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The WeedLife Network, a Denver-based group of more than 40 websites and apps that help bring cannabis businesses and consumers together, is opening up its network to a wide range of legal marijuana advertising.
The move is expected to create a “safe haven” and full-grown marketplace almost immediately for the tens of thousands of cannabis businesses whose advertising has been refused by Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter and other major online companies.
That ongoing ban has also been condemned by cannabis industry advocates. Last year, in an interview with the Huffington Post, a spokesperson for the Marijuana Policy Project criticized the advertising prohibition as “arbitrary and hypocritical."
Launched in January of 2013, The WeedLife Network has grown at a head-spinning pace while attracting a dedicated and enthusiastic following among cannabis consumers and local businesses.
As of August the network had outpaced its original projections of online traffic and is now generating more than 4.5 million page views per month. And company executives say that rate is growing by a steady 25 percent each month.
“We have seen an average growth rate of online ad sales for the past 18 months at about a 30 percent increase per month,” says WeedLife Network co-founder Andy Rodosevich. “At that rate, combined with the launch of our new ad network, we project ad sales to exceed one million per month by early 2016.”
“And we have been waiting to reach ‘critical mass’ when it comes to the diversity of our online traffic,” he adds, “so we can offer additional online advertising opportunities to the broad spectrum of smaller businesses looking to reach legal cannabis consumers and companies.”
As TechCrunch.com recently noted, there’s a rapidly-developing need for online platforms that can safely and consistently promote cannabis-related products and services.
“Reaching the cannabis industry’s extremely targeted demographic will become more and more competitive,” the TechCrunch article continued, “so focused advertising is necessary.” And it emphasized the role to be played by advertising technologies like those available on The WeedLife Network.
“Weedlife is the cannabis industry’s best-kept secret,” says Mike Siffin founder and CEO of Hash Brothers Entertainment, a developer of interactive board games for cannabis enthusiasts.
“I can personally attest to their acumen and professionalism, and know from experience that other companies in the legal cannabis industry will benefit greatly as a result of partnering with The WeedLife Network.”
WeedLife Network co-founder Shawn Tapp, a 20-year veteran of the digital marketing industry, remembers that when he and Rodosevich set out to create the original social network website, WeedLife.com, nearly three years ago, they understood there was already a need for the technology platform they were establishing.
“But now, more than 40 web sites and apps later, our expectations have been more-than-realized,” he says. “We’ve tapped into this amazing, pent-up demand that has made The WeedLife Network a super magnet for consumers and business professionals from all over the world, and from all walks of life.”
Tapp also celebrates the success of companies like the Seattle’s Leafly and, more recently, MassRoots: the Denver-based business that is now providing advertising opportunities through their mobile application to local dispensaries and cannabis brands.
“WeedMaps, Leafly, MassRoots and the like are all great places for dispensaries and local cannabis brands to broadcast themselves online,” says Tapp.
“And now with our WeedLife Network opening the doors for the tens of thousands of other small business owners, companies that are also starving for premium online advertising opportunities, we aim to be the industry’s replacement for Google’s AdWords, and online digital advertising for these companies.”
For information about advertising on The WeedLife Network, call 1-844-420-4208 ext. 710
About Weedlife
The WeedLife Network is a group of free-to-use social websites and marketing apps specifically designed to accelerate the growth of the cannabis industry and shorten the business learning curve for new companies entering the marketplace. The network provides an online social platform of connected websites and applications that target the many consumer and business demographics in the cannabis industry, in effort to bring them together for easier collaboration.
For more information, visit:
Investor relations, call 1-844-420-4208 ext. 6
