Display advertising is a cost effective form of advertising that is based on serving impressions directly to prospective customers. Display advertising can be very effective for cannabis dispensaries and ecommerce companies that sell CBD products, but only if you have a well designed advertisement and the right segments in place. Here are some of the most important things to consider when putting together a display advertisement.
Make sure the advertisement matches your brand
Display advertisements will be many customers’ first impression of your brand, and it is important to make sure this impression is consistent with your website or in-store appearance. If you plan on running display advertisements for a prolonged period of time, having a consistent brand image with the same logo, colors, and font will help your customers instantly recognize the advertisement as yours, and make them want to engage with the advertisement.
Be specific about what you’re advertising
A generic advertisement that just says “We’re dispensary X” won’t get anyone to click and visit your website. Your advertisement should give people a reason to click. This means including some sort of discount or showing off a product that can only be bought in your dispensary or on your website.
Don’t use coupon codes
We just talked about discounts, but the more steps you put between your customer and them making a purchase, the less likely they are to make a purchase. Our cannabis marketing experts have found that coupon codes are not an effective use of the real-estate on your display ads. The nature of display advertisements is that they move along relatively quickly, and if a person is engaged and clicks on the advertisement to get to your website, they are unlikely to see that advertisement on whatever app or website they were on previously. This means you’re relying on your customer’s memory and ability to remember a coupon code. In our experience, an automatic coupon code that can be redeemed at checkout by simply adding the right items to the cart works infinitely better than having your customers remember a coupon code.
Make the ad engaging
This can be achieved by including moving elements and multiple instances or slides. You can feature a variety of products and deals in one ad, it doesn’t need to just be one product per impression. This means you get to show more of your brand and product offerings, and you’re giving customers more opportunities to see something they like. The different colors and text will also make people more invested in the ad and make them want to click. The most important part of the advertisement by far is the inclusion of a call to action. It might seem trivial, but the inclusion of some kind of text that says “click here” or “buy now” makes all the difference in the click-through-rate for cannabis display advertisements.
Size Matters
The resolution and actual size of the still image or gif file matter. Different publishers have different rules, so make sure you check with your publisher or ask your cannabis marketing company what their size limit is. Along with the file size, you need to keep the dimensions or resolution of the ad in mind. Different publishers will support different sized advertisements, and you’ll want to have different resolutions of the same ad ready to accommodate different apps and different monitor or phone sizes. Any images and text included in the advertisement should be clear and easy to read. The main focus of your display advertisement should be whatever product you’re highlighting, and that should take up most of the space on the design.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help
Working with a cannabis advertising agency that specializes in cannabis display ads is a great way to make sure your first attempt at cannabis display ads is a success. Cannabis advertising agencies have access to in-house graphic designers and a wider publishing network than you may have access to as an individual cannabis dispensary or CBD retailer.
