How to Use Lookalike Audiences for Dispensary Marketing Campaigns

If you’ve advertised on channels like Facebook, Google or Instagram before, you’ve probably heard the term “lookalike audience.” A lookalike audience is a group of potential customers with similar characteristics as your selected customer segment. “Lookalike audiences” are determined by factors like demographics, spending power, location, and web and purchase history.

Lookalike audiences can be a powerful tool for dispensary marketing, as it allows you to find new customers that will likely exhibit the same shopping habits as your pre-selected audience group. Dispensaries commonly use lookalike audiences based on consumer segments from their Point-of-Sale (POS) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology, which leads to finding new customers who are likely to become extremely brand loyal.

So what do you need to know to run a dispensary marketing campaign with lookalike audiences?

Here’s how to get started:

1. Lookalike Audiences Start with Your Data.

To start building a lookalike audience, you need to upload your customer list to your dispensary marketing solution. At Surfside, we make it very easy to anonymously provide us first-party customer data from a file or directly connect your CRM or POS to automate delivery of this customer data. Selecting a segment of your most valuable customers is also a great way to further find the most relevant set of new users that are not yet customers of your dispensary.

You don’t need to know everything about your customers. Customer Data Platforms give you the ability to further understand the purchase habits and value of each customer to help you build stronger segments and lookalikes.

2. Different Goals = Different Audiences.

When you do upload your customer list, the lookalike audience might change depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. That’s why setting goals for each dispensary marketing campaign is important. There’s sometimes a big difference between cannabis consumers who usually order online, buy in-store, and get curbside pick-up.

For the most accurate lookalike audience, you’ll want to segment your audiences based on the goals you want to achieve, whether it’s driving more online orders or getting more people to come through the door. Having more details on your customers transaction habits will help your marketing efforts in the future.

3. Marketing Solutions Learn More About Your Best Audiences Over Time.

Most dispensary marketing solutions are powered by machine learning. Once you’ve built a lookalike audience and launched an ad campaign, the marketing solution will learn what works as the audience interacts with ads and buys products. The algorithm will adjust to keep targeting more potential customers with similar characteristics to the people who have already bought from the ad campaign.

It All Starts with Your Data

The better customer data you have, the better your lookalike audiences. Make sure you know which dispensary customers are your best customers. Store them in a way that makes sense and train everyone in the business - from budtenders all the way up - to keep customer data organized. That way, when it’s time to reach a group that looks just like them, you’ll already have the data you need to really succeed.

Want to get started with cannabis advertising and lookalike audiences? Register for a demo with Surfside!