Cannabis Marketing Live

Cannabis brands have never been able to sell a licensed product directly to the consumer. Every campaign has to hand the shopper off to a retailer, and the moment that happens the brand loses the cart data, the order data, and the customer record. That structural gap is why brand-side digital budgets have stayed conservative for years.

In this episode of The Drop, Kris Walker of Hoodie Analytics walks MediaJel CEO Jake Litke through a new add to cart function that lets consumers complete a purchase on the brand's own site and pick the order up at a licensed retailer. Kris co-founded Hoodie Analytics, which powers menu intelligence, pricing visibility, and where to buy experiences for just under two hundred cannabis brand sites. Jake brings the media side, drawing on MediaJel's campaign data from brand and co-marketing programs across brands, retailers, and MSOs.

What gets covered:

• Why licensed cannabis brands cannot sell direct, and what changes when checkout happens on the brand's own property
• The customer data a brand captures at checkout, including email, phone, and marketing opt-in
• Basket diversion measured in two live MediaJel campaign analyses, where roughly half the SKUs purchased by driven customers fell outside the advertising brand's portfolio
• Coverage today: add to cart live at roughly half of dispensaries in market, with a target of 75 to 80 percent by end of quarter, on a product locator that reaches close to 98 percent of dispensaries through 66 e-commerce integrations
• A full walkthrough of the checkout flow, order routing to the retailer, and how the single active cart rule works
• iFrame versus native implementation, full API access, and what the planned 2.0 release changes for SEO
• Google Analytics integration and UTM pass-through for brand conquesting and paid search programs
• Campaign-specific and event-specific shopping experiences with a hand-picked dispensary buy network
• Why transactability on a brand site matters for AI shopping, answer engines, and agentic search

Want more great cannabis marketing tips?!

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Dispensary promotions are one of the fastest levers operators reach for, but without accurate point-of-sale cost data, most discounts are run blind. In this episode of Cannabis Marketing Live, MediaJel CEO Jake Litke sits down with Dina Nagib, founder of Grass Goddess Consulting, to unpack why so many retailers don't actually know their true margin on a promotion, how vendor credits and cost data gaps quietly erode profitability, and what it takes to build a data infrastructure that survives a point-of-sale switch. Dina brings 15 years of pharmaceutical data and compliance experience into the cannabis space, where she now helps operators select the right software, clean up their data, and build dashboards that reveal what's really happening on the shelf.

The conversation covers the full lifecycle of getting a dispensary's data under control: assessing point-of-sale fit, fixing naming conventions, building inventory health visibility, and using dashboards to test promotional strategy against real cost and margin data. Dina and Jake also dig into two of the most common promotion mistakes in cannabis retail, first-time customer discounts and competitor-driven price matching, and discuss why staying connected to existing customers often outperforms chasing new ones. This session is most useful for dispensary owners, general managers, and marketing teams who want to understand whether their promotions are actually profitable, not just busy.

Want more great cannabis marketing tips?!

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Cannabis compliance is one of the most consequential and often underestimated parts of running a retail or multi-state operation. Every state has its own regulatory framework, enforcement approach, and inspection cadence, and the gap between a well-run compliance program and a reactive one often shows up as six-figure fines, license risk, or operational breakdown. This episode of Cannabis Marketing Live brings together Jake Litke, CEO of MediaJel, and Jenny Germano, founder of ICS Consulting and one of the most experienced compliance operators in the country, for a candid conversation about what compliance actually looks like in practice.

The podcast covers the full compliance landscape for cannabis retailers and MSOs, including how state inspections work, what the most common violations are and why they keep happening, how to approach licensing transfers and M&A, how to decide which SOPs to keep when merging two businesses, the compliance challenges specific to multi-state operators, and where the international market currently stands. Whether you're running one location or operating across several states, this session offers a clear, operational view of how to build compliance programs that actually hold up.

Want more great cannabis marketing tips?!

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What does your product mix actually say about your dispensary's health?

In this episode of Cannabis Marketing Life, Jake sits down with Kris Walker, co-founder of Hoodie Analytics, to talk about what 6 years of cannabis retail data actually reveals — and what most operators are still getting wrong.

Kris brings a rare perspective: nearly 20 years at Nielsen, a CPG background, and a front-row seat to how cannabis retail has matured (and where it's still stuck). The conversation goes deep on trade area data, product mix decisions, and why chasing discount-driven revenue might be quietly killing your margins.

In this episode:

• How Hoodie Analytics went from professional services to working with 16 of the top 20 cannabis brands in the country
• Why beverages don't sell online but fly off shelves in bodega-style stores
• The discount death spiral — and why 90% of marketing spend goes to your least profitable customers
• Distribution, ACV, and the difference between a brand that sells because of salespeople vs. one consumers actually want
• AI buyer and seller agents: what Hoodie is building (and why hallucinations are still a real problem)
• Trade area analysis and how to use competitor data to make smarter shelf decisions
• Brand vs. retailer co-marketing: where the opportunity is, and why it's been slow to happen

Connect with Kris Walker: [email protected] | hoodieanalytics.com

Free cannabis marketing courses: mediajel.com/academy

Want more great cannabis marketing tips?!

Join thousands of others and gain access to exclusive cannabis marketing content, timely regulatory news, and advertising support: www.mediajel.com/cannabis-business-resource/

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Why your best retention tool isn't your loyalty program — it's what happens between purchase one and purchase two

In ten years of working with dispensaries, Steph Vrona has seen the same gap show up almost every time.

It's not the loyalty program. It's not the email list. It's not even the promotions.

It's what happens in the 48 hours after a customer's first visit, and most operators have no visibility into what that experience actually looks like, or whether it's working at all.

Here's what the data tells us: only 16% of first-time dispensary customers continue shopping at the same store after their initial visit. Medium

Not 45%. Not 60%. Sixteen percent.

That means for every 100 new customers who walked through your door this month, 84 of them are already gone, and most dispensaries have no system in place to know why or what to do about it.

This webinar is about fixing that. Not with a bigger ad budget. Not with deeper discounts. With a clear-eyed audit of what's actually happening inside your customer journey and a practical framework for closing the gaps.

Last month, we talked about the 420 spike. This month is about the system.

If you attended our 420 retention webinar, you heard the macro case: why post-event traffic doesn't convert to repeat revenue, and what the best operators do differently in the 30 days after a major sales moment.

This session goes one level deeper. It's the operational layer,  the one that determines whether any retention strategy, loyalty program, or marketing effort you run actually sticks.

Because here's what most retention content misses: 88% of cannabis shoppers say budtenders shape their purchase decisions, and 85% say they'd return for knowledgeable staff. Sweedpos

The biggest retention lever in your business isn't in your CRM. It's on your floor. And most dispensaries have never audited it.

The audit most operators have never run.

Steph will walk us through:

• The 5-point post-purchase audit you need to run on your store this week
• A map of the most common customer journey breakdowns, and the fix for each one
• How to segment your existing customer base into retention priority tiers using data you already have
• The specific communication cadence that moves a first-time buyer toward a second visit — without discounting

If you've never formally audited your customer journey, this session will show you what you've been missing. If you have, Steph will show you where most audits stop short and what the next layer looks like.

Want more great cannabis marketing tips?!

Join thousands of others and gain access to exclusive cannabis marketing content, timely regulatory news, and advertising support: www.mediajel.com/cannabis-business-resource/

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The European cannabis market is moving, but is it ready for you? In this episode of Cannabis Marketing Live, host Jake Litke (CEO of MediaJel) sits down with Jill Agnello, founder of JA Global Consulting, to break down what's actually happening across European and global cannabis markets right now.

Jill has spent the last four years embedded in the international cannabis trade show circuit, from ICBC Berlin to Spannabis in Bilbao, and launched her own consultancy after leading international strategy at True Terpenes. She brings a grounded, boots-on-the-ground perspective on where the real opportunities are, and more importantly, where U.S. companies keep going wrong.

In this episode:

• Germany's "full rec" reality and why it's nothing like California or New York
• Why there's no consumer brand market in Europe yet (and when that might change)
• The novel foods framework blocking CBD edibles and beverages across the EU
• Which markets are most viable right now for non-plant-touching businesses
• What South Africa, Thailand, Australia, Japan, and Latin America look like
• The three biggest mistakes companies make when entering international markets
• Why "intelligence before infrastructure" is the only smart entry strategy
• How U.S. political tensions are (and aren't) affecting business conversations abroad

If you're a cannabis, hemp, or CBD company weighing international expansion, this is the reality check you need before you book a flight.

Want more great cannabis marketing tips?!

Join thousands of others and gain access to exclusive cannabis marketing content, timely regulatory news, and advertising support: www.mediajel.com/cannabis-business-resource/

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A live webinar for cannabis operators who want predictable revenue, not just big days.

Here's the number that should keep you up at night.

Most dispensaries lose 45–55% of first-time buyers after a single visit. On a normal week that's painful. After 420, when your store just processed more new customers than any other day of the year, it's a revenue crisis hiding inside a great sales report.

You ran the promotions. You drove the traffic. You had a record day.

And in the next 30 days, roughly half of those new customers will never come back.

Not because your product wasn't good. Not because your staff wasn't helpful. Because there was no system waiting for them on the other side of the sale.

This problem isn't unique to cannabis, and that's the point.

Beverage brands, beauty companies, and DTC wellness brands have spent the last decade solving exactly this. The playbook exists. Post-purchase sequencing, win-back windows, frequency triggers, segmentation by behavior rather than spend, these are not new ideas. They're proven mechanics from industries that faced the same retention cliff cannabis operators are hitting right now.

Cannabis operators don't need to build these systems from scratch. They need to borrow them and adapt them for a regulated, dispensary-first retail environment.

That's what this webinar is about.

What you'll walk away with.

Not frameworks. Not slides to screenshot. Actual things you can brief your team on Monday morning.

• The 5-to-7 day rule: industry data shows repeat purchase rate drops 40–60% if you don't re-engage a new customer within the first week after their visit.
• How to segment your 420 buyers into 4 retention tiers using data you already have in your POS and why treating them all the same is costing you basket size and visit frequency
• The one metric that predicts 90-day retention better than transaction count, most dispensaries never track it, but the operators with the strongest repeat visit rates obsess over it
• The CPG playbook translated for cannabis, specific retention mechanics from outside the industry mapped to what's actually available to a dispensary operator right now
• Why your loyalty program probably isn't doing what you think it is — and the single change that converts points-collectors into actual repeat buyers

Consider what's at stake: the average cannabis consumer shops at 3 different dispensaries. Your 420 customers are already comparison shopping. And research shows that increasing customer retention by just 5% can drive profits up by as much as 95%. The math on retention isn't complicated. The execution is where most operators stall — and that's exactly what this webinar is built to fix.

Want more great cannabis marketing tips?!

Join thousands of others and gain access to exclusive cannabis marketing content, timely regulatory news, and advertising support: www.mediajel.com/cannabis-business-resource/

Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/MediaJel

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How smart in-store and digital merchandising increases basket size, repeat rate, and full-price sell-through with Hannah O'Brien from Echtrai. 

Most dispensaries think retention is a loyalty program problem.
Most think merchandising is a store layout problem.

Both are wrong.

Retention is driven by experience.
Merchandising is what controls that experience at the point of decision.

If you don’t control merchandising, you are forced to compete on price.
If you do control it, you can protect margin and increase LTV simultaneously.

‍

The Margin Problem No One Wants to Admit

Across cannabis retail, margin compression has become the norm. Increased competition, price transparency, and consumer deal sensitivity have pushed many dispensaries into a reactive cycle of discounting.

On the surface, this looks like a pricing problem. In reality, it is a behavioral problem.

When customers are overwhelmed, under-guided, or forced to choose based purely on brand or THC percentage, they default to price. Over time, this erodes perceived value and trains them to wait for promotions.

The issue is not simply that discounts exist. It is that merchandising is not intentionally controlling the decision-making environment.

‍

Dispensary Merchandising Is Not What You Think It Is

Merchandising is often associated with layout decisions. Shelf placement. Displays. Store design.

But its impact goes far beyond visual presentation.

Merchandising shapes the decision-making environment. It influences what feels valuable, what feels safe to choose, what feels premium, and what gets added to the basket.

When merchandising is treated as a strategic growth lever rather than a visual one, it becomes a powerful driver of margin and customer behavior.

In this session, you will see how intentional structural adjustments across both physical and digital environments can influence purchasing outcomes in measurable ways.

‍

Retention Is Decided Earlier Than You Think

Retention is often discussed in the context of loyalty programs, SMS campaigns, and email automation.

Those tools matter.

But the foundation of retention is built at the first purchase experience. If that experience feels transactional and price-driven, repeat behavior becomes harder to earn. If it feels guided and confident, returning becomes natural.

‍

Your Menu Is Already Influencing Behavior 

Today’s cannabis customer often interacts with your online menu before ever entering your store. That digital environment shapes expectations, frames perceived value, and influences which products feel comparable.

Menu structure does more than organize inventory. It guides attention, simplifies or complicates decisions, and subtly influences whether customers focus on price or on experience.

In this session, we’ll examine how in-store and digital merchandising operate as a connected system, influencing basket size, full-price sell-through, add-on behavior, and repeat visits. The adjustments are often small. The revenue implications are not.

‍

Who Should Attend This Session?

This webinar is designed for:

• Dispensary owners
• Retail managers
• MSO retail leadership
• Operations teams
• Merchandising decision-makers

If you are trying to increase revenue while protecting profitability, this session will introduce a framework for thinking about retail growth differently.

Want more great cannabis marketing tips?!

Join thousands of others and gain access to exclusive cannabis marketing content, timely regulatory news, and advertising support: www.mediajel.com/cannabis-business-resource/

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Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/mediajel/

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Female and minority founders face unique challenges in cannabis fundraising. But preparation is everything, and knowing what to do after you secure funding is just as critical as getting it.

This isn't just another cannabis funding webinar. This is a practical two-part playbook: how to position yourself for funding success as a woman or minority entrepreneur, and how to turn that capital into sustainable revenue once you have it.

What You'll Learn

Cannabis Funding Prep for Women & Minority Entrepreneurs

• How to position your business for funding success as a woman or minority entrepreneur
• What investors are actually looking for (and common misconceptions)
• Building your network and leveraging community for funding opportunities
• Lessons from raising capital for Event and building Blunt Brunch
• Resources and programs specifically for women and minority cannabis entrepreneurs
• How to tell your story in a way that resonates with funders

Post-Funding Execution Strategy for Cannabis Startups

• What to do in the first 90 days after securing capital
• Turning investment into revenue: prioritizing your spend
• Common mistakes that drain your runway (and how to avoid them)
• Building a marketing and growth strategy that delivers ROI
• Creating systems and processes that scale
• How Ernest's incubator helps BIPOC entrepreneurs execute after receiving grants

The Full Picture This conversation covers both sides of the funding equation: getting ready to raise capital as a female or minority founder, and executing effectively once you have it. Whether you're pre-funding or post-funding, you'll walk away with actionable guidance.

Why This Matters Now

• Women receive only 2.3% of venture capital funding across all industries
• Minority founders face even steeper odds in securing traditional funding
• The cannabis funding gap is wider for female and BIPOC entrepreneurs
• Most founders who secure capital struggle with execution and burn through their runway
• Having a clear post-funding playbook is the difference between success and failure

Who Should Attend

• Cannabis entrepreneurs seeking funding
• Founders who've raised capital but need execution guidance
• Women and BIPOC entrepreneurs navigating funding challenges

What to Expect

This is a live, interactive conversation. We'll cover real challenges, real solutions, and leave time for your questions. You'll walk away with:

✓ A clear understanding of funding options available today 
✓ Practical next steps based on your business stage 
✓ Insights from entrepreneurs who've successfully navigated this journey 
✓ Resources and connections to explore further

Want more great cannabis marketing tips?!

Join thousands of others and gain access to exclusive cannabis marketing content, timely regulatory news, and advertising support: www.mediajel.com/cannabis-business-resource/

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State market maturity determines your cannabis marketing strategy. What works in an early-stage market won’t work in a mature or highly competitive environment. As cannabis market growth accelerates across the U.S., operators need a 2026-ready strategy that adapts to each stage of maturity.

This webinar breaks down the essential frameworks for three distinct maturity tiers:

• Pre-Launch & New Markets: Build the right foundation before your doors open and avoid costly early mistakes.
• Growth Markets: Scale smart as competition heats up, regulations stabilize, and dispensary growth accelerates.
• Mature Markets: Cut through the noise and capture market share in crowded states

Who Needs a 2026 Cannabis Marketing Strategy?

• Dispensary Owners & Operators planning expansion or looking to optimize current markets
• MSO Marketing Teams managing multi-state campaigns across varying regulations
• Cannabis Brand Marketers navigating retailer relationships and direct-to-consumer strategies
• New Market Entrants preparing to launch in emerging markets‍
• Marketing Directors seeking compliant, measurable strategies to justify their budget

Markets: CA, CO, WA, OR, MI

When everyone's advertising, how do you stand out in 2026?

In mature markets, the rules have changed. You're no longer competing on novelty; you're competing on precision, brand loyalty, and operational excellence. This section of the webinar focuses on advanced cannabis marketing strategy principles designed for high-density, high-competition environments.

Learn How To:

• Leverage advanced audience segmentation beyond basic demographics
• Optimize your marketing mix when CTV, DOOH, and digital all compete for budget
• Build defensible competitive moats through data and customer retention
• Use predictive analytics to identify your highest-value customers

Key Discussion Topics:

• How mature operators are approaching cannabis budget allocation for 2026
• The shift from acquisition-first to retention-first strategies
• Competitive positioning when 10+ dispensaries are within 5 miles
• Attribution modeling in states with established e-commerce ecosystems

You've won a license in a new state. Now what?

Expanding into a new market is expensive and risky. The operators who succeed enter with a clear go-to-market plan that accounts for local regulations, competitive dynamics, and customer education needs. 

Learn How To:

• Conduct rapid competitive analysis, including product mix and pricing vs competitors
• Build compliant pre-launch awareness campaigns
• Build strong merchandising and brand foundations before scaling media
• Prioritize marketing channels based on state-specific regulations
• Establish measurement frameworks from day one

Key Discussion Topics:

• The 90-day market entry marketing timeline
• How to research and map your competitive landscape quickly
• Building brand awareness when you can't use traditional channels
• Regulatory pitfalls that delay launches (and how to avoid them)
• Resource allocation: what to handle in-house vs. outsource
  
  

Markets: IL, NJ, NY, OH, MD, and Emerging

Build it right the first time. 

Scale smart as competition increases, regulations stabilize, and your dispensary growth strategy becomes critical to long-term success.

Growth markets offer the biggest opportunities and risks. Get your foundation wrong, and you'll spend years (and millions) trying to correct it. This module focuses on building scalable systems aligned with long-term cannabis market growth.

Learn How To:

Want more great cannabis marketing tips?!

Join thousands of others and gain access to exclusive cannabis marketing content, timely regulatory news, and advertising support: www.mediajel.com/cannabis-business-resource/

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