Facebook Advertising for the Hemp Industry

Without a doubt, Facebook (and its family of apps including Instagram), is the most widely used social network. Daily usage on its platforms, along with the diverse ad products and robust targeting capabilities available, towers in comparison to other social channels. For those reasons, it’s no wonder why expanding brands usually start here when assessing a social advertising strategy. While the opportunity of Facebook ads may look ripe for the picking, there’s a thick layer of obscurity as it relates to the hemp industry.

Though not specifically mentioned in its ad policy, Facebook has reported that it prohibits ads that promote the use of drugs and related products. This includes any mention of ingestible hemp products, such as hemp seeds and products containing hemp seeds. However, they have communicated to our agency that they do allow ads promoting non-ingestible hemp products, such as hemp soap, as long as they do not promote or allude to psychoactive effects.

Let’s be clear, just because Facebook says they allow ads promoting non-ingestible hemp products doesn’t mean that a brand won’t run into approval-process obstacles when trying to launch campaigns. Even when a brand is seemingly within policy, Facebook has discretion to disable ad accounts at any time with little to no explanation. We’ve experienced this numerous times before with other industries, including pharma/medical and banking. 

From our communication with Facebook, “CBD is still very tricky and the only avenue of any success (pending creative policy) is to take a branding approach and nothing related to products.” The policy relating to non-ingestible hemp seems to be where things get the most confusing. Facebook makes it sound like you can in fact promote those products, but from what we’ve observed, referencing “hemp” or “CBD” in general (in ad copy or on a landing page that an ad directs to) will likely get you flagged. So you can showcase non-ingestible hemp products, but you can’t call them out in ad copy or on a landing page – it’s a contradictory mess!

This table breaks down our observations as they relate to Facebook advertising:

Clear as mud, right?

Ads Out in the Wild

We’ve established that even if an ad appears to be within policy, this doesn’t mean it won’t get flagged. It’s also important to remember the counter to that: just because an ad goes against policy, doesn’t mean it will get flagged. Let’s take a look at a CBD brand who, at the time of writing this, is currently running several different Facebook Ads.

Ad 1:

This ad is the most perplexing. It appears to be against policy because a.) it showcases an ingestible CBD product, b.) it’s promoting the sale of said product with the “Shop Now” CTA, and c.) the word CBD is in the brand’s name! (Though that is the only place it references CBD explicitly, so maybe brand/page names are exempt.)

Ad 2:

This ad appears to be within policy because it showcases non-ingestible CBD and doesn’t reference CBD explicitly (aside from the brand name including the word CBD that we referenced in ad 1)

Ad 3:

This ad appears to be within policy because it’s not showing any products and doesn’t reference CBD explicitly (aside from the brand name including the word CBD that we referenced in ad 1). Technically, you could argue that it’s promoting the sale of CBD products (against policy), but the brand does not directly reference those products. They likely were deliberate in their omission of what products qualify for the discount, using “15% at checkout” instead of “15% off CBD Oil”. It’s also important to note that none of the landing pages these 3 ads directed to referenced “hemp” or “CBD” either. They cleverly name their products on that landing page without the CBD reference (see screenshot from landing page below). It’s only after a user clicks those categories where they are redirected to product pages that reference CBD–and since those pages aren’t the ones being used in the ad itself, they appear to be complying with policy.

Screenshot from landing page:

Conclusion:

Facebook has communicated with us that their policy “prohibits ads that promote CBD or ingestible hemp. Our Community Standards, which are the guidelines for what people can and cannot post in organic content do allow for content to promote the use of CBD and hemp but prohibit the attempt to buy, sell, or trade marijuana.”  The best way to go about Facebook Advertising for the hemp industry is to avoid a product-focused approach. Ads focusing on the lifestyle of their consumer without explicitly referencing hemp or CBD has a much better chance of getting approved and ultimately being seen. Trafficking ads to a dedicated landing page that informs a user about the brand and its benefits without promoting a sale directly within it may help avoid policy violations (make sure to omit references to hemp/CBD there, and rely on links to other pages from that landing page to showcase the products more specifically). Taking these steps, however, does not guarantee you’ll have a clear path to advertising success on Facebook. At the end of the day, hemp-industry brands should keep the following things in mind when considering advertising on the channel:

• Think creatively
• Be patient and prepared for obstacles
• Know the risk before launching anything (account potentially being disabled)