Google Ads: The Best Kept Secret in Dispensary Advertising

[ {Google Ads The Best Kept Secret in Dispensary Advertising}

good morning everyone good afternoon if you're joining us from the east coast my name is eduardo silva i'm going to be your host here today we'll be getting underway in just a couple more minutes let's allow some of the other attendees to log on to our webinar thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to attend this webinar with us we look forward to being with you in just a moment thank you once again for joining us today i'm really excited about today's webinar topic the best kept secret and dispensary advertisement we're going to get underway here just about 30 seconds or so just allowing another couple moments for our attendees to join us thank you so much once again for taking the time out of your day to join us we'll be right with you all right so without further delay today we're going to be covering google ads the best kept secret and dispensary advertisement so we're going to be sharing with you some of the secrets here that we have learned along the way how to shatter your sales goals and blow the competition out the water so let's get underway thank you once again for taking the time out of your day to join us on our agenda today we're going to be covering why google ads is such a valuable strategy what to do to maximize your ad spend how to get started and skyrocket past your competition for more basic information about google ads be sure to check out our past webinars we have some wonderful content once again on our webinars page feel free to log in attend at your own time so there is no commitment there right once again my name is eduardo silva i'm the vp of sales here at foot traffic thank you so much for joining us today and a little bit of a background on myself around 18 years sales and marketing experience both in high tech finance small business to business type marketing really excited to be joining you today and i always like to start with a little bit of a game here let's see who can guess where in the world this beach is located and you can actually start by using your chat window there let's get familiar with uh zoom interface let's see if we can guess where in the world this beach is located just to make sure you guys are alive and awake over there we got one guest puerto rico anybody else wants to take a stab at this all right we're going to go with puerto rico no it's not puerto rico this is brazil this is a beach the famous beach of ipanema really happy to have you guys once again with us today um as i alluded to foot traffic um you know we've been a dispensary digital marketing firm for the last five years solely focused in this space really really happy to be helping elevate the industry we got our starts in uh in southern california with a medicinal uh marijuana push and then after that just grew ourselves based on our customers demand throughout all of north america so today at any given point we may be managing north of 200 different brick and mortars throughout north america that covers all of the us as well as canada we're really really happy about the success that our customers have enabled us to attain and look forward to keep growing here a couple housekeeping items we always like to take a moment to just silence those cell phones we're going to cover so much content in such a short period of time so it's important that we don't have those distractions the second thing here is familiarizing yourself with the zoom interface we do have a q a button if you don't know where the q a button is navigate to the top of your window where you see the little blinking light for the zoom interface we have panelists that will be moderating questions okay so you can ask any questions you would like at any point in time throughout the webinar and we will be addressing them live uh we will also have a little section here in the end to address questions live however if you choose to if you have something in your mind that you want to ask right away once again we do have panelists and then be sure to stick around we have a special offers for those attendees of today's webinar and we'll be sharing that at the end of the webinar great so let's jump right in uh

{Compliant marketing}

compliant marketing so finding compliant marketing channels can be confusing and frustrating with federal and state regulations to be concerned with dispensaries need to be creative to get their message out and thankfully digital marketing provides a compliant revenue for retailers to increase their reach and get their brand in front of potential customers and google ads is one of the best ways we have found to do this now you may be asking yourself if it's so great why isn't everybody doing it well because of the confusion that we just mentioned that surrounds google ads many dispensaries haven't even invested in this high roi dispensary advertising channel which is a mistake their reluctance is your gain let's just get that right because few dispensaries are using google ads it makes it easier for you to get to the top search results so don't wait until everybody jumps on the bandwagon now it's your chance to be the trendsetter so let's talk about google ads why google ads well so what makes google ads so valuable

{Why Google Ads?}

to start 93 of internet searches in north america are done on google it's the most used search tool in the world and the one that's most popular with your customers if you want to reach them you need to be focused on this platform according to a search marketing company called word stream 41 of clicks on google searches go to the top three sponsored ads that's 41 of the clicks on any search goals to the sponsored ads imagine if there's only one ad though and that ad happens to be yours with more clicks going to the top ad you're easily increasing your customer base and your sales here's one amazing statistic for you this one is from a software company called mobs they are a powerhouse of information for world of search engine okay people who find your site via google ads are 50 more likely to make up purchase than those who find you through organic search okay 50 more likely to make a purchase why is that when somebody clicks on an ad that is relevant to what they're searching for in terms of a service they are a buyer that's why if that seems hard to believe think about when your ad will appear if your google ads campaign is set up correctly your ad should run when someone is looking for a dispensary near them these people are already primed to buy they want what you're selling your ad is the first thing they will see and it will be the perfect answer to their search what you get okay so google ads provides you with a predictable acquisition cost

{What you get}

because you bid on particular keywords and set an ad spend limit you will always know what's costing you to acquire a new customer this is something that you just don't get with traditional marketing which can be more of a hit or miss knowing your customer acquisition cost means you can easily ramp up your efforts and score additional customers when you use google ads you're paying for that prime real estate while seo can help you improve your organic search result google ads which is a pay-per-click advertisement strategy provides an instant boost to your traffic thanks to its prominent positioning on the search right now not many dispensaries are using google ads to advertise this this means to you that it's easier to score particular keywords and you can consistently rank at the top imagine showing up at the top of the results right when when you're above all of your competitors you can even show up at the top of the google maps results and because most other dispensaries aren't taking advantage of this you will have to pay much per click now this will change when your dispensary other dispensaries start using google ads as well but for now it's one of the best ways to quickly impact your website traffic and get a leg up on the competition so let's review a quick case study here okay let's take a look at a recent case

{Online Orders 1,112}

study from one of our clients this is a case study for a medicinal dispensary based down in massachusetts they invested a total of three thousand so just shy of four thousand dollars here three thousand nine hundred and seventy six dollars okay on a campaign for one month they had a total of 112 online orders that is a total revenue of 172 000 with an roi of 42 dollars for every dollar spent why do we get so granular with our metrics first and foremost we do not launch any google ads campaigns for any of our clients without having proper metrics in place marketing analytics is the bread and butter of what we do and the reason is it really helps our customers okay make more educated decisions and grow naturally they understand exactly where the big roi ticket items are for their business that's how we scale with our clients so revenues like this is possible and it varies obviously from industry location right to other location in other words different markets have different results but you won't know until you get started okay so let's talk a little bit about ad spend now that you understand why this is such

{Ad spend}

a valuable tool let's talk about your ad spend and how to maximize it times are tough right now right we all know this is our new reality we are in a recession and budgets have been slashed and getting the most out of your current budget is essential to maintaining your sales so your ad spend is the amount of money you want to spend on ads monthly it's what paid what's paid to google okay it's simple maximize your ad spend is crucial for getting the highest possible roi and just getting more from the budget that you are actually spending right as our clients you're able to determine your monthly ad spend we then divide your ad spend among the different campaign types and we found to be the most effective way okay so we have several different campaigns running for each one of our clients despite different locations and with the google ads you can then create multiple campaigns for to reach different segments of your audience so it's not just one ad guys it's an ad per segment and that's why it's tricky and that's why you have the expertise of the foot traffic team to do this for you and through the years of perfecting our process we've identified six factors that help you maximize your ad spend so let's jump right into that first good copy the first factor we are going to talk about is the copy google ads are text ads so what you say can have a big impact on whether or not people will click on your ad succinct ads that are relevant to the keywords you're targeting is crucial you also need to offer something like a deal curbside pickup or another special you have limited number of characters and you need to make the most out of them at the same point certain words in your copy can get you flagged this is why people think that advertising can't that dispensaries can't use google ads because you can't use terms like marijuana cannabis they think they're there's no way to

{Good copy}

utilize the platform because they can't use the most broad terms for our industries but that's just not true we've run thousands of ads for dispensaries across north america it's totally possible you just need to know what it is what is and what isn't acceptable and steer clear problematic words and phrases otherwise you run the risk of not just having your ads dropped but the platform may even block your account or shut you down right all together which happens fairly quickly for individuals that do not have the experience so it's a lot of cycles going through that process and thus why people think it's not possible it's a good good idea to have a copywriter help you with this so you can actually create impactful copy that leads to actual clicks we actually have several writers on our team which helps with every single one of our campaigns that can tip here right dial and targeting

{Dialed-in targeting}

the second way to maximize your ad spend is to focus on your targeting when we all know that google is con constantly collecting information about us the same information can be used to better target your ads and by targeting your ads i mean getting them in front of the people who are actually more likely to buy from you they actually run a search for a dispensary or delivery service and boom right there you are the answer to their query you are literally showing up when they are interested in your products which increases the chances that they will actually make a purchase from you so if you know who your target audience is you can otherwise start advertising to them by specifying the age group income bracket their location and other demographic information which makes it really important for targeting there are a couple of reasons for this targeted ads are more effective plus by targeting specific age brackets you can help ensure your ads are compliant as well which is beyond important for our industry right let's talk about optimization okay to get the most from your ad spend

{Optimization and management}

you also need to focus on optimizing and managing your google ads campaign you can't just start google ads and then just let them run indefinitely that is the quintessential um the parallel of putting your money on savings account with a point zero six percent interest rate versus actually doing some intelligent investing with your money right to get the most for your money you need to actively manage and optimize your ads so what does this mean well in its in essence you need to monitor the effectiveness of each one of your campaigns and note changes over time in one campaign i'll perform is one campaign outperforming others right that you are running are your campaigns still effective or are some becoming less effective are there changes to the number of impressions or clicks that you're getting if you start seeing things like this you need to make changes well there will be natural variations and you will have days and weeks that have higher clicks than other days when you are actively managing and optimizing your campaigns you can get greater insight into when there are slump there's a slump due to an ineffective campaign or a natural slowdown because people generally buy less cannabis on a monday for example you will get to actually take a deeper look at your ads to pinpoint any issues and you need to do this on a regular basis you also need to test out different ads to see what works otherwise you're just guessing right this ties into our next way of getting the most from your ad spend which is spending enough right when getting started with google ads some people want to set their ad spend way too low right they want to test the waters and see if the platform works which we all understand is important but here lies the problem with this you may actually not get enough information in order to understand the effectiveness of your ad because they will be exhausting right your budget fairly quickly think about it if you only spend 100 in advertising what will you learn from that your ads will get seen a handful of times but you won't get to know which ones of your ads are truly most effective over time you will get a quick snapshot that isn't really a representation of the life cycle of the ad as well as the consumer behavior

{Spend enough!}

to be able to spot patterns and to determine the effectiveness of your copy and keyword strategy you need to spend enough per location and per campaign i cannot stress this enough yes some of your budget will go towards testing the effectiveness of certain ads but what you learn will help you make more in the future this is definitely the case of you need to spend money to make money and that's particularly right a marketing mantra the fifth way to maximize your ad spend

{Enable revenue attribution}

is near and dear to my heart and that is to maximize your ad spend you need to know how well your ads are performing so that you can make adjustments and necessary which are necessary so that you can implement right better practices around marketing and so what this is called is actually revenue attribution in essence tracking the different sources of advertising and the exact amount of income that they're generating if you fail to track you're just letting money slip through your fingers you should track your impressions the click through right on your ads and your cost per click your impressions are how many times your ads is actually showing up not everyone is going to click on your ad so it's important to look at the difference between your ad impressions and your actual clicks your cost per click is how much you're actually paying google for each of the clicks on your ads and tracking these numbers can help you troubleshoot your ads as well so here's an example if you're getting a lot of impressions but not enough clicks what does that tell you you should actually revise your ad because the copy is not working with that audience right so when you set up revenue attribution and yes this is something that we do for every single one of our clients you're able to identify how many of your sales are actually a result of your google ads campaign this helps you nail down your roi and gives you the information that you need to invest in your best performing campaigns and using a tool like google analytics e-commerce tracking you will need to track how many of your transactions can actually be attributed right to google ads your total transactions and the revenue generated for those transactions and as you can see from this example here this is an actual example from one of our clients right we tracked everything including social and i hate to say it right we get a lot of requests for social media management all the time and from time to time we make an exception but really our core focus as a business is revenue generation it's where we really uh do our best work and social media just doesn't happen to be one of them as you can see here fairly neutral right in terms of actual revenue generation so if you knew this going into a business you can actually make better business decisions you can actually invest your marketing dollars more effective the last way to get more of your google ad span is to combine it with your sms

{Combine with SMS}

as i mentioned earlier one of the benefits of google ad is that you can determine your average customer acquisition cost what this means is that you can actually see how much you paid on average to get a new customer now because you don't want to have to pay to capture the same customer again and again and again right combining your google ads with your sms list can actually help you save money long term so for example you can actually have a text opt-in code in your google ad or you can have your ad lead to a page that has that information by offering a deal to new signups you can increase the likelihood that a potential customer will sign up for your sms list and then make a purchase then you can continue to market to that individual like without actually having to pay to acquire that customer again and again in the future right because the relationship now has been established and this individual now can become now part of your loyalty program which is how to continuously get an existing customer that you purchased right to buy from you again and again without having to pay one more time to earn that customer this is the ultimate goal of your google ads campaign and something we work with our customers day in day out to establish best practices around marketing strategy right yes you want to get clicks to make sales but you also want to retain those customers and keep them coming back to you here's one other case study right this is actually a recreational client out of michigan and this was a pilot that they ran in a single pilot of 723 and this wasn't even a completed program yet we determined the success criteria right this is done now they're expanding the practice right 723 116 online orders right we're generated a total revenue of ten thousand four hundred and ninety one dollars and an roi of fourteen dollars and fifty one cents for every dollar spent now you be the judge if that is roi that will drive you to make more investments right in a practice like this to this customer certainly was a highlight right because one this is just the learning phase and they were able to generate so much revenue what is it going to be once everything is dialed in and they have matured their google ads practice

{Google Ads management}

so let's talk about google ad management right we offer a unique google ad management service for dispensaries and marijuana delivery services um and yes google makes it difficult to get google ads running if you are in the cannabis industry but it's not impossible as we discussed our process is very simple right it goes from creating managing and optimizing the ads to help our clients reach new customers and convert them into loyal customers we handle all of the heavy lifting and put our expertise to work to generate sales for you and this is a low-cost tool that truly pays off while your roi will differ based on where you're actually located it's still a no-brainer especially during this current recession where there is uh unsurmountable amount of volume right of internet searching happening and so to get you started with google ads if you

{Get Started with Google Ads}

are hesitant right if you don't know if it's the right tool for you we have put a plan in place here to just get you started and that is um you know one it's going to protect your bottom line and two it's going to get you started with google ads by offering you a free month of google ads management for a brand new customer right so do reach out to us we'll put the link here on our chat so you can actually get in touch with us we can schedule you answer any other questions you may have particular to your market and get you set up so this is one free month of google ads management so we won't charge you right and to get you started with this deal just go ahead and follow the link here in the chat window and we'll get you started now we do have just a few minutes here for any questions i did have one question that already came up here so i

{Any questions?}

would love to address this question and the question is more pertaining to advertising for cbd is google ads is anyone using google ads for advertisement with cbd and the reality is that is yes uh now we are mainly focused in the thc market when it comes to dispensaries and the reason is is because cbd has become a quite prolific um you know product in the industry right and so there's a lot of competition already and so i would not necessarily recommend uh google ads for cbd uh only because it's going to drive up your cost i think there's other practices out there that could be better for you how quickly can you see results fairly immediate right as you saw here from one of the case studies that i showed within the first month of running a pilot for one of our clients they saw some tremendous return on investment and that is just the beginning of it right so we keep working with those clients to dial in those campaigns right because the first month we start understanding the audience we start understanding which markets we want to really target uh and so fairly immediate is the answer to that i would say within the first month you get some pretty solid returns and or at least get you enough information so you can understand exactly what your market is so it's money well spent regardless of how you look at it and how do we measure results now we talked about revenue attribution uh beyond important you know we do have some clients out there that unfortunately based on the technology stack that they have chosen for their dispensary there are some complications with tracking specific revenue we still actually set specific targets for that customer and goals right setting goals in the beginning of any campaign is beyond important okay 90 plus of every single one of our customers we can do revenue attribution down to the actual dollar that they generate right but those corner cases such as an example of our client down in or up in canada they saw a really tremendous amount of map actions which was really awesome so the canadian market is a little bit more um uh interested in actually going directly to the store itself right because they're not as used to the american market in placing online orders so that was an interesting find uh that customer was beyond excited right to know that he was getting so much foot traffic uh just our name no pun intended but there you have it folks once again i want to thank you for taking the time to join us today i really appreciate the questions and the engagement and i look forward to speaking with you offline i hope you found this information valuable and once again foot traffic dot me for slash call just schedule a call with us and get you set up with a free trial talk to you soon have a great day ]