How to Market CBD on Facebook

How to Market CBD on Facebook

There are only two fully compliant and sustainable ways to market and advertise CBD on Facebook. The first method restricts your brand to a single product category and the second method restricts your brand to engagement that is not yet ready to buy your CBD products.

For those of you who are willing to take on the risk of having your Facebook account permanently banned, then we have a secret method to circumvent the Facebook Ad Guidelines. Be warned that we do not recommend circumventing Facebook Marketing Guidelines because the risk is too high for the short-term reward. Nevertheless, continue reading to find out how to market CBD on Facebook. 

Does Facebook Marketing Work to Advertise CBD?

In paid advertising, Facebook marketing does work on advertising CBD, but you can only be fully compliant, which does not put your business at risk in a single product category. Even then, you are still restricted on what you can and cannot mention in your Facebook CBD ad and the landing page connected to your Facebook CBD ad.

 

Outside of Facebook advertising, you can start a Facebook Page, Facebook Group, or Facebook account where you can do Facebook marketing to promote CBD. However, there are some restrictions set forth by Facebook on what you can and cannot say when marketing CBD products on their platform.

Which CBD Products are Allowed in Facebook Advertising

Which CBD Products are Allowed in Facebook Advertising?

As reported by the Digiday Daily Newsletter, the only CBD products considered legal and fully compliant by Facebook are topical CBD products. Suppose you do not want your Facebook ads to be deleted and your account’s top cannabis Facebook page permanently deleted. In that case, you can only advertise topical CBD on Facebook. Whether posting about CBD on your Facebook or running CDB Facebook ads, the only way to stay compliant and low risk is by advertising topical CBD only.
Example of topical CBD advertising:

noningestible cbd facebook ad

Advantages:
  • No risk of your CBD brand being permanently banned from advertising on Facebook. 

 

  • Facebook engagement directly converts to new revenue for your CBD ecommerce company.

  • You can mention CBD in your ads if you are talking about topical CBD. This allows you to build trust with your ideal customer. Normally you are not allowed to use the words “CBD” or “hemp” anywhere in your ads, or your ads will be taken down, and your account is at risk of being banned.
Disadvantages:
  • Your brand is limited to an audience that only uses topical CBD, and you are not allowed to promote any other products that contain CBD, which limits your revenue growth long-term on Facebook. 

 

  • To run compliant ads on Facebook for topical CBD, you must create a new advertising website that only has topical CBD and talks about topical CBD. If you talk about any other types of products that contain CBD, then your ads will be taken down, and your account may be permanently banned from Facebook marketing. 

Why Can You Only Promote Topical CBD on Your Facebook Page and Facebook Ads?

According to Meta (who owns Facebook) terms and policies in Section 2. Illegal Products and Services, Meta says the following, 
r
“Facebook Ads must not constitute, facilitate, or promote illegal products, services, or activities. Ads targeted to minors must not promote products, services, or content that are inappropriate, illegal, or unsafe, or that exploit, mislead, or exert undue pressure on the age groups targeted.”
Facebook considers CBD an illegal and unsafe product, even though this is false. Facebook considers CBD an illegal and unsafe product because of its liability risk. Keep in mind that Facebook is a company that aims to maximize profits and returns for shareholders. They open themselves up to risk and liability if they allow CBD ads and marketing on their platform.

Since Facebook does not have the capacity to lab test each and every CBD product promoted, marketed, or sold on their platform, they prefer not to allow the marketing of CBD at all on their platform. The main reason is that if a Facebook user was to buy CBD that is not safe and this CBD product harmed them; then Facebook would be at risk of a lawsuit and losing the trust of their users.

 

The Meta stock would plummet, and shareholders would lose massive amounts of money, hurting the Facebook brand. For Facebook, the reward of advertising and marketing revenue from allowing CBD Facebook ads on their platform is far smaller than the risk of being sued and losing shareholders’ money. Facebook allows topical CBD marketing on their platform because it is not ingestible. The risk of someone being harmed by a non-ingestible CBD product is much lower than an ingestible CBD product.

Even if someone was to purchase CBD on Facebook and get high, that could open Facebook up to the liability of being sued. Topical CBD, on the other hand, has a very small chance of getting someone high, so Facebook allows topical CBD in CBD ads and marketing on Facebook. 

How to Get Your Facebook Ads Approved

How to Get Your Facebook Ads Approved?

Outside of running CBD ads for topical CBD only. There is only one other way to compliantly and legally get your Facebook Ads approved. Advertising and marketing on Facebook to bring brand awareness about CBD education are allowed. 
What is a CBD Brand Awareness Marketing Campaign on Facebook

What is a CBD Brand Awareness Marketing Campaign on Facebook?

Brand awareness marketing campaigns on Facebook are where you do not directly advertise your products for sale in your ads. Instead, the focus of your ads on Facebook is informational content by promoting blog content such as, “What is the Endocannabinoid system?” or “Is delta 8 THC legal? What You Need to Know…”. These brand awareness campaigns aim to generate large amounts of traffic to the blog content on your website.
Examples of a CBD Brand Awareness Campaign on Facebook:

Keep in mind that this traffic is not yet ready to purchase your products, but they are interested to learn more about CBD. These marketing campaigns are best combined with email marketing, text marketing, and programmatic retargeting ads. Once the traffic is on your blog content, capture their information to continue marketing to them until they are ready to purchase your products. Even more, use programmatic retargeting ads from a third-party ad network to show ads to this audience and engage that audience.
Examples of CBD Email Marketing:

Example of CBD email marketing

Examples of CBD Text Marketing:

example of cbd text marketing

Examples of CBD Programmatic Retargeting Ads:

example of cbd programmatic advertising

 Over time the traffic you capture will become ready to purchase products from you. As a result, your revenue and lifetime revenue will increase over time. This method is best for CBD companies that could invest a long time before seeing a return on their investment. Realistically at least a year to begin seeing a return on investment. 
Advantages:
  • No risk of having your CBD ad account taken down and having your ads account permanently deleted.  
  • Capture traffic of an audience that may be having their first encounter and interest in CBD. You can capture this audience’s attention and convert them later into loyal customers that trust and believe in your CBD company. Long-term increases revenue and lifetime revenue for your company. 
  • Increase recall of your brand, which long-term captures market share of the CBD market.
Disadvantages:
  • It will take a long time before you start seeing a return on investment and converting new customers to your cannabis brand.

 

  • You cannot mention ingestible cannabis anywhere in your ads or on your landing page. You cannot mention products or offer products for sale anywhere in your ads, landing page, or website.

What Does Your Landing Page Have to Do With Getting Your CBD Ads Approved?

For your ads to stay compliant and to avoid your brand being exposed to the risk of your ads being taken down and your account being taken down. The landing page your ads direct to cannot mention “CBD” or “hemp” anywhere on the landing page, and you cannot mention products anywhere on the landing page. The only exception is topical CBD, which is only when discussing topical CBD. Now that we have the compliant and risk-averse methods out of the way. Let’s venture into the dark side and discuss the secret method to circumvent Facebook social media guidelines. 
The Secret Method to Circumvent Facebook Social Media Guidelines

Cloaking is the most sustainable method to circumvent Facebook social media guidelines and directly sell CBD and hemp using CBD Facebook advertising. If you are unfamiliar with cloaking, it is a method where you show a user one page and Facebook’s robots another page. This means that when a user clicks your ad, they will be sent to a page where you offer CBD and hemp for sale.

However, when Facebook’s robots click your ad, they will be sent to a page where CBD and hemp are not being offered for sale and are not even mentioned once on the entire page—resulting in Facebook approving your ads and not banning your CBD account. This method is so effective that Facebook could only prevent it by pursuing legal action against a company offering cloaking as a service. The main reason this method is so effective is that the only way to prevent this method is through human review processes, and Facebook does not employ enough humans to review every ad manually. 

However, this does come with significantly more risk than just having your ads taken down or your Facebook account permanently banned. CBD brands using cloaking have a huge financial liability because if Facebook catches these CBD brands using cloaking, they will pursue legal action and bleed these brands dry of resources. If you risk going bankrupt to offer CBD and hemp for sale in your ads on Facebook, consider using cloaking. We do not recommend cloaking as the risk is not worth the reward, and there are way more effective sustainable marketing and advertising methods that have far larger ROI than Facebook. Without exposing your cannabis brand to any risk and restrictions by Facebook. 

Is there an Alternative to Facebook Marketing to Advertise CBD?

The most effective marketing method that delivers the largest ROI from any marketing method, including social media, is SEO or Search Engine Optimization. For those unfamiliar with SEO, it is one of the only revenue generation methods completely unrestricted to selling CBD to consumers directly. All major search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and others have paid search results and organic search results.
Example of the Paid Search Results:

Paid Search Results

The paid search results do not allow CBD anywhere. Your account will be suspended if you are caught advertising CBD in the paid search results. Paid search results only make up 6% of all clicks, and only paid advertisements only make up 15% of website internet traffic. The only way to generate traffic and revenue from the paid search results is to pay for placement in the paid search results. Over time, your customer acquisition costs only go up as effective paid advertising becomes more expensive.

Example of the Organic Search Results:

organic search results

The organic search results allow CBD everywhere, and you can directly sell CBD to consumers using the organic search results. Organic search results make up 94% of all clicks, and over 50% of all website internet traffic comes from organic search results. Compared to social media, where all 5% of all website internet traffic comes from social media. The only way to generate revenue and traffic from the organic search results is by earning placement in the organic search results using a process called SEO or Search Engine Optimization. 

SEO is the only revenue and traffic generation method with a near infinite return on investment for CBD brands. Unlike paid advertising, even if you stop investing in SEO, the revenue and traffic generated from SEO continue to your website. Over time your SEO investment grows at a compounded rate while your SEO investment stays the same creating exponential returns on investment and increasing the lifetime revenue of a customer. 

SEO Versus Paid Advertising
organic seo advantage line graph

Frequently Asked Questions About CBD and Facebook

Can You Advertise CBD on Facebook 2022?

Yes, but you are either exposed to a significant risk of circumventing guidelines or severely limited on what you can and cannot say about CBD and hemp.

Can you Promote CBD on Social Media?

Yes, you can promote CBD on Social Media, but every social media platform has to sever restrictions or bans for posts about CBD and hemp.

© 2023 SEOWITHDAVID. All rights reserved.