What’s the best marijuana ad network you can use in 2022?

Despite the legalization of CBD, there are still restrictions on advertising marijuana products in the US. So today, we will share with you the best marijuana ad networks you can use to promote marijuana.

Actually, not 1 but 3 CBD native ads networks you can rely on when marketing your marijuana business.

For small CBD businesses, the best strategy is to promote cautiously and creatively, so you don’t enter the bad books of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) while converting the crop of customers you need.

What better way to accomplish this goal than to use CBD native ads?

This piece has broken down everything you need to know about native ads, how they work in the weed industry, and the top three native marijuana ad networks to consider for your CBD business.

Read also: CBD Industry Predictions For 2020

What are native ads?

Native adverts are paid ads that go perfectly with the feel, function, and form of the website or social media page it appears on.

To expand the potential customer reach, native ads are used for advertising to people who already consume CBD products and are open to more discoveries.

For example, collaborative content, sponsored videos, and social media posts are examples of native adverts.

Therefore, instead of upsetting user experience or instigating irritation among users, the idea of native advertising is to capture the attention of an engaged audience while they are still on the site.

If you aren’t getting the customer reach that Facebook, Google, and other content marketing techniques provide, these marijuana ad networks might help you.

What makes up a marijuana ad network?

Three players make up a marijuana native ads network:

• Supply-side players
• Demand-side players
• Technology platforms

1) Demand-side players

This refers to the businesses and companies that need native adverts. They may be traditional media publishers like Bloomberg, ESPN, or small startups like CBD business. Demand-side players usually have one of three goals of using native ads:

• Increase brand awareness (read our article on cannabis branding)
• Boost sales
• Improve customer engagement

2) Supply-side players

These are the audience you are trying to reach with your native ads.

3) Technology platforms

This refers to the adhesive that holds the demand-side and supply-side players together. They include:

• Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
• Search engines like Google and Bing
• Content discovery sites like Taboola, Mantis, and Outbrain.

Advertising options for CBD businesses

1. Advertising Cannabis Products with Taboola

Taboola is a native advertising platform that CBD businesses can use to market their products.

The site claims to help promote brands and reach the marijuana customers you’ve always wanted by putting your services, products, and messages on the leading websites online.

It partners with the industry leaders to get this job done easily while also ensuring your brand’s safety with verification, viewability, and fraud services.

Here are some other features that the marijuana ad network promises to provide:

• Sophisticated target options: Taboola claims to help you прециселъ target your audience by their operating system, location, and even device. 
• Control of campaigns: The site promises that businesses will have the autonomy to start and pause campaigns and decide on their settings. 
• Comprehensive reporting: Another service it promises to provide is detailed reports of strategies that are working for your business.
• Flexible goal setting: Taboola claims that you’ll be able to set whatever goal you want for your business. 

Taboola does not explicitly state that you cannot use the platform for CBD advertising.

On the list of restricted products, services, and content, medicine and supplements are the closest to marijuana.

It states that health claims and mentions may not be used in such campaigns, which is in line with the Food and Drug Administration’s guidelines for marijuana businesses.

You might need to modify your content to advertise medical marijuana products. Still, Taboola is a site that you should consider using to help your business reach customers that will purchase your product or services.

2. Advertising Cannabis Brands with Outbrain

Another native advertising platform that CBD businesses can use to market their products, services, or content is Outbrain.

Intending to create a trustworthy feed that connects people, marketers, and channels, Outbrain has been one of the leaders in its industry.

The world’s top media brands like MSN, Sky News, Hearest, and even CNN use this cannabis ad network.

Currently, it claims to reach out to more than a billion people on products, content, and services that might interest them, which is one of the reasons CBD business owners use the platform for native advertising.

Here are some of Outbrain’s guidelines on the products and businesses it can promote:

Prohibited categories

Your content, product, or service should not promote:

• Illegal, recreational, and prescription drugs
• Tobacco-related products like hookahs, vaporizers, cigarettes, and cigars.
• Herbal supplements that produce the same effect as illegal substances

Allowed content: Your content, product, or service may promote CBD products.

However, the THC should be below the acceptable percentage in the country where it is legal. For example, 0.3% is the permissible THC content for CBD products in the US.

Outbrain might be the platform to consider if you need to put native ads and increase your sales, brand awareness, or customer engagement for your CBD business.

3. Advertise Cannabis Products with Mantis

The third native advertisement option for CBD businesses is Mantis.

When compared to Taboola and Outbrain, it has a smaller marijuana ad network. However, it claims to provide similar features as the big names in the native advertising niche.

Mantis states that it is one of the pioneers of ad tech on its homepage and promises to deliver content, products, and services to the customers that need it through its native advertising strategies.

The platform’s marijuana ad network consists of more than 500 websites, and Mantis claims this number has increased.

Mantis is one of the few platforms that explicitly state that it can help you advertise cannabis content to products.

However, it suggests that sponsored content should be the foundation of your cannabis marketing strategy.

There are only a handful of restrictions on what you can promote on the site.

Read also: Cannabis Business Social Network: 10 Sites to Boost Your Cannabiz

How to pick the right native advertising option for your CBD company

There’s a wide range of native advertising options for CBD businesses, so how do you know which option is best for you?

Here are a couple of factors to consider before choosing a platform:

1) Scale: This refers to the number of your target audience the platform reaches out to.

2) Tracking: It helps if you don’t have to track the KPIs by yourself. So, a factor to consider when getting a native advertising platform is if it tracks your KPIs and whether you can get access to it.

3) Compatibility: This factor explains how well a native marijuana ad network integrates with software and hardware solutions like operating systems and devices. As you’ll be targeting your audience with these solutions, compatibility is essential to keep in mind.

4) Service: This refers to the self-services and management support that a platform has.

5) Network Quality: This refers to the type of pages and websites that the platform deploys to reach your customers.

How to build CBD native ads

Fitting native advertisements into your business can be confusing, especially if you don’t the process.

Here are the seven steps to follow when creating a native CBD ad are:

Set your campaign goals

Like in every other marketing technique, the first thing to do in building a native ad strategy is to set goals for your CBD business. You need to be clear about what you intend to achieve with the ads and ensure they are specific.

For example, knowing how many customers you want for each product is a precise and achievable goal. Your goals should also have a deadline.

1. Define your audience

People use CBD products for many reasons, so the next step is to define the audience you are targeting with your native ads.

Again, it is not enough to keep things generic. Target your audience by location, gender, age, buyer intent, and even device.

2. Choose the right publisher.

You probably have other aspects of your CBD business to cater to. So, you can outsource the job of choosing publishers to run your adverts on.

3. Identify relevant content

Your CBD content is the core of your native advert strategy. Therefore, it has to be appealing and relevant to your customers. At this stage, it helps to stop thinking like a business owner or advertiser and put yourself into your reader’s shoes. What would they like to see?

There are three types of content to consider using:

• Informative and Educative content that drives brand awareness (top of the funnel)
• Lead-generative content (middle of the funnel)
• Sales driving content (bottom of the funnel)

4. Build Creatives

After identifying the content for your campaign, the next thing to do is create your ads. Again, make sure you use thumbnails and titles but experiment with other elements of digital marketing.

5. Allocate spending

Cost-per-click (CPC) is how much you spend every time someone clicks on any of your campaign elements. Ensure you set a spending limit and define the ideal CPC for your CBD products, so you don’t break the bank implementing your native advertising strategy.

6. Test and track your results

The job is not completed when you build and set your native advertising strategy. The final result is what really matters, so ensure you track whether you are meeting your campaign goals or not by using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to get a quantifiable value.

Types of Native Adverts

There are six types of native adverts, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau:

1. In-Feed Units: These promote content within the index of an article. So, readers will see not only the original content of a gallery or stream but also the sponsored ones from a business. In-feed units appear like any other content on the site, and they can be written by the sponsoring advertiser or the article’s publisher.
2. Custom ads: These are contextual adverts that don’t fit the specific information format on a website or page. Therefore, advertising your CBD oil on a healthcare website is a custom advert.
3. Promoted listings: Businesses use promoted listings to feature sponsored posts on their category page. These listings do not have editorial content but are made to blend with the products listed on a site. For example, pushing your CBD tinctures to the first tincture page of a B2C website is an example of a promoted listing.
4. In-adverts with Native Element Units: In-adverts with native elements are similar to standard ads, but they are more relevant to the publisher. For example, your CBD business may publish your unique technique for making sploofs on a site where different other methods are published.
5. Paid-Search Ads: Paid-search ads are native adverts similar to promoted listings, with the only difference being that the listings appear top of the search results.
6. Content Recommendation Widgets: These are call-to-actions at the end of articles on a website. They allow businesses to leverage the publisher’s audience in selling a product or service.

FAQ about Native Advertising for CBD businesses

Q1. Are there laws or principles guiding native adverts?

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has guidelines that it expects businesses (including CBD businesses) to follow in the US. The body is clear that native adverts should not be deceptive to readers.

Q2. Should I disclose that my content is a native advert?

You must ensure that your native ads are identifiable as adverts by customers. In addition, it must not mislead them about its commercial nature.

In conclusion

Now you know everything that you need to about the marijuana ad network.

Native advertising has become popular among advertisers and publishers because it satisfies both party’s needs.

In the cannabis industry, CBD native ads have been instrumental in reaching out to more customers than what other techniques claim to provide for businesses.

We’ve highlighted three of the top native advertising options to choose from, as well as every other thing you need to know about the form of advertising.

We’re here to help you grow, so use one of the platforms we’ve listed above to expand your CBD business and get more customers interested in your product. 

Do you have any questions? Would you like to request a quote? Then, click the button below and send us an email!