Advertising a cannabis company in Canada or the USA is a touchy subject. Most large scale advertiser networks have been public with their anti-cannabis publishing terms, removing the grey area and limiting brands associated with cannabis in their entirety. Two advertiser networks that have limited cannabis include Google and Facebook, unfortunately these ad networks extend further than these two websites as YouTube, Instagram and all associated brands prevent cannabis brands from any sort of promoted posts what so ever.
For those new to ad networks here’s a quick breakdown as to what we’re talking about:
An ad network connect publishers and advertisers in order for brands and organizations to reach a concentration of people that would be the perfect audience for whatever message it may be.
Publishers being websites (blogs, news etc), social media accounts and creators that publish content in the form of articles, videos and posts. Post a simple script on your site for the ability to earn money and monetize the traffic coming to your website by showing ads. Payments come in many forms, but some pay for views, others for clicks and each ad network has it’s own model.
Advertisers are made up of the businesses advertising. Advertisers are permitted to share their message via video, text, run remarketing ads, native ads, and a whole bunch of ad types to a specific audience. Each platform offers their own breakdown of targeting, but popular varieties include type of device, ISP, location, demographics, interests, and nearly any attribute you can think of. Rates typically differ depending upon competition for that ad slot, and that is determined by ad quality, relevancy and website strength, sometimes more or less factors.
Cannabis Friendly Advertising Networks
We browsed the terms on 2020’s best advertising networks to find the best fit for cannabis companies. Below is a comparison of ad networks that allow cannabis advertisers and cannabis publishers. If you’re looking to reach cannabis consumers on cannabis themed websites, we’ve added a column for notable publishers, so you can get a feel for which websites you have access to without the need to sign up. We just launched our cannabis ad network.
| Network | Cannabis Focused Network | Search / Display / Retargeting / Video | Targeting | Publishers |
| Kush Clicks | Yes | |||
| Puff Network | Yes | GEO, browser, device, operating system, and day/time targeting. | High Times, Puff Puff Post, Skunk, Herb | |
| Bitmedia | No | |||
| Mantis | Yes | Video, Display, Native, Mobile, retargeting | GEO, demographics, content aware ads | Meical Jane, Leafly, Wikileaf, Grass City, Marijuana Business Daily, The Cannabist, Merry Jane |
| Traffic Roots | Yes | Display banners, Video, Native | Demographic, Psycographic, Proxmity, Footfall. Audience Extenstions, Political Beliefs, Testing Look-a-like marketing features | Marijuana Business Daily |
| Reddit Posts | No | Text Ads, Organic Posts | Topic / Communities | |
| Taboola | Video, Social, Content | GEO, Categories, Demographics | ||
| Revoffers | Yes | WebMD, Buzzfeed, Forbes, CBD Oil Reviews, | ||
| Pop Ads | No | Category, keyword, country, time | ||
| Weed Tube | Yes | Display | Location | WeedTube Channels |
| Hilltop Ads | No | Display, Vido, Text, Native, Popup and Under, Everything really, Retargeting | Country, Device type, Retargeting, OS / Browser, Time, Keywords, ISP, Mobile Carrier | |
| Springbig | Yes | Ratergeting Dispensary Customers by SMS | Existing customers |
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Advertising Networks That Aren’t Cannabis Friendly
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- Google – Terms of Service
- Facebook – Terms of Service
- Instagram – Terms of Service
- YouTube – Terms of Service
- Reddit – Terms of Service
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