Green Wednesday vs. Black Friday: Cannabis Sales Trends and Strategies

With Green Wednesday and Black Friday fast approaching, dispensaries and cannabis brands should be finalizing their cannabis advertising campaigns before the holidays. This all starts by coming up with a campaign plan for the most important sales days.

In Surfside’s holiday cannabis sales report, “The Season of Green 2022,” we analyzed millions of cannabis transactions from 2021 to better predict what would happen in 2022. Our findings showed two distinct types of buying behaviors: proactive and reactive.

Proactive purchasing happens when consumers are getting ready for an event and purchase beforehand. We saw this most recently during Halloween, when cannabis sales reached a peak on the Friday of Halloween Weekend, rising by +54%.

Reactive purchasing occurs when consumers intentionally purchase on the day of the event. We can see reactive purchasing on a day like 4/20, when sales grow by more +150% - even though April 20 usually falls on weekday.

So how do cannabis sales trends for Green Wednesday and Black Friday compare? And what about Cyber Monday?

Here’s what The Season of Green 2022 found:

1. Green Wednesday Cannabis Sales Trends

Green Wednesday is a cannabis holiday that is rumored to have started sometime around 2006 after a cannabis delivery service noticed a spike in orders the day before Thanksgiving. It’s an official cannabis sales holiday at this point. Sales rise by +72% on Green Wednesday, marking a significant opportunity for cannabis businesses to reach out to consumers.

Green Wednesday shows proactive purchasing behavior, since consumers are buying for the long weekend. People are getting off work, getting ready to spend time with family and friends, and stocking up on cannabis.

Key Takeaways

- Make sure your campaign is in market well ahead of Green Wednesday, since consumers are already thinking about buying for the holidays and making decisions about where to purchase ahead of time

- Reach out to cannabis consumers who made a purchase last year in November, as many consumers may be coming from out of town

- Build audiences and ad creatives based on different product categories - the product format with the highest growth on Green Wednesday is edibles (+82%), which indicates a casual, discreet customer segment less interested in smoking

2. Black Friday Cannabis Sales Trends

Black Friday cannabis sales are almost as strong as Green Wednesday. Overall, cannabis sales jump by +62% on the day after Thanksgiving. This means that there are two back-to-back opportunities during Thanksgiving Week to get in front of consumers.

The big difference is that Black Friday shopping is reactive - consumers are ready to buy on Black Friday itself. After all, it’s the biggest shopping day of the year. Unlike Green Wednesday, which is cannabis-specific, consumers are searching for deals in general. That means your ads have to be specific to Black Friday and make it easy for consumers to add cannabis to their cart or to visit a nearby dispensary when they’re already shopping elsewhere.

Key Takeaways

- Black Friday promotions should look and feel different than your Green Wednesday promotions to match the consumer journey

- Different deals can help bring back consumers who already purchased and reach new audiences who may have skipped Green Wednesday

- Make sure to run the Black Friday campaign throughout the weekend, when consumers are still in a purchasing mindset

3. Cyber Monday Cannabis Sales Trends

For most consumer goods, Cyber Monday represents another opportunity to drive sales, especially for ecommerce and other online channels. That’s not the case for cannabis: on Cyber Monday, sales drop -1.86% below the monthly average. That said, Cyber Monday sees the highest sales of any Monday in November, with sales +14% higher when compared to other Mondays in November.

However, it’s clear that the holiday weekend is over and cannabis purchasing patterns rapidly return to normal throughout the next few weeks.

Key Takeaways

- Cyber Monday cannabis sales are higher when compared to normal weekday sales trends

- Experiment with new offers and creative and target audiences that haven’t yet been tapped for Green Wednesday and Black Friday

- Focus on your ecommerce offerings, whether it’s delivery or pick-up, in order to match Cyber Monday consumer behavior

Looking Ahead

Overall, the most important targeting tactics all depend on building the right audiences. When you work with the right cannabis advertising platform, you can create targeted customer segments, including:

- Cannabis consumers that made purchases during the holiday season last year

- Cannabis consumers most likely to host holiday parties

- Shoppers that usually visit your nearby competitors

- Shoppers that haven't visited your website or store recently and may be likely to return

- Existing shoppers and loyal customers that may be interested in buying more than usual during the holiday season

- Audiences that are most engaged with any current ad campaigns

If you run your ad campaign now, you can optimize both your audiences and ad creative for December. That's important, especially since our report found that December cannabis sales are 10% higher than October and November. It’s one of the strongest months for cannabis businesses of the year, but with very specific timeframes. We’ll be diving deeper into our findings on December in our next article, or you can download the full Season of Green report to see the trends around the biggest sales opportunities leading up to New Year’s.

Get Your Copy of The Season of Green 2022 here.