Twitter becomes first major social platform to allow weed ads

To advertise on Twitter, cannabis companies must be pre-authorized by Twitter and meet many requirements. Perhaps the most significant restriction is that cannabis companies can’t promote or offer for sale cannabis products.

Among the other requirements cannabis companies must adhere to:

• Be licensed by the “appropriate authorities”
• Only target ads to areas where they are licensed to promote products or services online
• Not target those under 21
• Assume all legal responsibility for complying with applicable laws and regulations

Cannabis advertisements also can’t appeal to minors, make any health claims or show any depictions of cannabis use.
Even with this change in Twitter policy, some cannabis companies won’t be able to take advantage of the platform for advertising due to state laws restricting online cannabis advertising.

Adcann first reported the change to Twitter’s advertising rules.

Courting cannabis companies

Beyond simply allowing cannabis advertising, Twitter is actively wooing the industry.

Many advertising platforms require minimum buys of $5,000 to $10,000 to get started. But Twitter is not setting any minimum for cannabis companies, explained Deneson.

Twitter is also offering a one-to-one match of every advertising dollar from cannabis companies until the end of March.

So if a cannabis company runs a $50 campaign on the platform, it effectively amounts to a $100 campaign.

“That’s one of the most generous things that an advertiser and publisher relationship can kick off with,” Deneson said, who hopes that advertising dollars from the industry could become a great revenue stream for Twitter.

Wary of weed

Mainstream advertising platforms have been reluctant to serve a federally illegal industry, in part due to concerns about existing advertisers not wanting to be positioned next to cannabis ads. But they’re also concerned about how to validate whether a potential advertiser is a licensed business.

The change in Twitter’s policy is so new that it’s unclear how long it will take for a cannabis brand to get through the validation process.

Because Twitter’s incentive program lasts until the end of March, Deneson expects the platform will be “accelerating this review process as quickly as possible.”

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment for more details.

However, the company will have to invest resources into reviewing whether cannabis ads meet its own guidelines, which can be difficult to nail down. For example, what exactly makes an ad appealing to minors?

“There’s going to be a human element in this decision making,” Deneson said.