A boutique performance marketing agency built on two decades of industry expertise, personal relationships, and a commitment to quality over quantity.
Founded on a simple but powerful principle: produce only quality leads for customers under a low-risk, pay-per-action model.
While many competitors try to squeeze in low-quality lead sources to increase volume and margins, we maintain the relationships and standards to drive sufficient lead volume only through quality media partners and appropriate placements.
We only work with marketing distribution partners with whom we have a personal relationship and longstanding history. No anonymous marketing codes from questionable publishers hiding behind blind networks.
Popular Marketing operates at the intersection of deep industry knowledge and cutting-edge technology. With over 20 years of experience in online media, we've navigated every trend, overcome every pitfall, and built proprietary systems that turn data into actionable insights.
What sets us apart is our boutique approach. You won't deal with account managers or automated responses—you'll work directly with the owners and technical experts who understand your business and can make real-time decisions to optimize your campaigns.
Experienced industry veterans with complementary expertise in sales and technology.
Co-Owner & Sales Director
Thomas Bruck serves as founder and president with over 20 years of experience in the online media industry.
Thomas comes from an accounting and legal background. Thomas graduated Summa Cum Laude from U.C.L.A. with a B.A. in Business/Economics followed by two years as a CPA doing audit and tax work for Deloitte & Touche, LLP. He then obtained his J.D. at Stanford Law School, passed the bar exam and became a corporate & securities attorney at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP in Los Angeles.
In 2000, Thomas founded SportSkill, an online fantasy sports company which engaged in a joint venture to run fantasy sports games on behalf of FoxSports.com. He and his partner sold SportSkill to Vendare Media in March 2001.
In February, 2003, Thomas launched eMarketMakers, an online affiliate ad network as a subsidiary of Vendare Media. Under Thomas' management, eMarketMakers grew to over $4.5mm in monthly revenue within 15 months. In January 2005, Thomas took over as Vice President of Sales for Vendare Media, focusing on strategic sales in the financial services lead generation industry.
In May 2006, Thomas joined Find Your Customers, Inc. ("FYC") as a principal owner. Thomas focused primarily on the marketing of FYC's internal lead generation web sites in the sub-prime finance market segment. At FYC, Thomas and his partners also started a new business line for FYC and developed FYC's own banking product with the AchieveCard prepaid Mastercard, which now has over 40,000 active cardholders. Late in 2008, FYC merged with WebYes, and Thomas took on additional responsibility by managing various divisions and projects including data management relationships, email publishing, development of insurance products, home appliance warranties, extended auto protection plans and education lead programs.
Co-Owner & Technology Director
As CTO of Popular Marketing, John architects the technology infrastructure that powers millions of dollars in campaign performance. A technologist since childhood—writing his first game at age 8 and launching a consulting firm at 16—John brings three decades of software engineering expertise to performance marketing.
After earning degrees in Business Administration from California Maritime Academy and Computer Information Systems from DeVry, John was recruited to lead development for Insync.Media's digital asset management division. There, he engineered enterprise-scale systems for DirecTV, Warner Bros, Herbalife, Lexus, and California Suncare—building platforms that managed millions of assets and served Fortune 500 workflows.
John's career trajectory took him through Silicon Valley's venture capital ecosystem, where he built development teams at Broadchoice in San Mateo, creating sophisticated web applications for Accel KKR and other institutional investors. In 2001, ad2 recruited him to establish their Santa Monica engineering office, where he led technical operations until 2009.
Recognizing the opportunity to merge cutting-edge technology with performance marketing expertise, John co-founded Calisto Labs in 2009 to incubate marketing technology products. In 2012, he partnered with Thomas Bruck to launch ReachX, which Popular Marketing acquired in 2013. Today, John's proprietary platforms drive real-time optimization, fraud detection, and attribution modeling that give Popular Marketing a decisive competitive advantage.
The principles that guide every decision we make.
Complete visibility into where your traffic comes from and how campaigns perform. No hidden sources or black-box optimization.
We prioritize lead quality over volume. Every partner is vetted, every source is known, every result is measured.
We build long-term relationships, not transactional arrangements. Your success is our success.
Continuous improvement through technology, data analysis, and industry insights accumulated over two decades.
Whether you're an advertiser looking for quality leads or a publisher seeking exclusive offers, we'd love to hear from you.