About

The Team Behind Intown Ads.

Two entrepreneurs who have spent their careers helping local businesses grow — and who built Intown Ads to do it better than anyone else in Atlanta.

Mike Villela, founder of Intown Ads

Mike Villela

Founder, Intown Ads

Mike has spent over 20 years in local advertising. He's sold TV, radio, and print. He's watched audiences shift — from broadcast to cable, from cable to streaming, from search to AI chat. And he's helped local businesses follow that shift every step of the way.

The businesses that stay visible are the ones that plant their flag where the audience is going — not where it's been. That's always been the job. The platforms change. The principle doesn't.

Mike started Intown Ads to apply two decades of local advertising craft to where local audiences are growing today — social media, Connected TV, and AI-powered discovery. The same strategic thinking that worked in broadcast works here. With better targeting, better data, and authentically local creators who can produce content that actually connects.

The Street-to-Screen method is how he put it together: create real content with local creators, test it cheaply on social, then scale winners to streaming TV. It's what he wished he could have offered clients 15 years ago.

AI & Machine Learning
Digital Advertising Strategy
Streaming TV (CTV/OTT)
Creator-Driven Video
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Kris Johnson, Co-Owner of Intown Ads

Kris Johnson

Kris has spent over 20 years obsessing over one question: how do businesses get found? He's watched the answer change from Yellow Pages to Google, from organic search to paid ads, and now from keyword rankings to AI-powered discovery — and he's been ahead of each shift.

A Google Guaranteed Manager with 5+ years of hands-on experience and SEM certification, Kris brings a technical depth to search and visibility that most agencies never develop. He doesn't just run campaigns — he understands the architecture of how businesses earn attention online, and he builds strategies around it.

But beyond the credentials, Kris is an entrepreneur and a family man who genuinely cares about small businesses. He's built companies himself — in transportation, storage, and real estate — so he knows what it feels like to have a business that needs to grow. That's not a talking point. It's what drives the work.

At Intown Ads, Kris leads the digital visibility side of the business — Google, AI search, local SEO, and the data layer that ties it all together.

Website Developer
20+ years
Google Guaranteed
Manager, 5 years
SEM Certified
Search marketing
Serial Entrepreneur
Limo · Storage · Real Estate
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How It All Started

The People Behind Intown Ads

We met on our first day out of school, back in 2005, at a company called Yellowbook. Two new hires handed the same job: help local businesses get found. Back then, "getting found" still meant a listing in the phone book — but the ground was already shifting. Google had just opened the door to a brand-new way for customers to discover the businesses near them, and the two of us couldn't stay away from it. We took on the earliest version of pay-per-click advertising on Google, and before long we were leading every digital initiative the office had.

That was the spark. Twenty-plus years later, it still hasn't gone out.

Across our entire careers, we've never worked anywhere but this corner of the world — the place where a local business and its next customer find each other. We've watched it evolve through every chapter: print to search, search to social, and now to streaming TV and creator-driven video. Every time the technology changed, we changed with it. The tools kept moving; our obsession with how local businesses get noticed never did.

Somewhere along the way, two coworkers became something closer to family. Kris stood as Mike's best man. Mike is godfather to Kris's kids. We've celebrated the milestones, weathered the hard seasons, and built businesses side by side — because at heart we're both entrepreneurs who can't help but build.

That's also why we do this. We believe local businesses are the backbone of a community. They're the ones who sponsor the little league team, hire the neighbor's kid for their first job, and show up when it matters. When a local business thrives, the whole community feels it. Helping those owners get found, get chosen, and grow isn't just our profession — it's the thing we've cared about since day one.

Intown Ads is the agency we always wished existed: built in Atlanta, for the businesses that make Atlanta what it is, by two people who've spent their whole lives learning exactly how to get them seen.

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The Philosophy

"Follow your customers."

Audiences always move. The businesses that succeed are the ones that move with them — not the ones that stay loyal to the last platform. That's been true for 20 years. It's still true today.