EKommerce only handles clientele that Ascension finds to be under-qualified for their proprietary system, whether they be under-funded, or ill-equipped to scale quickly, or perhaps just not the right fit for their other core levels of service.
Standing Out In An Oversaturated Industry
With so many social media marketers out there doing the same thing as one another, it’s hard to stick out and sell a service effectively surpassing the competition. But Stephen has nearly 10 years of experience servicing clients through the implementation of proven systems and are verified to be marketing with partners of the top ad platforms, like Facebook & Google, meaning they have access to tools and support systems that VERY few agencies have access to.
Stephen exclaims, “I’ve also coached the students of Jordan Platten’s Affluent Academy since its launch in November of 2019, and also personally mentored over 50 of the most promising agency owners over the last few years.” Because of his willingness to help his competition, Stephen has positioned himself as not only a top level marketing agency but also as a thoughtful leader that brands and other agencies can go to for information, training, and to purchase services offered by Stephen and his team at Ascension.
Carving An Industry Name For Yourself
“Some days I feel like I’ve made it, others I feel like the bottom of the barrel. That’s just me being authentic and honest with whoever reads this,” says Stephen. “Just as in life, and marketing as a business, there are good days and bad days, exceptional days, and days where you don’t know what is going on at all, and that’s what makes it fun for me.”
People who claim that the come up is simple and without struggle are in for a rude awakening. There will be ups and downs; this is all inevitable. During the last two years, Ascension has scaled to places Stephen had only ever dreamed of just years ago. However to Stephen, the success or the money is the least fulfilling part of it. Stephen says, “What matters most to me is always putting our clients first and continually over-delivering on that promise. I’m happier that we continue to be able to help other business owners more than anything, and by doing exactly that they help me achieve my dreams too.” He believes by serving others and always giving the best possible service, he will retain more clientele and make a difference in their lives and the bottom line.
Proven, Results With The Digital Ads Matrix System
Stephen says “I’ve scaled 100+ brands over the last 8–9 years, some past the eight-figure mark by the age of 23.” Stephen attributes a large amount of success to his team and the bulletproof strategy they developed to scale insurance and real estate agencies, eCommerce businesses, and professional service providers and help them 2X their business in under a year using the The Digital Ads Matrix system, efficiently and repeat-ably. Stephen loves the fact that he gets to connect with a ton of incredible people in business and work with them regularly.
Overcoming Struggles By Staying Ahead Of The Curve
In all businesses, there are unique obstacles that sometimes make it difficult to scale and truly succeed. “The biggest challenge by far that I’ve ever faced and continue to face, is staying ahead of the game when it comes to policy changes, UI updates, and new systems put out by the platforms that we leverage so that it doesn’t negatively impact how we get to deliver our service to our current and future clients,” says Stephen. “My team and I dedicate no less than 30–60 minutes a day to improve our skills, knowledge, and insight to what we do so that we stay ahead of the curve and our competition,” he says.
Future Plans, Dreams For Ascension Digital
As the landscape of marketing quickly changes over time, it’s important to always be ahead of the curb, never settling, and maintaining a strong team. Stephen believes the fundamental reason for his success is because of his efforts towards teamwork and building out The Digital Ads Matrix system over the last 10’ish years. For the future, Stephen says, “I see my team and I doing exactly what we are now, continuing to service and provide exceptional results for some of the most desired brands and products using our proprietary system. I have peace doing what we are now, and as long as we can maintain that peace while doing what we do best for more people, I can’t see myself or my team having any issues.”
