San Francisco, CA: a market profile for local advertisers

The market's people

Officially the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA metropolitan statistical area, it takes in San Francisco, Oakland and Fremont.

Homes are valued at a median of $1,140,700 against $332,700 nationally, 243 percent above the national figure. Households here bring in a median of $136,027, 68 percent above the national figure. For a business that sells to homeowners, that combination sets the ceiling on what a job is worth.

Work: 2,571,740 in the labor force, 5.7% unemployed (about the same as the US share). Homeownership stands at 55.5%, 10 points below the US share. Bachelor's degree or higher: 52.9% of adults, 17 points above the US share. Residents skew older than the national median: 40.3 years, 1.4 years above the national median.

San Francisco, CA versus California: income 37 percent higher than the California figure, home values 55 percent higher than the California figure, business density 10 percent denser than the California figure.

The business landscape

By the Census Bureau's count San Francisco, CA supports 133,246 employer establishments. That works out to 28.7 businesses per 1,000 residents, 15 percent above the national figure (the national rate is 25 per 1,000). Of those, 4,359 are home-services contractors (plumbing and HVAC, electrical, roofing, concrete, specialty trades and landscaping), a 3.3% share of the business base, 2 points below the US share. The busiest category listed below is restaurants (11,199 establishments).

Ratio above 1.00: the trade holds a bigger share of the local business base than it does nationally; below 1.00, a smaller one.

More common here than nationally: child day care services, dentists and real estate lessors. At the top of that list, child day care services number 2,071, 1.6 times the US share. On the other side, specialty trade contractors, automobile dealers, concrete contractors and general freight trucking are thin: fewer establishments per resident than the US pattern. Specialty trade contractors number just 296, about 43% of the US share, which is room for a well-run operator to be the obvious choice. Roofing contractors, electrical contractors and physicians' offices sit near their national proportions.

Per resident the densest are restaurants at 241.1 per 100,000 people, then legal services and dentists. In absolute numbers restaurants lead with 11,199, followed by legal services at 3,152 and dentists at 3,029. Sector view: consumer services (restaurants, salons, child care, grocery) index at about the same as the national share, the home-services trades at about 68% of.

Where the openings are

Many competitors in child day care services, dentists and real estate lessors means the auction is expensive and the map pack is crowded; the winners are the profiles with the freshest reviews and the pages that answer the search precisely. Thin categories such as specialty trade contractors, automobile dealers and concrete contractors are where the market has room. The searches still happen; there are simply fewer businesses answering them, so the first well-presented operator tends to collect the calls. A 55.5% ownership rate, under the national share, shifts part of the home-services market to landlords and management companies. Incomes 68 percent above the national figure give room for premium service tiers; ads that lead with quality and speed rather than price tend to fit. A median age 1.4 years above the national median means a larger share of customers who still start with a Google search and read reviews before calling, so the search-plus-reviews stack earns its keep.