How much would you pay for a new customer or… what is your CPA?
Let’s lay out some basics for those who may be new to digital marketing.
CPA stands for Cost per Acquisition.
It’s a standard metric in marketing & when combined with your customers’ average LTV (lifetime value) it can help you understand how much you can spend to acquire a new customer.
Cannabis companies face a unique challenge because of how hard it can be to get the attention of new prospects due to advertising restrictions on traditional digital channels like Google & Facebook which do not (officially) allow cannabis ads on their platforms.
As such, companies in the cannabis space need to be creative with how they raise awareness of their brand and one of the best ways to get found is through search engine optimization (SEO).
“Dispensary near me” for example, is a highly coveted search because that person is clearly searching for a dispensary as they most likely want to buy some weed… probably NOW since they clearly aren’t looking to wait around for a “cannabis delivery” service in their area.
“Benny Blunto, loud plug” is an even more specific product search that, if satisfied, has an astronomically high chance of converting as a sale since it’s so specific.
SEO 101. Be the source.
Where did the information originate from and how many people are linking to it., that’s pretty much how Google works. The more people that link to you, the more people who share your content, the higher of an authority you are perceived to be in Google’s eyes, which in turn means your page will rank higher in relevant searches.
There are some important details like the page rank those links are coming from, how many other links are on that page, are there “no-follow” tags around the link & how spammy of a site is it, etc… However, at the end of the day, it still comes down to a math equation that looks something like this…
(PR+DA=SERP)
Page rank, plus Domain Authority = Your Search Engine Rank on Page.
So let’s apply this thinking to Dutchie & how their menu works. (BTW, I’m picking on Dutchie here, but the same applies to all the other iframe menu providers, they’re all using the same playbook of leveraging their clients’ product information to rank their own websites).
When you put a menu on your site, you’re typically embedding it on a page like /menu or /shop, or you might use a subdomain like shop.yourname.com. However you set it up, when people search for cannabis products even if your store comes up in the search, when the users click the link in the search result, they’re linking through to Dutchies site, not yours.
Sure, it may be your menu page (if you’re lucky) but it’s your menu page on Dutchies website, so their site gets the value of that search, not your site.
Dutchie gets all the search traffic & all the Domain Authority passed on by thousands of cannabis dispensary websites that are (typically unknowingly) serving up their domain name as a way for Dutchie (who they pay) to get free traffic from search engines at their expense.
Good deal for Dutchie, not so much for your dispensary.
Try it for yourself, in Google, type “SITE:YourDomainName.com”.
This will show you all of the pages on your site that Google has indexed.
If you’re like most dutchie menu users, you’ll only have a handful of pages indexed, things like your homepage, about, and a contact page. But no pages that are specifically product-related, unless you created them separately.
If you WERE able to buy ads for your cannabis business (which we can help you with BTW, but I digress) how much do you think the cost per click or CPM would be?
It’s common for “local businesses” (restaurants, dentists, hairdressers…) to pay between $1 & $5 per click for paid ads. Some categories like realtors & car dealerships pay as much as $40 per click to get new leads.
Can you imagine how much they would pay if they were not allowed to advertise on Facebook or Google? You would pay a premium wouldn’t you, to reach a target audience that was otherwise elusive?
So with some very basic math, If we assume a store with 50 products listed (most have a lot more), even at a relatively average value of $10 per click, if a store was generating 2 clicks per product page, that would represent $1000 per month in lost CPC (cost per click) advertising value.
This is a very simplistic formula, the typical store has over 150 products and many of the top performing ones get dozens even hundreds of clicks, but it illustrates the real cost to a dispensary in terms of missed opportunity.
That’s how you should think about the clicks you’re giving Dutchie every time someone clicks a link in the search or on your site, to your menu. With every new product you add to your menu, you’re helping Dutchie (or another iframe menu provider) get new business by adding another product page they can rank for in Google, at your expense.
Only when you control the entire customer journey will you
- Rank in searches for more than your business name
- Drive real traffic to your site that is ready to buy
- Strengthen your brand with a buying experience that stands out.
- Grow a customers list you can market directly to without further costs.
- Get the data you need to make informed decisions.
Get a free demo of how our platform can help you grow your business faster with your own site, brand & customers. We don’t get between the dispensary and their customer, we work for the dispensary owners only.