Influencer Advisory™

For Marketing Leaders at Cannabis Dispensaries

Turn Local Creators Into the Reason People Walk Into Your Store

We find local creators with adult audiences, keep every post inside cannabis rules, and track each store visit back to the creator.

Apply for your free audit

Campaigns for 55+ brands · XIX Vodka: 200+ purchases in four days

Dispensaries can’t buy ads, so local creators are the channel

Meta and Google won’t run cannabis ads, and most posts that try to sell get pulled. Done right, local creators are how people find your store.

Why most cannabis dispensary creator programs stall

“Our ads got rejected and our page got flagged”

Why it happensPaid platforms block cannabis outright. Creator posts follow different rules, but only if they are made with those rules in mind.

“The creator showed product and the post came down”

Why it happensShowing the product or a price is often what trips the filter. Posts about the store and the staff stay up.

“Their followers live in another state”

Why it happensA big creator’s fans are spread everywhere. A dispensary needs people who live close enough to walk in this week.

“We worry about reaching kids”

Why it happensSome creators have young fans. We pick creators whose audience is adult and post where age gates exist.

“We can’t tell which post brought people in”

Why it happensStore visits don’t leave a click. Without a code or offer for each creator, the visit never gets counted.

“Every drop starts from scratch”

Why it happensNobody keeps a list of which creators filled the store, so the good ones never get booked again.

See why dispensary posts get pulled

Why we started

We realized this old system was not the way that the most successful companies were doing things. We learned this first hand.

We ran an influencer agency first, then a talent agency. Neither one worked for the brands we served, so we built something new.

First Didn’t work

We were an influencer agency

1,000 reached50 replied3 good

When we ran as an influencer agency, we would reach out to a thousand creators, hear back from about 50, and end up with three influencers who were actually good.

Then Didn’t work

We were a talent agency

every new briefthe same 50

When we ran as a talent agency, we managed our own roster, but every time a client handed us a really niche avatar, we were stuck choosing from the same 50 people.

Now What works

So we built our new method

The foundation of this boils down to building connections at scale with influencers and keeping them, and then scaling them without an operational nightmare.

See how it works for dispensaries

How we run influencer marketing for dispensaries

Three steps, built so the posts stay up and the store visits get counted.

  1. 1

    Find local creators with adult audiences

    Creators in your city whose viewers are adults and live near your stores. We pick them by who watches and where they live, not how many follow.

  2. 2

    Make posts that follow cannabis rules

    Posts about the store, the staff and the visit, not product claims or prices, on platforms that allow it. Every post gets checked against local rules first.

  3. 3

    Track every visit, then book the winners again

    Each creator gets their own in-store code or offer. The creators who bring people in get booked again for the next drop.

Start with your free dispensary audit

Examples

Two local campaigns we ran, and one for a health brand paid ads would not carry.

Our campaign: Toronto cafes

Tim Hortons

What we did

  1. Ran local Toronto creators around the Tims Urban locations
  2. Built the posts around the refreshed menu
  3. Aimed every post at people already walking past the store

The result

A matcha order turned into “I have to try that”, with the lift seen the same week.

Our campaign: a vodka launch

XIX Vodka

What we did

  1. Walked off the paid feed, where alcohol ads are boxed in
  2. Put ten nightlife creators inside the venue
  3. Ran it as a live activation over four days

The result

200+ purchases across four event days.

Our campaign: a respiratory supplement

Resbiotic

What we did

  1. Meta would not run the product, so we went to TikTok Shop
  2. Picked discovery creators for the category
  3. Wrote questions where claims used to be

The result

The whole run shipped with no takedowns.

Is this you?

 

Who it’s not for

Who it’s for

Business

Not a licensed dispensary

A licensed dispensary or cannabis retail chain

Locations

One store with no plans to grow

Several stores, or one busy store ready to grow

Creators

Never worked with a creator and no plans to

Already work with local creators, or ready to

What you count

Views and reach

Store visits and sales you can count

If that isn’t you yet and you still like where this is going, message us and we’ll refer you to another agency or tool.

Check if your stores qualify

Who we are

Dennis and Alice talking on the couch at the studio

We originally started in the media space helping YouTubers improve their content. We know firsthand exactly what it takes to make good content.

YouTubers we helped include Football Fundamental, Ground Glory and Kevin Aquatics, and we helped them implement systems that allow them to earn more.

Alice at the Hourglass launch at Sephora

We started Influencer Advisory around a pretty simple observation that influencer marketing is a fragmented industry.

Dennis in an Influencer Advisory shirt at the studio

After being in the influencer agency space, we noticed that it’s fragmented, unreliable and inconsistent, which is why it doesn’t actually become a staple marketing channel for most brands.

Alice with a guest on The Brand Growth Podcast

That’s what led us down the rabbit hole of looking through 6,200 plus interviews with CMOs, running campaigns for 55 plus brands, and learning what actually works in the influencer space.

Work with our team

Get a free audit of your dispensary creator program

See which local creators your buyers already follow, and what they would bring through the door.

Apply for your free audit