Can you advertise hemp and CBD on Facebook?

How to Run Facebook Ads for your CBD Brand or Hemp Products

According to an authoritative agency source in the cannabis industry, you can run CBD and hemp product ads on Facebook if you remove all explicit mentions of CBD, hemp, or cannabis from your content. While Facebook’s advertising policies don’t explicitly prohibit hemp or CBD, if you’ve ever tried to run an ad yourself, you know how difficult it can be to get approved. In 2021, Facebook and Instagram have become more lenient, and CBD brands have been able to get away with a lot more.

So how do I advertise CBD on Facebook?

Your CBD brand can run advertisements on Facebook and Instagram if you’re willing to take a few extra steps. Just like Google, Facebook has bots that crawl the website/app, reading and indexing every single piece of text that gets posted, especially advertisements. The keywords used in your ad and on your website will put you out of play, or keep you in it. *Here are 3 ways to get CBD ads approved:

1. Topical CBD only

Run an ad that leads Facebook users to a landing page where your topical CBD product is sold. You may be able to get away with landing pages that solely feature edible hemp products as well.

2. Get a second domain that doesn’t mention CBD

If you’d like to run an Facebook or IG ad that links to your non-topical CBD product, you can do so by linking to a separate website that does not mention CBD. If you’re going to show images of your product on this second website, make sure CBD is not in the product label either. Mentioning hemp is okay.

3. Promote a blog feature or another website’s review of your product

You don’t have to advertise your own website. You can setup your CBD ad so that it links to a review site or a blog that discusses your CBD oil. You won’t be able to sell products directly on this site, but you can link to your site from this one.

Results may vary

*Keep in mind that there is really no consistency as to whether or not ads get approved and why, so your experience may differ from others. If you set up your advertisement incorrectly, it likely won’t last long and/or won’t be circulated how you want it to be. If you attempt to run a Facebook ad that uses keywords such as “CBD”, “hemp”, or “cannabis”, it probably won’t get approved. And if it does, it won’t be long before Facebook takes it down for violating their terms of service. It’s the unfortunate truth of cannabis social media ads! And don’t even get us started on shadowbanning..

While CBD and hemp are everywhere on the street, in convenience stores, at your local hipster lifestyle brand shop, at your local co-op grocery store; CBD brands still struggle to live out loud on the internet. The online landscape can feel confusing and loaded with trapdoors. Well, we’re here to lend a hand. We highly recommend developing a long-term SEO strategy and honing in on your brand before you begin your advertising ventures. Shoot us a quick message and we’ll get in touch with you to discuss the ways in which we can assist.

We’re stoked to be charging ahead into 2021, ushering in a new year of greater reach and innovation alongside our clients. Below are 5 more ways you can effectively advertise your CBD brand.

5 ways to promote CBD online WITHOUT paid ads

1.  A Surefire Website

A solid web presence is the most important piece of your online marketing strategy. Your website lays the foundation for all of your other efforts to-come. With that said, you need more than a hastily developed website thrown up on Wix and dripping with spammy ads. You need a website that is fast, easy to use, and easy to find. Easy to find? Yes, that’s right, easily searchable by all internet users from millennial whizzes to their slower-typing boomer parents. A strong SEO strategy will make your website surface closer to the top of Google search results when people are searching for your brand or products.

2.  Strong Organic Social Media Presence

Paid ads on social media aside, building an organic social media presence & following is a crucial piece of advertising your CBD brand online. Think we sound like a high school theater coach when we talk about “presence”? Let us break it down. When we say “social media presence,” we mostly mean interaction and engagement. Being “present” on socials means being active: frequent posts, regular updates, daily comments, likes, shares, etc. are all necessary to keeping current on your profile and keeping your brand and your products in front of customers eyes.

4.  Leafly & Weedmaps

The yelp of weed is an exceptional way to advertise your CBD company online in 2020. Leafly, and the similar Weedmaps are sites dedicated to cataloging and archiving companies, products, and strains. Make sure your store or strain is listed on both for maximum success. While they offer paid ads, they also feature free business directories that you can get listed on.

5.  Email Marketing

Likely already a piece of your web strategy, email marketing can provide what you may be missing (no) thanks to Facebook and Instagram restrictions: regular and data-directed messages directly to your customers. Many email marketing platforms assist you in tailoring messages to certain kinds of customers. You can pick and choose your recipients age, location, interaction pattern, and more. Email newsletters are an especially useful way to run promotions or introduce new products, and they are a fabulous way to build brand voice.

6.  Video Marketing

What’s a beautiful website without stunning video? Well, it’s like a holiday dining table set in fine china but missing the food. Video is the most compelling way to market today. It’s a storytelling medium that grabs eyes, hearts, and ears, and lures them all in closer to the core of your message. Often, once companies invest in video, they start to see the payoff in views and engagement right away.  Check out the article we did on Video marketing a while back.

Need to talk to someone about the digital marketing plan for your CBD/Cannabis company?  Fill out the form below and someone will reach out to you!

This post was updated by Zach on 4.22.2021

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