Cracking the Cannabis Advertising Code Dan Mondello, the CEO of Rank Really High, discusses how his company helps cannabis businesses overcome online advertising challenges. They cover the limitations stemming from cannabis's classification alongside dangerous products and the importance of creative language in advertising. Dan also highlights the significance of local search, e-commerce-focused website experiences, and the potential for investment opportunities in Rank Really High. Produced by PodConx
Cracking the Cannabis Advertising Code
Dan Mondello, the Co-founder and CEO of Rank Really High, joins Dan Humiston to discuss how his company helps cannabis businesses maximize their website's visibility and conversions. They explore the challenges faced by cannabis companies when it comes to being online, such as advertising restrictions due to regulations, stigma, and nuances in the industry. Dan explains the difficulties associated with online advertising in the cannabis industry, emphasizing the limitations imposed by companies like Google due to cannabis's classification alongside dangerous products. He describes the process of running ads for dispensaries and the need for creative language in advertisements.
The discussion then shifts to website optimization and ranking high on Google searches. Dan highlights the importance of local search and the Google Business Profile in attracting customers. He emphasizes the need for e-commerce-focused, immersive website experiences to engage and retain visitors. They also discuss the significance of offering deals and recommendations on websites to drive more traffic and improve search engine rankings.
The conversation delves into the technical aspects of website building, with Dan explaining that Rank Really High offers a WordPress-based platform-as-a-service solution that integrates with dispensaries' POS systems and publishes inventory, giving them an advantage in search engine rankings.
Towards the end, the Dan asks about investment opportunities in Rank Really High, and Dan mentions that they recently closed a funding round with investors from the automotive and cannabis industries. He suggests that there might be future investment opportunities but highlights the importance of choosing the right investors who understand the company's goals and potential.
Overall, the podcast episode explores the challenges and solutions related to online visibility and website optimization for cannabis businesses, with a focus on Rank Really High's approach and success in the industry.
MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
Dan Mondello - https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-mondello-marketing/
Rank Really High - https://www.rankreallyhigh.com/
Recorded on Squadcast - https://squadcast.fm/
[00:00:00] Today on the mj bulls raising cannabis capital podcast. We are joined by dan mandela the co founder and ceo of rank really high Dan, welcome to the show
Thanks for having me, Dan. Great name, by the way.
Yeah, I only interview guys named dan
Makes sense. They're good. They're good folk. We're good folks.
folks. Yeah. Well, I am really excited to talk to you today because you have cracked a code That has so many people have tried and so many people have failed and I can't wait to hear how we do it Uh at rank really high you help cannabis companies maximize their websites visibility and conversions which everyone needs And I thought maybe before we would jump into exactly how you do it, we would talk conceptually or globally, why the cannabis company has so many challenges with, with online, being online.
And, you know, how are some of those challenges [00:01:00] really, really negatively impacting many company, many companies within the industry?
Well, you hit the nail on the head. It's a, um, it's a very constrained industry from us, from an advertising perspective, uh, you know, when I first got into it, I thought we'd use my playbook from our automotive play we did before this and our home services play prior to, it's a very different animal. Um, you can't do things with a lot of the advertising on television.
You don't do anything with print media for Radio's off limits in most markets. You're really left to billboards seem to be a the cannabis lawyers and car dealers are the ones keeping that industry in business right now, but enough of that. Um, and your website and one of the challenges that we saw very early in was that, um, again, especially by and large, you're using.
Uh, I framed technology, which has a lot of issues of visibility. Uh, specifically what you're asking, like, why is it so hard? It's [00:02:00] regulation, it's stigma, it's nuance. I mean, it's all those stupid, it's all those stupid reasons. Like, it is, you know, I go, I go rounds on this. Um, cannabis does not get the same treatment that alcohol gets with regards to Google advertising and others.
Uh, they can do a lot more things. I would argue that alcohol has hurt a lot more families than cannabis could ever possibly hurt. And
there's also this, there's also the smoking component. I mean, Google and others have. Declared war on smoking in general, carcinogens aside, they don't like it. They're, they're health nuts. I'm not sure why, but you know, they don't, they don't enjoy smokers. They don't want any product that involves smoking or vaping or anything of that nature.
So that's. That's the shorthand answer for why I think it's so hard and challenging.
Advertising is, is, is, in many cannabis companies, because they can't [00:03:00] advertise, they really don't even understand the value of advertising because they haven't had an opportunity to really do it, other than with PR. They spend a lot of money on PR, but that's not really advertising, that's, you know, it's a different, it's a two different, completely different things.
And that's why I. Thank you. Like like what you said we talk talk a little bit about I know most people understand the idea of you click you click on a an ad and It's sponsored the ad is sponsored or you bring you you type in in google A search and some sponsored ads come up and they're at the top of the how does that work?
Yeah. So, uh, search engines like Google, Bing, other oddball ones, they have a bidding auction system where advertisers can typically create an account, bid on some keywords or those audiences are found on a search or those keywords are typed in by a
[00:04:00] potential customer, an advertiser can place an ad, one of four ads positions on Google typically. It's very rare that you find an industry that doesn't, it's not able to do that. In fact, uh, Google seems to be the most prolific about this. They have a page on their support documentation called dangerous products and services where they group cannabis in the same context as, uh, cocaine.
Illegal opioids, morphine. I mean, it's crazy. And they're also grouping it into weapons, explosives, bombs, like, like things that injure the body and injure others. So it's an absurd classification really. Oh, that's, that's, that's trade crap. No, it's, um, it's, it wasn't easy. I'll, I'll be honest with you, Dan. It wasn't easy, a lot of trial and error, a lot of calling old contacts.
It helped us with our previous two companies, a lot of. You know, well that didn't work. Let's try this. And then reading the regs, reading the guidelines, reading between the regs and [00:05:00] the lines that got, I don't think we're overtly putting the word cannabis or clock shop or dispensary in all of our advertising or not, you know, you have to be a little bit creative there if you're in Burbidge and you're, and you're, you're content, but you know, we are able to run ads for dispensaries on a national scale and are doing it right now.
roughly 100 retailers.
That's so great. That's so great. Let's talk about Websites because I tell everybody Websites, basically your storefront and in nowadays people go to their website to before they make before they to learn about your business or to before they make a purchase. They like to go through the website, but if you're on page 35 of Google, they won't even see it.
So to your name, how do you get companies to rank really high on a Google search?
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, there's a couple different. There's a couple answers there, right? Local search is probably the most important aspect of your website, your digital marketing strategy. You need to make sure you show up for your GMB search. That's, that's that [00:06:00] local map location based card that shows up when you type in dispensary near me or a specific store name, getting your GMB or Google business profile.
Optimize the shelf is definitely one of the foundational things you're going to want to do as a retailer. Um, the right website. Not, not just having a website that says marijuana, cannabis, whatever. It's about having the right content and a really immersive e commerce experience. Most dispensaries today, the average single point dispensary that we've seen out there, not working with Franklin Lehigh or other similar type companies.
It has about 35 pages on it, mostly blogs focused on education, events, and charity type of content. That's not why customers come to a dispensary or any retail website, they come here to shop. So, regularly high focus, we build e commerce first experiences that are retailer focused. We make specials, and incentives, and deals, and bundles, and inventory, the star of the show because if you go to Target, [00:07:00] Home Depot sales.
It doesn't even matter anywhere you shop that is the experience that customers are expecting. And cannabis has really failed to deliver on that experience.
You're right. If I go to, if I was going to go to a dispensaries website. I want to see where the deals are. I want to see, like, give me a reason to be there. Like, like I need, if I go once and that's all, I see everything I need to see, I never need to go back. But if every time I go there, there's something, hey, for today, today's special is this.
And I love that idea. I think that's, I think that's sometimes like so obvious that it's overlooked.
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, we did a little experiment about a year and a half ago. Um, we put a, we put a link on the top of the website navigation that said specials and made it a bolder font than the other navigational elements within. I think it was two weeks time. It became the number four most visited page on the website.
People want to deal. They want to see what the store recommends, what clocks they want to group together. They're [00:08:00] looking for a recommendation. This is why direct to consumer hasn't really taken off in a really substantial or significant way. It's because it's not just the stigma of not wanting a van to show up at your house.
It's because consumers aren't educated to get enough on the parts. They have questions. They want recommendations. And websites that do a better job delivering those recommendations are the ones that are succeeding.
And then that drives more traffic to the website, which I'm assuming helps them rank on the, rank really high.
Yeah, that's correct, Dan. You know, most websites in the industry, I'd say probably 80 percent or greater, Are using iframe technology, which is really easy to install on your website and be up and running with e commerce quickly. And they're typically secure, but they have tremendous visibility limitations when it comes to search engine indexing.
They have trouble with Google analytics reporting really specific audience data. You really, there's no other industry that's choosing an iframe to deliver a store shopping experiences other than the cannabis industry. [00:09:00] It's because, you know, I come from the automotive space, as I think I mentioned earlier.
And every single website in the automotive space, whether you're a, you know, corner store, mom and pop's deal, used car dealership, or Gallup and Ford, the number one Ford dealership in the world, you have a website that has a page for every single product that you sell. When that page disappears and a new one replaces it for fresh inventory.
Uh, same thing with all the big boxers. Walmart, they have zillions and hundreds of thousands of pages on their website for products at any given time. It's cannabis. It hasn't really figured out that's the trick to doing really well in this, uh, industry.
It's great advice. But so in addition to helping people rank really high, I'm assuming you, you help people create their own, their websites, not using iframe technology, but, but you, you help them. Do you actually build websites for people
We do. We, we built what we call a platform as a service. It's a WordPress based website that will ingest, um, menu POS systems. [00:10:00] And it will publish that content, uh, automatically to the website sitemap, which is like the table of contents for what's on the website. It allows Google to see every product in stock, rank every product in stock.
Because most of the industry is still using iFriends, companies that go and use native e commerce typically have an unfair advantage. Because when someone types in a particular screen, or product that they're looking for, or brand, Because our websites like this have content that delivers an experience they're looking for, they outrank those websites using iFrame.
about you had success in a couple other industries? You're, you're, you're obviously having success in our industry and create and solving a problem that we've all needed someone to come over here and solve for us. Are there opportunities for investors or no, People to participate in your growth because I'm assuming you're going to need a lot To grow this team pretty fast it once people start realizing what you're providing
Yeah, absolutely. You know, um, I've always believed every single one of the companies I've been involved with has been [00:11:00] run to be profitable at all times, including this one. We actually just did close a round of funding with some really great investors, mostly from the automotive space, but a few from cannabis as well.
And the reason we selected those investors is because they built what we are trying to build in In the automotive industry, and we've got the top people who built incredibly successful website companies, incredibly successful inventory management tools. I mean, this is why Rank has an unfair advantage
over OEMs and the regulations are pretty strict in automotive.
So does that mean that there are opportunities or there are those opportunities are closed?
We, uh, you know, for right now they're, they're off the table, but you know, we're, we're always looking to build and grow this company in the best way possible. Um, yeah, we'll probably do another round at some point, but for right now we're doing really well at the round we just raised. And the advice we're getting is phenomenal.
But, uh, you know, we really tired gambit of investment of, um, of, uh, [00:12:00] fundraising opportunities. I mean, we looked at everything safe, uh, convertible notes, straight equity round and. You know, there's a lot of options out there. It depends on what the investors
Well, there's certainly a lot of options for somebody like doing what you're doing especially if you can show the pedigree of your success in other industries and and I'm gonna put all the Dan's information and Rank really high information in the show notes that if, so if you think maybe you can, might want to talk to Dan about convincing him to work, to let you part of, be part of his team.
I, I'm sure you'll take their call, right?
I'll help them make a lot of money is what I'll help them do. I'll help them teach their, I'll help them make their investment fruitful that they've already had in a retailer.
That's awesome. Well, Dan, I appreciate you being on the show today. And I, I'm so thankful that you finally, that you chose our industry as your, as your, as your third, your third success story. And, um, thank you again for being on the show.
Delighted to be here. Thank you so much.