Google and Meta might have taken over the world. But if you’re a cannabis brand, you’ll quickly realize there’s too many restrictions on mainstream ad platforms for a sustainable ad strategy.

As one of the world’s highest-traffic sites with fewer hurdles for cannabis brands, Pornhub advertising is a great place to start. And that’s where we come in.

As the only place you can buy direct Pornhub ad placements, TrafficJunky gives you access to millions of highly-engaged Tier-1 users and first-party data and tools. Last year, cannabis ads alone generated more than 9.2 million clicks across the TrafficJunky network.

Here’s how to set up your first cannabis campaign via TrafficJunky using six simple steps.

Step 1: Create a TrafficJunky Account and Prepare for Launch

Head to TrafficJunky and create your account. This will only take a few minutes and requires an email address and password etc.

Before opening the TrafficJunky dashboard to launch your first campaign, it’s beneficial to have the following:

• Campaign objective: Knowledge of what you want to achieve, from brand awareness to traffic or purchases.

• Target audience: A clear understanding of who you will target, from demographics to location.

• A destination URL: The landing page you will send users who click on your ads.

• A budget: You can start advertising on TrafficJunky with as little as $100 USD, but it’s typically good to start with a testing budget of around $800/month.

Step 2: Create Campaign and Choose Format

The first step is to set your campaign name, device targeting, and ad format under Basic Settings.

For cannabis brands, you can choose from the following ad formats:

• Display banners: Static or animated ads placed across high-traffic pages, ideal for brand awareness and retargeting.

• Inplayer ads: Ads that appear directly within the video player, capturing attention during peak engagement moments.

• Mobile ad formats like Interstitials and Popunders: Ads optimized for mobile users, ideal for driving traffic at scale on the go.

Step 3: Set Audience Targeting

From there, choose your target GEOs from country all the way down to 10 specific cities, as well as any relevant advanced targeting like keywords and audience interests.

Note: We help ensure your ads are compliant. Your cannabis ads won’t be able to run in regions that don’t permit them, and creatives are reviewed by humans to make sure they are fully compliant before they are made live.

Step 4: Set Tracking, Sources, Scheduling, and Budget

The next two steps are Tracking, Sources & Rules, followed by Scheduling & Budget.

If you want to measure performance beyond basic delivery stats, this is where you can set up conversion tracking—though if this is your first campaign, it’s fine to treat this as optional and add it once your campaign is live.

Budgeting on TrafficJunky works on a CPM (cost-per-thousand-impressions) model. This means you pay based on how many times your ad is shown, not per click. You’ll set a bid for your desired placements and a daily spending limit to keep your budget in check.

If you’re not sure where to start, choosing one clear, measurable objective (like traffic to a landing page) makes it easier to judge whether your first campaign is performing as expected. Without needing to predict exact results in advance!

Step 5: Upload Your Creative and Submit for Review

The final step is to upload your creative and link it to your landing page underneath Ads.

Your creative will depend on your brand identity, advertising goals and budget. However, they can be anything from an eye-catching static image (as seen below) to a full-length promo video.

Before submitting, it’s beneficial to double-check:

• Your creative is sized correctly for the format you selected.

• Your landing page is live and ready to convert (not just a placeholder).

• Your ad and product meet TrafficJunky’s current Rules & Regulations for cannabis advertisers.

Once submitted, your ad goes through approval. This typically takes up to 24 hours.

Step 6: Check Your First Results

Once your campaign is approved and running on Pornhub, it’s good to check in on things daily for the first week, then weekly after that.

Here are a few important things to check once you’ve hit publish:

• Status: Is the campaign active? If you’re not seeing delivery, you can check a few common culprits first like approval status, scheduling settings, account balance, and any bid alerts.

• Spend: Check how much of your daily budget has been used so far. Spending too fast or too slow can both signal something worth adjusting (like your bid or targeting).

• Impressions and clicks: Is your ad being served and getting engagement?

• Tracked actions: If you set up conversion tracking, check whether those actions (clicks, sign-ups, purchases) are being recorded as expected.

If you’d like to make changes to your campaign based on the results you’re seeing, try to make one change at a time. This will help give you clarity on what’s actually optimizing (or hindering!) performance.

Next Steps

Once your first campaign is live, you can expand to additional sites in the network (like YouPorn or RedTube), formats, or locations as needed. If you have questions about your campaign or how to leverage the entire ad network, TrafficJunky support can help.

Final Take on How to Get Started with Cannabis Advertising on Pornhub

Getting started with cannabis advertising isn’t complicated. You just need the right platform!

TrafficJunky allows advertisers to quickly set up campaigns, launch a range of ads from banners to mobile, and reach millions of engaged users from high-traffic sites like Pornhub. You also benefit from fewer restrictions than mainstream ad platforms like Google and Meta.

Ready to get started and scale your Cannabis brand? Sign up as a TrafficJunky advertiser today.