When it comes to modern marketing, data is either your most potent weapon or your Achilles’ heel. For years, cannabis brands and retailers have been handing over their greatest asset—first-party customer data—to platforms that hoard, misuse, or even misplace it.

Combine this issue with rising Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC), stricter compliance requirements, and the phasing out of third-party cookies, and you have a recipe for disaster—not just for individual campaigns but for the survival of your marketing strategy.

Here’s the hard truth: if you don’t control your data, you don’t control your business.

Why First-Party Data is Essential for Cannabis Brands

The shift from third-party cookies to first-party data has been unfolding for years across most industries. For cannabis and hemp businesses, however, this shift is not just a mainstream evolution; it’s a gamechanger with immediate consequences.

First off, third-party cookies are becoming obsolete. Major browsers are blocking them by default, and Google has announced plans to eliminate them entirely. Without first-party data, brands will struggle to reach and re-engage their ideal audience.

Compliance poses another hurdle. Cannabis companies, already under intense regulatory scrutiny, face added risks when using platforms that claim to be “cannabis-friendly” but fail to meet industry-specific legal standards. This can lead to liability issues that can compromise your entire operation.

Then there’s the issue of data misuse. Some platforms take your first-party customer data and use it to grow their audiences—not yours. Others fail to even guarantee that your ads will appear in brand-safe environments.

Owning first-party data means knowing who your customers are, how they behave, and what they want. It allows you to measure sales, assign attribution, and adjust your campaigns in real time based on actionable insights. And most importantly, it ensures that the data belongs to you—not a third party profiting off your hard work.

Common Advertising Challenges in Cannabis Marketing

Traditional digital advertising platforms often fail cannabis businesses. Time and again, we hear operators share frustrations like these:

• Massive ad campaigns yielding zero measurable sales.
  
  
• Ad partners who refuse to release essential data exports or tracking pixels.
  
  
• Metrics limited to impressions, clicks, or engagements, with no insight into revenue or ROI.
  
  
• Ads shown alongside irrelevant, spammy, or off-brand content.

These problems aren’t anomalies. They’re direct outcomes of working with platforms that don’t prioritize transparency, data ownership, or industry-specific needs.

How JointCommerce and Beard Bros Are Changing the Game

At Beard Bros Pharms, we’ve experienced firsthand how poor advertising partnerships can drag down even great businesses. That’s why we’ve partnered with JointCommerce, an advertising solution built specifically for the cannabis sector.

With JointCommerce, businesses gain total control over their digital marketing, including ownership of all campaign data. Every pixel collects information exclusively for your campaigns, ensuring none of it is sold, repurposed, or used without your explicit consent.

This level of transparency and control translates into measurable ROI. You can track everything down to the order ID, product type, and revenue generated across your retail partners.

Beyond data ownership, the platform includes tools like dynamic retargeting to recapture potential customers who abandon their carts and GDPR/CCPA compliance to keep operations legally airtight. JointCommerce isn’t just an advertising platform; it’s the infrastructure cannabis businesses need to scale sustainably.

Real Results from Owning Your Data

Imagine you launch a new line of live rosin vape cartridges. Using a JointCommerce-powered campaign page with a tracking pixel, you can log every potential sale.

Here’s how it works:

1. A consumer visits your campaign page, clicks “Buy Now,” and selects a dispensary near them.
   
   
2. The activity is tracked and tied to a dispensary’s menu, creating real-time attribution.
   
   
3. If the consumer leaves the page without completing their purchase, they’re automatically retargeted with your creative assets, bringing them back to finalize the sale.
   
   
4. Every engagement is cataloged and accessible in real-time analytics.

Not only do you have concrete proof of your ad spend’s effectiveness, but you now have detailed data to refine future campaigns and maximize results.

Why This Matters in the Bigger Picture

As competition in the cannabis space intensifies, the edge won’t go to brands with the biggest budgets. Instead, it will go to those with the sharpest data strategies.

Owning your customer data gives you a significant advantage, including:

• More accurate audience targeting.
  
  
• Reduced Customer Acquisition Costs.
  
  
• Reliable campaign attribution.
  
  
• Smarter product launches based on proven demand.
  
  
• Safer, more relevant ad placements.
  
  
• Future-proof strategies that adapt to a changing digital landscape.

Treating your data as a business-critical resource can mean the difference between thriving and merely surviving in the cannabis market. Brands that align with platforms built for cannabis businesses will reap the rewards of ethical, effective, and efficient marketing.

We teamed up with JointCommerce because their values align perfectly with ours. They prioritize ethical advertising, retain transparency, and give brands like yours the tools to succeed in a challenging space.

Are you ready to take back control of your marketing? Contact us today to see what JointCommerce and Beard Bros can do for your business. When you own your data, you own your future.