Los Angeles is known as the top entertainment city due to Hollywood and many other elements, such as local businesses BeachMint, DogVacay, Light My Fire, Lost and Found, and so much more. LA is also filled with thousands of businesses ranging from service-based to product-focused and everything in between. No matter the business type or industry, every company should have some form of marketing focused on driving sales and retaining customers. We have seen a dramatic uptick in digital marketing spend across businesses in LA over the past year. This article explores why and shares some key insights.  

What Is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is marketing that takes place entirely online. You must have seen thousands of digital ads this week and probably did not realize this is digital marketing. In other words, businesses and organizations use websites, apps, mobile devices, search engines, social media, and other digital media to promote and sell their products. 

While digital marketing has the same principles as traditional marketing (print and broadcasting), the time it takes to execute and publish an ad and the costs are dramatically lower. Another aspect to consider is that many businesses outsource their efforts by employing a top digital marketing agency to promote their brand or product. Evaluating your strategies to understand when you should find a digital marketing agency is crucial.  

Popular Digital Marketing Tools in LA

Digital marketing is an ever-evolving world, and this truth is amplified so much more in Los Angeles. Here are some key trends shaping business in this city. 

An Emphasis on Local SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process that optimizes a website’s technical setup, content relevance, and link popularity so a website can be found more easily. In LA, multiple local businesses are found in diverse neighborhoods, which has seen an incredible uptick in local SEO dominance. As mobile searches increase, businesses prioritize local SEO to ensure they are the top results for potential customers. 

Content and Video, The Royal Choices

The saying “content is king” reigns supreme — but if content is king, then video is the royal carriage. Businesses that operate in Los Angeles have embraced video content. As a result, video marketing has become a crucial tool for companies to leverage platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. For example, LA-based makeup company, Milani Cosmetics has embraced both tools and frequently shares makeup tutorials based on their products. 

Another cosmetics brand, Elf, follows a similar approach, however, their videos are more conversational and display a peer-to-peer-type interaction rather than instructional (they do share makeup tutorials too). Since 2021, the average human attention span has reduced to a shocking 8.5 seconds, so it makes complete sense to use video tools in your digital marketing efforts. 

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has become a trendy avenue to follow and has shown positive results for businesses across LA. An example is Last Crumb, an exclusive LA-based company that has used influencer marketing for its benefit. The luxury cookie brand requires customers to get onto a waiting list to buy their cookies. With a recent campaign, the company followed an influencer product seeding approach and sent TikTok food influencers the product for free. The influencers then provided an honest review of the cookies. As a result, Last Crumb became a primary “TikTok made me buy it” cookie company.

This city also makes this form of marketing much easier due to its location and the fact that there are hundreds — if not thousands — of influencers to choose from. The ranked influencers include model and blogger Marina Laswick, fitness content creator Marta Mielczarska, lifestyle-focused Nicole Isaacs, and so many more. While it comes at a higher price than other tools, LA companies collaborate with influencers to promote their brands and products. This allows them to tap into audiences not penetrated before.

What Do Trends Say About Digital Marketing Spend?

Trends change over time for several reasons, including the needs and wants of consumers. Thus, digital marketing trends follow a similar route. The LA tourism industry has defined clear goals and is optimizing a specific digital tool. 

Its campaign, Now Playing, is a video ad promoting visitors to the city. The idea of the campaign is to have more tourists visit the city compared to pre-pandemic levels. Los Angeles Tourism has not shared the exact amount of digital ad spend. However, they revealed that this campaign required LA Tourism’s largest ad campaign spend ever. 

Another critical insight to unpack is how the growth of US retail digital ad spend will outperform the overall growth of all industries’ ad spending combined in 2024. This is an exciting development since the projection of ad spending between 2019–2025 indicated that by 2021, retail digital ad spend would have grown quite considerably and, just three years later, in 2024, outperform everyone. 

The US digital retail ad spend will grow to 14,2% this year alone, translating into $84 billion. It is important to note that search ads remain the driving force of retail advertising and have proved effective repeatedly. For this reason, companies across the US, including Los Angeles-based businesses, have increased their ad spend. However, it is not only the retail and tourism industries that are opting to increase their ad spend.

Towards the end of 2023, buzzwords like ‘recession’ still largely dictated how global companies managed their ad spend, even more so in LA. Despite a possible recession on the cards, businesses spent money on ads. However, in 2023, there was a robust increase of 5% across the entire industry. By the start of 2024, digital marketing spending — specifically on digital ads — increased exponentially. This major increase was primarily due to the US elections set for later this year. 

As political parties and organizations increase their digital spending, especially on ads, so do businesses. A lot of this growth is driven by investment in digital platforms. In LA, this is quite clear. More and more companies are investing in digital marketing tools and increasing their spending because they can evaluate, change their strategy, and implement new campaigns at nearly any point in the campaign because they have vital data about their consumers.  

Spend More, Gain More

Los Angeles is hardly a city that needs to market itself because it is easily recognized and well-known as the world’s entertainment capital. Trends show that this city’s businesses use local SEO, content, video, and influencers for marketing campaigns. The increase in digital marketing spending can be attributed to multiple avenues; however, it is clear businesses are focused on increasing their customer base and thus have chosen to increase their digital marketing spend.

Published by: Khy Talara