12 Advertising Terms Cannabis Businesses Should Know

The tech industry loves buzzwords. And, to be fair, so do dispensaries and brands - whether you’re talking about Delta-8, CBN, or just “trees.” Every industry has a set of vocabulary that sounds like a different language to an outsider. As you get more sophisticated with cannabis advertising, you’re bound to come across marketing terms that sound unfamiliar. 

These acronyms and buzzwords are usually important ways to talk about strategy and measurement.
We wanted to put together a cheat sheet of what types of words are used most commonly when dispensaries and brands want to understand cannabis advertising campaigns in more detail.
 

This can help you ask the right questions when speaking to different advertising partners and understand how to categorize different results. Here are the most common advertising buzzwords you’re most likely to come across:
 

1. Impression
An “impression” means an ad was delivered to the website or app. The more impressions, the more times that your ad was delivered and can be seen by your target audience.
 

2. Total Uniques
Since impressions measure the total number of times an ad was delivered and could be seen by your audience, you’ll also want to understand the number of total people who were reached by your ads. Total uniques represents the total number of people who were reached by your ad.
 

3. Click
Clicks indicate how many times your ad received a click, tap, or other form engagement with the intent of visiting a website or the destination URL in the ad.
 

4. Click-through Rate (CTR)
The click-through rate is measured by clicks divided by impressions. In other words, the ratio of users who click on a specific ad compared to the number of total users who were served the ad.

5. Cost Per Click (CPC)
Your cost-per-click is calculated by dividing media spend by number of clicks. This is the ratio of your media spend compared to users who click on a specific ad and is a helpful indicator of overall advertising cost.

6. Cost-Per-Action (CPA)
Your cost-per-action is measured by dividing media spend by the predefined action or conversion event. This represents the ratio of users that complete a predefined action. At Surfside, we usually define an “action” as an online order or other conversion. Think of this as another level down from CPC.
 

7. Cost Per Mille (CPM)
Is the pricing metric for digital advertising. Cost-per-mille (CPM) represents the cost per thousand impressions, which can help you measure the cost of how much you pay compared to the number of ads served.
 

8. Cost Per Visit (CPV)
If you’re primarily driving foot traffic to a retail location like a dispensary, cost per visit (CPV) is an important metric to measure. By dividing your media spend by the number of visits attributed to the ad campaign, you can get a good idea of how many customers are coming to the location who saw or clicked an ad.
 

9. Video Completion Rate (VCR)
If you’re running video campaigns that feature ads on connected TV, OTT, websites or mobile apps, you’ll want to track your video completion rate (VCR). VCR tells you how many people were engaged with the video content from start to finish.
 

10. Attribution Window
The attribution window is the period of time in which the advertising partner will credit the advertisement to the conversion event or action. For example, a 14-day attribution window, means that if a user saw or clicked on your ad and then made a purchase within 14-days of ad exposure, you can measure that purchase as part of your ad campaign’s success.
 

11. ROAS / ROI
Return on ad spend (ROAS) and return on investment (ROI) are the two terms that you’ll want to know when it comes to measuring the impact of your ads on your business. ROAS is specific to your ad spend and a crucial measurement term for understanding how much you spend on your ad campaign and what you’re getting back from it. ROI is a more general measurement metric that calculates the total value of all your spend across your marketing and advertising channels.
 

12. Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA)
Multi-touch attribution (MTA) is an attribution methodology based on calculating the value of each touchpoint in the customer journey that ends up leading to a conversion. This helps you understand how to measure the return on each stage of the customer journey and improve on the experience that works best.
 

Measuring What Matters
When you start to learn the vocabulary of ad campaigns, you can also start to learn more about how each campaign works. The most important part is understanding what you want to measure. That way, each time a campaign runs, you’re able to see whether it helped you achieve your goals and how you can continue to improve campaign performance each time.

Ready to put your new knowledge to the test? Register for a demo with Surfside!