For CBD companies looking to own their own customer acquisition, it’s time to start expanding your knowledge of CBD advertising strategies. As we’ve found ourselves on countless phone calls, email exchanges to get to the best CBD advertising platforms for our clients, we’ve compiled our list of questions for you to do your own homework before you get started in CBD display advertising.

  1. What limitations are there are geographies you can serve ads in (i.e. only states with legal  Marijuana?)
  2. Can you share the list of inventory sites that allow CBD ads?
  3. What restrictions do your media partners have on the content of the ads?
  4. Are CBD ads required to run on Private MarketPlace deals (PMP’s) or can you serve on the open market?
  5. Self-serve platform or managed service?
  6. Budget minimums?
    Note: The majority of CBD Display Advertising platforms as of writing this are 10k/monthly
  7. Fully programmatic (open exchange), programmatic direct, or direct buy?
    Note: There are a lot of CBD advertising myths to be aware of.
  8. Integrated DMP (data management platform)?
  9. What is the inventory quality? (need to find reviews/discussions to get a good read on this)
  10. Is it built to run performance campaigns or only push brand awareness?
    • Ecomm CV tracking
    • Endpoint and multi-goal optimization
  11. How many data brands/vendors?  (“Data Brands” include: Oracle, Experion, Bombora, Navegg, TruSignal, etc.)
  12. How many exchanges can we buy on?Hint: the answer should be 20 or more
  13. Limits on creative variations (can you switch out creatives in frequent intervals)?
  14. CRM onboarding: liveramp? In platform? Additional fees?
  15. Other targeting/optimization capabilities? 
    • geo, cross-device, exchange/publisher/SSP whitelisting, weather, daypart, etc.
  16. Billing: Is it a monthly subscription fee, or are we billed by CPM, or both?
  17. If billed by CPM, what is the %? (should be around 15-25%)
  18. Are audiences dynamic?
  19. Is there built in 3rd party verification? (IAS, DoubleVerify, Moat)
  20. Private marketplaces available? What is the media markup?
  21. Reporting API?

Bonus Question: Do they provide customer support or are you on your own?