Is Santa Monica retail struggling?

Vacancy has been difficult. Retail vacancy reached 16%, described as the highest in decades, and office vacancy sits near 35%. Sales tax revenue fell 6% and transient occupancy tax fell 10% in fiscal 2024-25.

Should a Santa Monica tech company hire a full-service agency?

Usually not. Companies with in-house marketing teams get more from buying one specialist capability done exceptionally well than from a broad retainer that duplicates work the internal team already covers.

Does Tack Media have a Santa Monica office?

No. TACK is headquartered on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks with production studios in Northridge, about thirty minutes over the hill. We serve Santa Monica clients from there rather than claiming a local address.

How to Find a Digital Marketing Agency in Santa Monica - Tack Media | AI Digital Marketing Agency in Los Angeles

Q: How much is Santa Monica's business licence tax?

The city charges $75 on the first $60,000 of gross receipts, then $3.00 per $1,000 for professional services and contractors, $5.00 per $1,000 for professions, $1.15 per $1,000 for retailers under $5 million, and $2.00 to $2.50 per $1,000 of operating cost for corporate headquarters.

Q: How big is Santa Monica's visitor economy?

Santa Monica drew 3,893,700 visitors in 2025 who spent $996.6 million, supporting 6,444 jobs and generating $60.2 million in city tax revenue. Day visitors were 87.7% of the total; overnight guests were 12.3%.

Short answerSanta Monica holds two customers: venture-backed tech and DTC brands selling nationally, and local retail and hospitality living off 3.9 million annual visitors. The city taxes gross receipts, unlike Pasadena and Glendale. Pick an agency that names which market you sell to and builds separate reporting for each.

The short answer

The short answer Santa Monica holds two customers: venture-backed tech and DTC brands selling nationally, and local retail and hospitality living off 3.9 million annual visitors. The city taxes gross receipts, unlike Pasadena and Glendale. Pick an agency that names which market you sell to and builds separate reporting for each. What actually drives the number Five Santa.

The short answer

Santa Monica holds two customers: venture-backed tech and DTC brands selling nationally, and local retail and hospitality living off 3.9 million annual visitors. The city taxes gross receipts, unlike Pasadena and Glendale. Pick an agency that names which market you sell to and builds separate reporting for each.

What actually drives the number

Five Santa Monica facts set what a marketing engagement here needs to cost and what it needs to do.

Two economies, one ZIP code. The tech cluster is real: Snap, Hulu, GoodRx, Headspace, ZipRecruiter, Cornerstone OnDemand, FIGS, GumGum and Naughty Dog all sit in or around the city (Built In Los Angeles). Those companies sell nationally, often have in-house marketing, and buy specialist capability rather than general help. Underneath them sits a visitor-facing economy: 3,893,700 visitors in 2025 spending $996.6 million, supporting 6,444 jobs and generating $60.2 million in city tax revenue (Santa Monica Travel & Tourism). The same agency plan cannot serve both.

The city taxes revenue, and the rate depends on what you are. Santa Monica’s business licence tax charges $75 on the first $60,000 of gross receipts, then $3.00 per $1,000 for professional services and contractors, $5.00 per $1,000 for professions, $1.15 per $1,000 for retailers under $5 million a year, and $2.00 to $2.50 per $1,000 of cost of operations for corporate headquarters (Santa Monica Municipal Code Ch. 6.12). On $4 million of professional revenue that is roughly $19,800 a year off the top. It belongs in your customer acquisition cost model, and almost never appears in an agency’s proposal.

Commercial vacancy is high and it is changing who your neighbours are. Office vacancy sits near 35%, among the highest in Los Angeles County when sublet and abandoned space is counted, and retail vacancy reached 16%, described as the highest in decades. Sales tax revenue fell 6% and transient occupancy tax fell 10% in fiscal 2024-25, and the city approved a $60 million reinvestment plan plus a $3 million economic development fund in March 2026 (Los Angeles Business Journal). If your business depends on foot traffic on Third Street Promenade or Main Street, that is your operating reality, not a headline.

Visitor mix has shifted toward fewer, higher-spending guests. Total visitor volume fell 7.8% against 2024, yet spending rose 9% to $996.6 million. Day visitors were 87.7% of the total at 3,415,782 people, overnight guests 12.3% at 478,059. Lodging tax fell 13% while visitor retail sales tax grew 36% (Santa Monica Travel & Tourism). Fewer people, spending more each. That argues for higher average order value merchandising, not for chasing volume.

The resident is not a mass-market buyer. Census figures put Santa Monica at 90,082 residents, median household income of $114,885 in 2024 dollars, and 70.7% of adults 25 and over holding a bachelor’s degree or higher. Retail sales were $4.91 billion in 2022, or $54,475 per capita, with accommodation and food services adding $1.43 billion (U.S. Census QuickFacts). Retail sales per capita roughly double the resident base’s own spending capacity, which tells you how much of the till is visitor money.

How to tell which applies to you

One question sorts it. Does your revenue arrive from someone standing in Santa Monica, or from someone anywhere in the country who happens to buy from a company based here?

Signal	National seller (tech, DTC)	Local seller (retail, hospitality, services)
Primary channel	Paid social, paid search, lifecycle, creative volume	Business Profile, reviews, local search, offer design
What you buy from an agency	Specialist capability the in-house team lacks	The whole function
Key seasonal driver	Product and funding cycles	Visitor volume and spend per visit
Overlooked cost	City tax on gross receipts	Rent and retail vacancy on your block

If you are the national seller, buy depth, not breadth. If you are the local seller, note that in the 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, 68% require at least four stars, consumers consult an average of six review platforms, and 45% now use ChatGPT or similar tools for local recommendations, making AI the third most popular source after Google and Facebook (BrightLocal). In a market where most spending comes from visitors who have never been to your block, reviews are the whole first impression.

What we’d do

TACK™ is headquartered on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks with production studios in Northridge. We have no Santa Monica office and will not pretend otherwise. We are over the hill, about thirty minutes on a good day. Since 2009 we have run more than 2,500 campaigns for 300-plus brands across 15-plus industries, we are a Google, Meta, Shopify and TikTok Partner, and client satisfaction sits at 97%. Engagements start at $5,000 a month.

For a national seller based here we build the paid and creative engine: offer testing, creative volume, landing page conversion work and clean measurement across Google and Meta, which is Get Leads. As a Shopify Partner we work on the storefront itself rather than only on the ads pointing at it. For a local seller we start with Business Profile discipline, review velocity, visitor-intent content and offer design aimed at higher spend per visit rather than more visits, and we pair it with Get Found so the business shows up in AI answers as well as in the map pack. We are AI integrators rather than trainers, so where booking, intake or reporting is consuming staff hours we build it into your operation. The full list is on our capabilities page.

Common mistakes

Leaving the city business tax out of your acquisition maths. At $3 to $5 per $1,000 of gross receipts, a professional firm can lose five figures a year that never appears in the marketing model. Cost: an allowable cost per acquisition set several percent too high.

Chasing visitor volume when volume is falling and spend is rising. Visits fell 7.8% while spending rose 9%. Cost: budget aimed at footfall that is structurally declining, instead of at basket size that is structurally growing.

Hiring a generalist agency to support an in-house team. Tech and DTC companies here usually need one thing done exceptionally, not ten things done adequately. Cost: a retainer that duplicates work your own team already does.

The bottom line

Santa Monica rewards agencies that can tell a nationally-selling tech or DTC brand apart from a visitor-dependent local business, and price and report accordingly. Put the city’s gross receipts tax in your acquisition model, and follow spend per visitor rather than visitor counts.

We are over the hill and will give you a straight answer on fit. Book at calendly.com/tack-media-agency/talk-to-an-expert or call 310-620-1141. One call. Twenty minutes. Pricing on the call.