Santa Monica Travel & Tourism loses CMO (Score 50)

Santa Monica Travel & Tourism (SMTT) lost its long-time CMO Kim Sidoriak in September 2021. Sidoriak jumped ship for Visit Carslbad, where she is now serving as president & CEO. SMTT may not be replacing Sioriak with a new CMO, as it promoted Mandy Eck to senior marketing manager right after she departed. We will be sure to update you if we uncover any additional information, but it seems Eck is the top marketer for the time being. 

According to Pathmatics, SMTT earned 22.7m impressions YTD through Instagram ads (73%), desktop display ads (24%) and mobile display ads (3%). It placed the majority (85%) of these ads site direct onto sites such as instagram.com, tripadvisor.com and afar.com. It placed the remainder (15%) indirectly through Display & Video 360 and Google AdX+AdSense onto sites such as foxnews.com, upi.com, afar.com, tripadvisor.com and 12tomatoes.com. It spent around $167.4k on digital display ads YTD, an 8% increase from $154.3k spent in this channel during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend jumped from $54.9k in 2019 to $167.6k in 2020. 

Sellers-- SMTT targets tourists through digital display ads. I believe it is mainly targeting Gen-Zers and millennials, considering it placed the majority of these ads directly onto Instagram, which is very popular among these age groups. It started increasing spend last year, and has continued throughout 2021. Sellers should reach out to offer relevant ad space. 

Agency & martech readers-- It seems SMTT is not working with any agencies at this time. I advise readers to reach ot to the new senior marketing manager to see if she has responsibility over the agency roster. You may have the best luck offering PR or communication services. Those of you with tourism experience may have an advantage.