Market Your Cannabis Brand with a Co-Marketing Ad Campaign

What are Cannabis Co-Marketing Ad Campaigns?

Co-marketing, also sometimes called partner marketing, refers to two brands that develop a marketing campaign advertising them both. The brands work together to create a campaign that highlights both companies' offerings in a new and fresh way. At MediaJel, we specialize in programmatic advertising; this is a marketing channel in which display ads appear on websites, blogs, and more.

Why Choose Co-Marketing for Your Cannabis Brand?

Co-marketing is a great tool to keep within your "marketing toolbox" that can be useful in various situations. For example, let's say you're a cannabis retailer that focuses on a health and wellness niche. Suppose you were to partner with a local yoga studio or farmer's market, for example, to promote a line of wellness-related products. In that case, you could leverage a more significant segment of customers who are potentially unfamiliar with your business- getting you more exposure. The same strategy can work with a business partner within the cannabis industry.

Co-marketing can help add the little bit of spice to your cannabis brand marketing strategy that you need to help break into new segments. But more than just adding excitement to your brand's marketing plans, co-marketing can save you money on advertising costs, as typically both businesses split the costs.

How to Run a Co-Marketing Display Ad Campaign between a Dispensary and Cannabis Brand

While establishing a co-marketing campaign can be an excellent option for your cannabis business, it takes careful consideration and planning. First comes selecting the perfect partner retailer. It's crucial to choose a partner retailer that compliments your business- instead of competing with it.

Once you've hashed out what business you'll be partnering with, it's vital to lay the groundwork for your relationship with your new partner. What goals will you have for your campaign? What will your ideal timeline be? How will you create co-branded content? Be sure to assess each business's unique talents and skillsets when deciding how the plan will come to fruition. Once you've established a game plan, write up a formal co-marketing agreement to protect your business and be sure that both sides get the most out of the partnership.

A Case Study in Cannabis Co-Marketing: the Kiva Brand Campaign in San Francisco

Here is a sample campaign we'd like to share with you for inspiration. The campaign's goal is to increase brand awareness for the Kiva brand in San Francisco and drive eCommerce sales through the online menu and in-store foot traffic sales through partner retailers within a time frame of 30 days (12/15/2021 - 01/16/2022).

First, we visited the where to buy page on Kiva and selected six retailer locations that sell Kiva products.

Bloom Room, 471 Jessie, San Francisco, CA 94103
Barbary Coast Dispensary, 952 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
BASA, 1326 Grove St, San Francisco, CA 94117
California Street Cannabis Company, 1398 California St, San Francisco, CA 94109
Berner's on Haight, 1685 Haight St, San Francisco, CA 94117
Barbary Coast Sunset Cannabis Dispensary, 2161 Irving St, San Francisco, CA 94122

Then, we had our graphic designer create a display ad in four sizes 300 x 600, 300 x 50, 728x90, and 320x50 so that the ads will fit within the different devices we use every day, whether it's for placement within publishers, games, mobile apps, and more. Here's what a 728x90 may look like:

Out of the box, we can track any customer who has seen one of the ads above and walked into the retailer partners' location. This KPI would be considered a walk-in. Here is a glance at the MediaJel marketing cloud and what the reporting on this campaign would like.

In addition, if you work with your partner retailer to allow the addition of the MediaJel pixel to their website or shopping cart, we can track any customer who has seen one of the ads, for example, the Jane menu on Bloom.

At MediaJel, we have an integration with all major shopping carts, including Jane, Dutchie, Woocommerce, Olla, Shopify, and more- making sure we can cover all the bases when it comes to advertising your cannabis business.

The screenshot below highlights how the e-commerce sales or transactions are reported within the MediaJel marketing cloud. The client in this campaign invested $933, and the programmatic campaign influenced $18,334 in sales over the campaign's life cycle, resulting in a 519.3% return on ad spend or 5.1 ROAS.