So you decided to start a CBD company, your branding has been established, your website is all set up and your products are ready to go. Now to start advertising so you can drive as many people as you can to your new amazing CBD products but for some reason it just doesn’t work for you, even though you have clearly seen others use it.
Many CBD business owners and cannabis marketing professionals have run into this problem: they want to run CBD advertisements on Google, but they don’t know if it is allowed.
CBD brands face a unique challenge in the digital advertising space. The Facebook and Google advertising platforms controlled 60% of the total digital ad spending in 2018.
Unfortunately for emerging CBD businesses, your two best options (google, and facebook )have policies against the direct promotion of CBD products.
Now Does this mean you should eliminate digital advertising for your marketing plan? No, it absolutely does not..
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(According to the matters group It is NOT impossible to run your ads on Google AdWords. They explain that you can test all of googles options from text ads, display ads, retargeting, Gmail Sponsored Promotions and Google Shopping ads. Chances are you will manage to sneak in a few past the censors, if you play your cards right. However they do mention one major no no which is If your business’ name is canna-something, you are pretty much dead upon arrival.
So, while they cannot guarantee that this is going to work, we have found that if you are smart, persistent and very patient as well as willing to spend a good amount of time on the line with Google representatives – it is possible to find ways to advertise your cannabis industry business on AdWords. )
So can you advertise CBD products on google.. Yes, but you will need to find a way to promote your CBD product without breaking Google’s ad policy. Most CBD search ad campaigns that manage to go under googles radar will get shut down in less than 2 weeks.
And Violating Google AdWord’s policy against the promotion of CBD products will usually result in disapproved ads or permanent suspension of your account.
Now I will warn that Google may flag your entire domain or billing information to prevent you from recreating the ads from a new account.
Google AdWord’s advertising policy clearly states they do no allow the promotion of Cannabidiol (CBD), irrespective of any claims of legality.
Now all this being said How do you Advertise CBD products on Google AdWords? Without getting in trouble, how do you fly under the radar..?
Unfortunately If you sell cannabis products it is very hard, almost impossible, shall we say mission impossible to advertise on google or facebook and it is not getting any easier. However there is good news, there are other viable options out there for you besides AdWords. Such as Traffic Roots, Mantis and even Bing has been upping their game recently.
Now if you really want to use adwords or at least you want to give it a shot, remember that you want your ad to promote your cbd product without actually mentioning said product and you want to make sure you direct your ad to a landing page that promotes your product without really mentioning that it is cbd and without actually selling it on that page. I wish you Good luck.