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The Secrets for Targeting Tourists with Your Dispensary Ads

Tourists are one of the most valuable and overlooked customer segments for cannabis dispensaries, especially in markets where recreational cannabis draws out-of-state visitors. This webinar reveals the targeting strategies that let you reach visitors before they've chosen where to shop.You'll learn how to use geo-targeting, behavioral data, and location-based signals to identify tourists in your area and get your dispensary in front of them at the right moment. Whether you're near a tourist destination or a border market, this session shows you exactly how to capture that high-intent, high-spend audience.

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Key Insights

Tourists making cannabis purchasing decisions in an unfamiliar market rely heavily on Google Business Profile ratings, review volume, photos, and proximity in search results, making local SEO and review generation critical components of a dispensary tourist marketing strategy.
Geofencing hospitality zones, airports, entertainment districts, and popular tourist attractions gives dispensaries the ability to serve ads to visitors while they are actively in market and in exploration mode, the highest-intent window for first-time discovery.
Cannabis tourists from non-legal states often have no brand loyalty to any dispensary and are making their choice primarily based on what appears first in search, what has the most reviews, and what feels most accessible, making first-impression marketing more important than relationship marketing for this segment.
Dispensaries in border markets adjacent to states without recreational cannabis access often have the most consistent and predictable tourist cannabis demand, and can structure dedicated campaigns around the specific origin markets driving most of their cross-state visitor traffic.
Converting a tourist into a returning customer requires capturing their contact information at the point of purchase, typically through loyalty enrollment, so the dispensary can communicate with them between visits through email, SMS, or digital retargeting.

Expert Answers

[{How can cannabis dispensaries market to tourists?}

Cannabis dispensaries market to tourists by combining location-based digital advertising with strong local search presence. Geofencing advertising targets visitors in hotel zones, airports, entertainment districts, and major attractions, serving dispensary ads to people who are in the area and in discovery mode. Strong Google Business Profile optimization ensures the dispensary appears prominently when tourists search for dispensaries near them. For border market dispensaries, targeted digital campaigns aimed at audiences in adjacent non-legal states can reach potential visitors before they travel.

{What digital channels work best for cannabis tourist marketing?}

Programmatic mobile advertising with geofencing works particularly well for cannabis tourist marketing because it reaches visitors based on their physical location without requiring any prior awareness of the dispensary. Google Search advertising, where compliant, captures tourists who are actively searching for dispensaries. Google Business Profile visibility through local SEO generates organic discovery from high-intent search queries. Social advertising that targets users based on geographic location can reach visitors during their trip planning phase before they arrive.

{How should a dispensary optimize its Google Business Profile for tourist traffic?}

Dispensaries targeting tourist traffic should ensure their Google Business Profile has complete and accurate business information including address, hours including holiday variations, parking availability, and accepted payment methods. High-quality photos of the interior, exterior, and product displays help tourists evaluate the dispensary experience before visiting. A strong and consistent stream of recent reviews with responses from the dispensary signals quality and trustworthiness to first-time visitors with no prior brand knowledge. Posts highlighting current promotions, featured products, or first-time visitor offers give tourists a reason to choose one dispensary over another.

{How do dispensaries convert tourist customers into repeat buyers?}

Dispensaries convert tourist customers into repeat buyers by capturing contact information at the point of sale through loyalty program enrollment or SMS opt-in, then maintaining digital communication between visits. Tourists who have had a positive dispensary experience and are enrolled in a loyalty program can be reached through email, SMS, and digital retargeting before return trips. Giving first-time tourist visitors a loyalty enrollment offer, a personalized follow-up communication after their visit, and a compelling reason to return when they travel again builds the foundation for a multi-visit customer relationship.]

Webinar Highlights

00:00 - Who the Cannabis Tourist Is

The session opens with a profile of the cannabis tourist audience, covering why tourists represent a distinctive and high-value customer segment, what their discovery and decision-making behavior looks like in an unfamiliar market, and why they require a different marketing approach than local repeat customers.

08:00 - Geofencing for Tourist Capture

This section covers how dispensaries use geofencing to target tourist audiences in hospitality zones, transportation hubs, entertainment districts, and popular attractions, including how to structure the targeting radius, what ad messaging works best for unfamiliar visitors, and how to measure tourist audience performance.

18:00 - Local SEO for Tourist Discovery

The webinar examines how tourists find cannabis dispensaries through Google Search and Google Maps, what factors drive dispensary ranking for tourist-intent search queries, and what specific Google Business Profile optimizations have the greatest impact on first-time visitor discovery.

26:00 - Border Market Dispensary Strategy

This section is specifically relevant to dispensaries in markets adjacent to non-legal states, covering how to identify and target cross-state visitor audiences with pre-trip digital advertising, what messaging resonates with first-time cannabis buyers crossing state lines, and how to set realistic first-visit expectations that drive positive reviews.

34:00 - Converting Tourists into Loyal Customers

The session closes with the post-visit marketing strategy for tourist conversion, including loyalty enrollment mechanics, first-visit follow-up communication, and how to maintain a dispensary relationship with out-of-state visitors between travel occasions.

Frequently Asked Questions

[ {What markets have the most cannabis tourist opportunity?}

Markets with the strongest cannabis tourist opportunity include major destination cities like Las Vegas, Denver, and Los Angeles, resort markets with significant seasonal visitor traffic, cannabis-legal states adjacent to non-legal states where cross-border purchasing is common, and markets with major annual events such as music festivals, sporting events, or conventions that attract large temporary visitor populations. Dispensaries in these markets face less local competition for the tourist segment specifically, while also competing for an audience that is often more willing to try unfamiliar brands or dispensaries.

{How much of a dispensary's marketing budget should go toward tourist targeting?}

The appropriate share of a dispensary's marketing budget for tourist targeting depends on what percentage of actual revenue comes from tourist versus local repeat customers. For dispensaries in heavy tourist markets, tourist acquisition campaigns may warrant 20 to 40 percent of the digital advertising budget given the high volume and high average transaction size of visiting customers. For dispensaries in primarily residential markets, tourist targeting is typically a smaller supplemental spend. Start by estimating what share of your current transactions are from first-time out-of-area visitors using your POS and loyalty data, then scale tourist marketing investment proportionally.

{What messaging works best for cannabis tourist ads?}

Cannabis tourist ad messaging should emphasize accessibility, convenience, and first-visit reassurance rather than loyalty offers or brand familiarity, since tourists have no prior relationship with the dispensary. Effective tourist ad copy focuses on proximity to where visitors are staying, ease of visit including parking, hours, and process, and any first-visit offers that reduce the friction of trying an unfamiliar dispensary. Review highlights and photo-forward creative help tourists evaluate the dispensary experience before arriving. Clear call-to-action language directing visitors to the menu or to get directions outperforms abstract brand messaging for high-intent tourist audiences.

{Can dispensaries target tourists from specific states or cities?}

Yes. Programmatic advertising platforms allow dispensaries to target audiences by geographic origin, making it possible to serve cannabis ads to residents of specific non-legal states who are traveling to or through a cannabis-legal market. This can be done through device location history targeting, which identifies devices that have spent significant time in specific origin markets and are currently visiting the dispensary's area. For border market dispensaries, origin-state targeting of audiences in nearby non-legal states can also reach potential visitors in the trip planning phase, before they travel.

{How do reviews affect cannabis tourist marketing?}

Reviews are a primary conversion signal for cannabis tourists because they are making a dispensary choice in an unfamiliar market without the benefit of personal recommendations or brand familiarity. A dispensary with a 4.7-plus star average and 500 or more recent reviews is significantly more likely to win tourist business than a comparable dispensary with fewer or lower-quality reviews, even with identical products and pricing. Cannabis dispensaries targeting tourist audiences should actively manage their review generation strategy, respond to all reviews publicly, and ensure recent review volume reflects current service quality since tourists rarely scroll past the first few reviews. ]

Cannabis Podcast Full Transcript

[ {Full Transcript}

if you're joining us from the east coast really excited about today's webinar and the content we have for you today we're going to be covering the secrets of targeting tourists with your dispensary ads and how to reach travelers right where they are in our agenda for today's webinar we have how targeted ads can increase your reach and help get your business seen by more people why this type of marketing is invaluable for dispensaries ready to take advantage of cannabis tourism and the fast and easy way to capitalize on this strategy to start driving traffic to your store instantly my name is eduardo silva i am your host for today's webinar and i'm really excited to be joining the cannabis industry been part of the cannabis industry for the last five years with around 18 years of sales and marketing experience a little bit about foot traffic we are a digital advertising agency laser focused in the cannabis space we do not work outside of the cannabis space but we are made up of over 50 years of digital marketing experience across our team today we cover over 400 stores across all of north america and we're really excited about all of our partner clients let's take a quick moment just to prepare ourselves for the content that we have for you today we start by asking you to take those cell phones and put them face down on your desks and or mute them we are going to be covering quite a lot of content in a very short window of time trying to make this as efficient as possible for you also if you are joining us for the zoom interface take a moment to familiarize yourself with the interface now there is a q a function with panelists ready to address your questions in real time and then finally do make sure to stick around till the end we do have special offers for those attending here today that we'll be sharing at the end of the webinar along with a q a session let's jump right in programmatic advertising is a fancy phrase for describing the use of software to purchase digital ads it's the method we use for getting premium digital ads placed on thousands of different websites for our clients these are display ads which you may also know as mobile ads mobile banner ads or even geo ads all of these terms refer to the same exact thing so i just wanted to get this out of the way in the beginning so we're all on the same page securing ads in this way allows us to get the best prices on compliant ads for our clients and secure thousands of impressions to increase brand awareness foot traffic as well as website traffic now these ads can be used in a variety of ways including for targeting tourists because display ads can be geo-targeted they are super effective for sharing your message with the right people right where they stand this is crucial for securing a high conversion rate and seeing the impact on your revenue when you use targeted properly your ads can be up to five times more effective than non-targeted ads targeting really helps you get the perfect messaging in front of the people who are ready to shop with you they're already primed to buy cannabis and by having your ads show up right at that moment they're more likely to shop with you than with your competition this image here is an example of a display ad aimed at taurus we created this for a dispensary in nevada and you use our programmatic advertising network to target specific areas of nevada to drive traffic to their store you can see that this client's messaging is built around location it's vegas try and editable this is in line with what people expect when visiting las vegas it's simple and it's eye-catching the ad is bright green to catch the attention of the audience the brand's logo is front and center and they have a clear call to action this is everything a mobile ad should be if you were to be scrolling on the page on this side it would definitely stand out in this webinar i'm going to cover how you can do this for yourself but first i feel that the best way to understand how well these ads work is to take a look at some numbers so let's do that now here's a case study for a multi-location retail chain based out of new new england region they invested 44 000 in mobile banner ads for q1 of this year to continue to drive business to their shops their investment resulted in 177 store visits to their dispensaries and 20 255 online orders this generated 1 million dollars in revenue with the return on ad spend of 26 dollars for every dollar being spent their cost per acquisition was two dollars and 18 cents this is the cpa right to be exact their investment has paid off many many times over so how can you take advantage of this tool to reach more people the first way is to focus on proximity this is when you target consumers within a certain radius around your dispensary or your delivery area this is an excellent way to reach everyone that's visiting shops nearby or other tourist hot spots in your vicinity basically you set a perimeter around a specific point like your dispensary if you're an urban area you may want to set a smaller perimeter like two miles in a suburban area a five mile radius would probably work best your perimeter acts as an on switch when people who meet your demographic requirements enter your perimeter when your ads are running and they check on in network sites or apps they will see your ad it's very simple this is a great way to remind people that you're just around the corner and to drive that foot traffic that dispensaries need you can also use it to encourage people to order ahead of time next is competitor targeting which is the ability to target competing retailers to gain market share this strategy is essentially trying to lure people away from your competition basically instead of drawing a perimeter around your dispensary or a particular neighborhood you focus on the area surrounding your competitors you can then create a special offer to score new customers and draw them away from your competition this is specifically useful in high density areas where there are a lot of dispensaries and then finally we have landmark targetings this is the ability to draw on a map around the areas where you want to target this is perfect for targeting tourists at certain locations for example if you want to start advertising to people the moment they step off the plane you can set a geofence around your airport you can also target train stations public transit popular dining spots and of course the closest tourist destinations the beauty of all three of these methods is that they all are targeting advertising based on locations and this is where this strategy really provides value you can share your message where you want it when you want it for example we can set your ads to only run when you're open so that customers can easily place an order once they see your ad this helps you in two ways one by targeting customers using both geographic and demographic data you can make the most of your advertising dollars you are essentially targeting people who are more likely to buy from you resulting in higher quality leads this is called spend efficiency basically more of your ad dollars are actually leading to conversions the second way to target these ads and how they can really help you get more sales is that our platform allows you to determine what customers are doing when they see your ads are they clicking them how long are they staying on your site are they placing an order this is what we refer to as revenue attribution which lets us create even better ads for you we can test different photos text and deals to create ads that have a high return on ad spend so you're ready to take advantage of this unique ad type and start driving tourist traffic to your store and website should you start reaching out to web publishers and give them a pitch or bid on their ad space not quite before doing anything you need to consider what your unique value proposition is what is it that you are offering tourists that other dispensaries can't how you frame design and target your ads will all revolve if you want to get the maximum value from a campaign you need to be clear about what sets you apart once you have that in mind you can use your value proposition as a measuring stick to ensure that everything else you do aligns with who you are and what you're trying to achieve in order to target customers you will need to target specific landmarks which means that individuals near those places will see your ads as long as they meet your different criteria until the nation legalizes cannabis cannabis tourism will continue if you want to tempt visitors to check out your shop you should target your nearby airport as well as their popular attractions that are close by if you're in l.a a great example would be targeting lax griffin park the hollywood sign the boulevard and many more however ideally focus on the spots that are closer to your store it's easier to convince people to stop by if they're already in the neighborhood if however your unique value proposition is something like an on-site consumption lounge or the largest selection of products in your state you can certainly drop people from further away now there's no need to target every attraction you will have more success if you're methodically targeting only certain attractions that your target customers is likely to visit if your dispensary is more popular with millennials for example consider where they like to eat shop or sightsee or even target those places that you know could actually also have a lot of millennials if you want people to act on your ads you will want to create an offer they can't wait to take you up on and share that information in a way that makes them want to act that means you need a strong call to action that encourages them to click on your ad and start placing an order or get directions to your store so they can shop in person discounts can help encourage people to pull the trigger and purchase from you when they see your ad and remember you're not giving product away you're investing in customer acquisition customers are more likely to skim on an ad so make sure that your ad copy uses few words but that the words you use are powerful that means get to the point quickly if you're sharing a deal make it obvious if you want them to click through to your menu make it obvious don't bury your call to action in the deal otherwise you aren't going to see as good of a results next it's time to get creative we're all inundated with digital information practically all day long if you want tourists to stop scrolling and actually look at your ad then you need to grab their attention many of us have trained ourselves to ignore ads so you need to snap tourists out of that zone part of this is through the design of your ad your ads should draw their eyes and then once you have them paying attention you need to share your offer so they will act we want eye catching not an eyesore stick to three colors with no more than two of them being bright use your brand style guide to make sure that your imagery and fonts are brand appropriate and don't forget to include your logo this is your opportunity to build brand awareness even if they don't click on your ad the first time they see it tours will start recognizing your logo and your brand keeping you top of mind when they are ready to purchase if you're using a photo try to stick to an original photo or to high quality stock images you will need to maximize the space you have while still working within the ad size limits you will also want to consider how your ad will look on different mobile devices as you're designing consider the type of ad how big will it be will it be static or will it be moving obviously something moving can more easily capture someone's attention but that doesn't mean that you can't get a great conversion rate from a static ad this is something that we actually do for you no need to hire a copywriter and graphic designer we have an in-house team to get great campaigns off the ground and fast in the cannabis industry we all have one thing at the top of our minds and that is compliance it's no different when you're creating tourist ad campaigns make sure your graphics and text are in line with your state or province's rules for example most regulating agency agencies states that any information shared about cannabis cannot mislead customers you need to make factual statements not promises to cure cancer other states like california may require that you share your license number in all of your ads while others say you can't share the benefits of cannabis altogether another big regulation has to do with the audience that you can target if you want to remain compliant most states require that the majority of the individuals who will see your ad be 21 years of age and up that means advertising on sites that are generally visited by adults you absolutely cannot be seen as trying to advertise to an underage audience or you will have your license trip from you protect yourself and make sure that every aspect of your ad from the graphics and copy to where it will be placed and when all aligns with your regulating agency's rules and advertising now that you have a beautiful ad it's time to get it out in the world this means finding compliant places to feature your ad you can contact individual webmasters and publishers to see if they will allow cannabis advertising or you can just hire a team like click traffic with access to thousands of cannabis friendly sites and apps i'll be up front one is a whole lot more time consuming than the other once your ad is out in the world it's time to check up on it all the time to see how it is actually doing revenue attribution is the act of determining which marketing efforts have led to sales with digital advertising you want to know that your money that you are investing in your ads are resulting in sales and how much of the sales are actually attributed to each of your advertising channels that way you can continue to invest in the strategies that bring you more sales or those which have the highest return on ad spend to get the most out of your tourist targeting campaign you want to check on how well your displays ads are doing to do this you need to have an e-commerce platform that allows you to access your sales data we've done past webinars on this so be sure to check those out on our website you should also install google analytics enable e-commerce tracking and connect it to your online menu so you can start creating a picture of where your sales are coming from enabling e-commerce tracking lets you monitor how many new and returning customers are visiting your site how they're finding your site how many are purchasing from you and how much money they are spending these metrics are vital for determining which marketing channel yields the highest return did a customer engage with your google ad and then click through to your special landing page did they see your ad on espn's website did they search for your dispensary near them and end up on your site all of this information helps you see how you're getting your sales so that you can then increase your ad spend on those channels that matter we found that revenue attribution is crucial for making sure that your ads are helping you meet your goals unfortunately not enough dispensaries and industry marketers are doing this at foot traffic we've actually made revenue attribution part of our dna we don't just want to help you create ads we want to make sure that you have the analytics necessary to make informed decisions about your advertising budget so what does this look like when you work with foot traffic we'll put in place the pieces necessary to track how well our ads are working we'll install google analytics and enable e-commerce tracking this lets us see how many sales are attributed to the different channels with display ads we can also see how many people visited your store in person as a result of your mobile banner ads imagine knowing just how many sales you got from a mobile banner ad not only does this help you see where your ads are working or not but it also makes it easier to determine where you should invest your advertising dollars i want to note that we don't just do this for mobile banner ads we also measure the effectiveness of google ads and your seo strategy it's valuable across the board and this tracking doesn't just clue you into how well your advertising is going it can also give you a lot of help so you can note changes over time recognize cyclical sales patterns and identify challenges and opportunities for example let's say that one of your campaigns is getting massive impressions but not many people are clicking through by comparing it to a campaign that is getting more clicks you can somewhat very simply identify how to improve your results maybe you need to whittle down on your audience so it's targeted better or maybe your copy isn't compelling by changing your call to action you will increase your clicks running different campaigns can really help you identify both problems and opportunities unfortunately not every dispensary has the marketing budget and the team to do this and thankfully when you work with foot traffic you get the benefit of our expertise because we have run thousands of campaigns across north america we are able to optimize ads for our clients and get them a larger market share faster and the best part is that you get the reporting there is no empty promises here you will see real time reporting that allows you to see how effective your campaigns are if we buy opportunities we'll also be letting you know and if we identify problems we will actually help you troubleshoot them and keep you in the loop our goal is to maximize your marketing budget so that you see the greatest return and continue working with us now display ads aren't the only way you can reach tourists i focused on them because of how easy they are to target geographically however you can also use seo to boost your local search ranking by focusing on local search you are more likely to show up when someone searches for the term dispensary near me on google a big part of the local search engine optimization is reputation management that means getting and responding to reviews tourists are likely to rely on reviews before deciding which dispensary they want to visit make sure that you are consistently getting your reviews and that you have a higher star ranking and that you are also regularly responding to those reviews not only will this provide social proof to area visitors but it will help you with local search ranking it may even help you catapult your business to the top of the local pack which is the first set of local results that google showcases these are more likely to get clicked on so you definitely want to show up there if you can another way to get your ads in front of the tourists is using google ads ai jump ahead of all of the search results and show up at the top of any dispensary google ads campaign we use first of its kind machine learning technology to create google ads that continuously gets better over time our machine learning software quickly learns from data that would otherwise take too much for a team of 10 people to parse through in a week it takes into account news weather and social media content when helping to develop bid strategies and suggestion suggestions for keywords we harnessed this tool to create trackable campaigns for our clients so that they can meet their revenue goals to put all of this into one place you would need to hire the copywriter the graphic designer that i already mentioned plus an seo specialist and a google ad specialist or you can just take the easy route and partner with a team like foot traffic that will do all of this for you with foot traffic you can get the ball rolling fast and quickly and get your ads onto potential customers favorite websites and apps and best of all these are compliant ads you don't have to worry about the red tape because we do all of the heavy lifting for you we've created a network of cannabis friendly sites where the audience is 21 and up and we also verify laws in your state or province to ensure our ads meet current regulations plus we always send you a draft so you can make sure that everything we do for you abides by your brand's guidelines we know that compliance is crucial for protecting your dispensary and we strive to support our clients by ensuring that everything we do for our clients abides by their high standards as well as the standards of their regulating agencies i'm so grateful that you decided to join us today and to make it worth your while we're running a special deal starting today just for the attendees so you can save 50 off your first month of display ads when you sign up for a three month pilot so you can schedule a call with me to take advantage of this deal by going to foot traffic dot me forward slash call and we're gonna put this on the chat window here for you and we'll do all the hard work and run the design by you before it goes live plus we'll provide easy to read live reporting so you can monitor your campaign's progress at the same time because we want to deliver great results we will also be monitoring the progress to make sure changes are if there are changes which are necessary we can actually get the maximum bang for your buck i really want to get you set up with these ads because they have so many potential uses you don't just have to use them to target tourists but you can target your delivery zones you can target specific neighborhoods and you can even retarget people who have already been to your website and get them to come back and shop with you again let's get a call schedule so we can launch these ads fast and can start seeing the increase in your revenue so this deal is only good up till wednesday the 28th so do go to foot traffic dot me for a slash call to schedule a call with myself let's turn over to questions from our audience uh please use the q a function here i'll give you a couple seconds to formulate your thoughts and thank you once again for taking the time great first question here what parameters can you use with mobile banner ads so i mentioned in addition to geo targeting that i've already covered you can also target around time of day demographics including age sex income and many others behaviors like places or website they visited based off mobile ids and even look-alike audiences so this is where we actually take your highest purchasing avatar of a customer and we can look for other individuals that meets those demographics that are outside of the immediate cannabis consuming uh industry to broaden your scope great question another great question here uh how long does it take to get one of these campaigns running so we can actually launch an ad campaign within five to ten business days it depends on how fast we get responses from our clients and normally that is usually the case we need to get feedback on creative we need to turn these around and we need to actually identify the audience so if all of those questions are answered in the front end we can expedite the process get the creative done get the copywriting done for you and get you launched fairly quickly great question i want to thank you very much once again for joining us today and i hope that you take the time to schedule a call with myself so we can talk to one another here and at minimum answer any other questions you have but the best case scenario you want to give it a shot and once again from myself and my team in our foot traffic thank you once again for taking the time out of your day to join us have a wonderful ]