Cannabis & CBD Marketing That Builds More Sales

It depends on your product line, market and growth goals. Most of our cannabis and CBD clients lean on SEO, email/SMS and content as the long-term foundation, since paid options are more limited than in other categories.

We'll right-size a plan to your brand, your competitive market and your growth goals, and tell you exactly where each dollar goes.

Very. At the typical retail brand in the calls we've listened to, 63% of calls went to voicemail or were never picked up: 57% during business hours and 88% after hours. And most of those callers do not try again: 75% of callers who reached voicemail did not call that business again within a week.

That is why we track every call from your campaigns, flag missed calls, and help you set up call routing, after-hours coverage and fast call-backs, so the leads you pay for are not lost at the front desk.

Based on calls to 15 retail and ecommerce brands we market, Apr to Sep 2026.

We classified a sample of 255 new-customer calls to the retail and ecommerce brands we market by what the caller wanted (all retail, not only cannabis and CBD brands). The most common reasons to call were whether a specific service is offered (18%), product availability or lead times (12%), location, hours or service area (12%) and price or a quote (11%).

Typical questions: “Do you carry this product?”, “Do you have this in stock right now?”, “What are your hours and where are you located?”. Your website, ads and Google Business Profile should answer these before the phone rings, and your team should be ready to answer them when it does.

Based on calls to SmartSites clients, Apr to Sep 2026; questions paraphrased, no caller or client identified.

Mostly business hours: 29% of calls came outside Monday to Friday 9 to 5 (11% on weekends), and the busiest day is Monday. Of the calls that were answered, 52% were new-customer inquiries, 26% were existing customers, and 9% were sales pitches or wrong numbers.

That mix is why we report on qualified calls, not raw call counts.

Based on 16,000 calls to 28 retail and ecommerce brands we market, Oct 2025 to Sep 2026 (timing) and Apr to Sep 2026 (call types).

Across the Google Ads accounts of the 93 retail and ecommerce brands we manage, the median cost per lead over the last 12 months was $45, with a median cost per click of $1.10 and a median conversion rate of 2%.

Your number depends on your market, services and how well the landing page and phones convert. We use these medians as a starting benchmark, then work to beat them.

Source: Google Ads accounts managed by SmartSites, Oct 2025 to Sep 2026; a lead is a tracked call or form conversion as set up in each account.

For the 61 retail and ecommerce brands whose Google Business Profiles we manage, the median profile got about 1,370 views, 11 calls and 61 direction requests a month over the last year.

Reviews, photos, accurate hours and categories move those numbers, which is why local SEO is part of every plan we build for a cannabis or CBD brand.

Source: Google Business Profile performance data for profiles managed by SmartSites, Oct 2025 to Sep 2026.

It depends on the platform and the product. Major ad networks restrict or prohibit promotion of cannabis and many CBD products, especially anything associated with THC, and policies change often. Where paid placement is allowed, we build compliant campaigns within each platform's rules. Where it isn't, we lean harder on SEO, organic social, email/SMS and marketplace strategies that don't depend on paid ads.

You don't have to choose. The best results come from doing both, with experts who know how to use AI responsibly:

• AI-assisted audits: our initial and routine audits combine years of ecommerce expertise with AI to spot opportunities a person alone would miss.
• Enterprise-grade data: professional SEO and content tools give us visibility into organic and AI search. You get the insights without the bill.
• Always human-in-the-loop: every output is reviewed by a strategist before it ships, and you own all work product.

A good in-house marketer is only one person, and one who understands cannabis and CBD compliance is hard to find. With SmartSites you get a whole team (strategist, SEO specialist, email specialist and social manager) for less than the cost of a single hire, with no recruiting, no PTO and no learning curve.

No, and we'll always be straight with you about that. This is one of the hardest categories to market, and brands that expect instant results are usually disappointed. We don't do risky shortcuts. Here's what to realistically expect:

• SEO can be a roller-coaster, but the long-term curve bends up and compounds.
• Email and SMS typically produce measurable revenue within the first few campaigns.
• Site improvements pay for themselves through higher conversion rates.

Email and SEO typically build faster than paid channels in this category. Our cannabis and CBD case studies include conversions up 55% and organic conversions up 126% (Hemp Generation), and clicks up 416% (Formula30A).

Education wins trust in this category, so we recommend content that explains sourcing, lab testing and how products actually work, paired with organic community-building since paid social options are limited. GV PA Group saw content reach up 15x and profile visits up 615% after we rebuilt their social strategy.

Yes. We optimize for generative engines (GEO) as well as traditional search, so cannabis and CBD brands show up in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and the AI assistants shoppers increasingly use to research products. Our tracking includes AI mentions and citations, not just rankings.