News

Back

 

Ada Digital is a Kenilworth-based digital marketing agency providing expert advice, insight and solutions to empower businesses online. Founded by Tom Murrell in 2019, and later joined by fellow director and business partner Dani, both are former Kenilworth School students. 

Both raised and living in Kenilworth for over 30 years, the husband and wife duo now work in Kenilworth and are proud to be supporting clients from Kenilworth to nationwide with their digital marketing and online presence. 

 

 

Can you tell us about Ada Digital? 

Ada Digital is an award-winning digital marketing and web design agency, with over 25 years of combined experience in paid advertising, search engine optimisation & website design. As a trusted boutique marketing agency based in Kenilworth, we provide expert advice, insight and solutions to empower businesses online. 

We create bespoke strategies and consultancy for clients, from SEO and PPC to Conversion Rate Optimisation and User Experience. Our focus is simple, grow businesses online to outperform their competitors. 

We align with our clients objectives and combine these with our expertise, experience and knowledge to build tailored solutions. We take that strategy and build a robust digital roadmap, combining both creativity and data, and with this combination we deliver real results and data-driven solutions, as a digital partner.

Having worked in-house for large corporate businesses for many years, both agency and client-side, we understand what each client needs from a marketing agency to make their life easier.

We’re dedicated to providing exceptional customer service and client support, a commitment that shines through in our five-star reviews online. We understand the importance of building strong relationships with our clients – from the initial consultation to ongoing management, we ensure open communication, transparency, reporting and a personalised approach to meet each unique need. Our clients praise us for our responsiveness, attention to detail, and the results we deliver. Making us a trusted partner for businesses looking to thrive online.

Online advertising and enabling business growth is what we do, and we love it.

 

 

 

Can you walk us through your journey from leaving Kenilworth School to becoming Directors at Ada Digital

Tom: I left Kenilworth School in 2002, to put that into perspective Nokia phones were thriving and the first smartphones were still 5 years away - I can’t quite believe I left 22 years ago! 

My journey is not exactly textbook, but it definitely taught me a few things about focusing, being resilient and building character - and all of those elements remain with me today, from creating a startup and running my own business - Kenilworth School instilled a solid foundation of good ethics and positivity in me - I’m proud to now be giving this back to the local community. 

I left Kenilworth School with B’s and C’s (higher grades in maths, science and IT) which I was fairly happy with, logically the next step was Sixth Form. Now this did not quite go to plan - it just wasn’t for me. I have to admit I was not fully focused, I turned up but I didn’t put the required effort in - I just expected to come out with good grades. I don’t think mentally I had prepared myself for the move - I dropped out at the end of year 1 with no grades, and to be honest it was the intervention I needed to evaluate and re-focus, it was a critical crossroads, and it had took hitting the bottom from an education and career perspective to realise what I need to do, to take responsibility and put all my energy into turning this around. 

I immediately enrolled on an IT college course that was a little more aligned with what I wanted to do as a career and what I enjoyed. I anticipated there would be a rising demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) within businesses and marketing; computers were evolving and at the heart of the Internet's growth.

I knuckled down and I knew this was my opportunity to reset and achieve something - it worked, for the first time I was getting A’s in exams and coursework. At the end of year 2 my tutor said to me ‘If you do not apply to go to university, it will be a massive shame, do it.’ That completely changed my life, I hadn’t even contemplated uni, now this was an option and a pathway was created. 

I enrolled at Coventry University on a computer science degree, and I felt completely re-energised and ready to take on something I really enjoyed learning about - it was a complete turn around. I graduated with a 2:1 and a 1st for my dissertation about digital marketing; PPC Ads vs SEO strategy for businesses (which was a fairly new concept in 2008), every other student was building websites for their dissertation, I wanted to do something different and optimise a website! 

Shortly after graduating, I joined the company I had been doing work experience with full time, in their web development team (I say team, there were 2 of us, including me). My manager at that time retired due to ill health, and I had the opportunity to step up and build my own team. Over the next 10 years I built a marketing team including designers, content writers, execs and developers - the company had gone through a complete digital transformation online, becoming one of the leading independent retailers in the UK. I joined the company as a graduate/junior, uploading products to the website - I left the company as ecommerce director, on the board of directors. It was a brilliant learning experience, full of achievements, speaking at events at Google in London, becoming a Google Partner, winning website awards and I’ll be forever thankful to everyone that helped me grow along the way - after celebrating a 10 year milestone, it had led me to that burning desire to start and run my own business in 2019. 

We are now into year 5 of running Ada Digital, and as owner and digital director I’ve never looked back. I love the concept we’ve created in empowering people to build their businesses online, inspiring people and unlocking the potential to achieve business growth. 

 

How did Kenilworth School and Sixth Form prepare you for your career?

Tom: Kenilworth School gave me all the underlying attributes that I believe make up a good person, a good employee and a good leader in terms of morals, honesty, integrity and strong ethics, ultimately between my family and school education this helped shape me as a person. Kenilworth School and Sixth Form helped prepared me adulthood, introduced me to an incredible group of friends and gave me the opportunities to explore different options before eventually I found my career path - I was given all the tools and encouragement, it was then up to me to motivate myself and reach the potential that so many tutors and teachers told me I had. 

 

What is your fondest memory of Kenilworth School & Sixth Form?

Tom: I absolutely look back at my time at Kenilworth School as a happy and positive experience - the majority of friendship groups I made at Kenilworth School I am still in contact with today, we have a large group of friends, we’ve all stuck together and I think that’s rare, we all still meet up socially and keep in touch. 

Regarding fondest memories, being part of the football team every year was fantastic. Travelling to away games in the minibus singing about ‘Mr Collett’s army’, competing in competitions across Warwickshire, and being part of a team. The various talent shows ‘battle of the bands’ and castle parties were always great fun too. 

Of course the teachers make up some of the fondest memories - Mrs Rugg was my form tutor from year 7 onwards, I always remember her saying she thought I had real potential to be successful, I just need to focus and not get distracted too easily - how right that was(!). Mr Mason was my form tutor in the latter years, always so friendly, open and honest with encouraging me. 

 

What are your biggest professional achievements and challenges you have encountered so far in your career?

Tom: Biggest professional achievements in my career I would say being invited to speak on stage at numerous Google events at Google HQ in London, regarding success stories and growing a business - that was a real personal highlight. Our latest award in 2024 with Ada Digital being inducted into the Elite Business Top100 SMEs was an incredibly unexpected and proud moment, and very different from past awards, as this was for our own business. 

Becoming a Google Partner for the first time in 2013 was a big achievement - and put me on par with some of the biggest agencies in the UK. 

Winning an industry award for the best ecommerce website in 2018 plus featuring in the Internet Retailing Top500 websites in the UK was an amazing experience. 

Becoming a director for the first time at the age of 32 for an established UK brand was an incredible honour after years of hard work and some big challenges experienced with building new websites, replatforming, building a team and managing multi-million pound advertising campaigns. 

Perhaps one of my biggest challenges was leaving a role I had spent over 10 years in, to take a leap of faith to launch and run my own business - as a startup business owner you’re the CEO, CTO, CMO, accountant, head of sales, face of the business and the architect, as well as the the do-er and the dreamer - it’s certainly become easier since our team has grown, and we are putting plans in place to enable more additions in the not too distant future. 

We’ve just moved into our 5th year as Ada Digital, and the future is incredibly bright - we have just completed a record year, we are working with happy clients on fantastic projects, we’re about to move into a bigger and better office, we are looking to recruit and we’re investing in revolutional AI technology - it’s an exciting time to be part of Ada, that’s the biggest professional achievement, to build all of this from the ground up. 

 

What advice would you give to someone who is interested in starting their own business?

Develop a plan - think about how you can create something that adds benefit to others, and provides value. What is your proposition going to be? How is it going to be better than what already exists? What are your differentials? Your USPs? 

Do something you love, find your passion and be the expert in your subject, then do not stop striving for success. 

From a career perspective, if a good opportunity comes along, take it - believe in yourself. 

There are skills you can develop that are not necessarily all academic - showing willingness to learn, displaying ambition, demonstrating your drive, turning up on time, articulating your passion and developing that confidence to lead. 

Keep yourself educated within your evolving industry, keep motivated and keep pushing yourself to learn. Listen to others, be open-minded, do not be afraid to pivot and take all the advice you can from experienced professionals and entrepreneurs. 

 

 

For more information about Ada Digital please visit their website https://www.ada-digital.co.uk/