Shoppers viewed 68% more products on Jane menus in Q4 2025 than in Q3. Most of that attention landed in the five weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, but on Green Wednesday, units sold more than doubled compared with the Wednesday before.
A busier menu brings more competition for every shopper, and brands can’t count on holiday shoppers to spontaneously find and choose them. The ones that do well in Q4 plan around three things: when shoppers make up their minds, where they make the final purchasing decision, and what brings them back after the holidays.
Q4 holiday demand at a glance
Green Wednesday’s lift in units sold was about three times Black Friday’s and eight times Christmas week’s. BDSA ranks it as the second-biggest cannabis holiday of the year, behind only 4/20, with 2024 Green Wednesday sales an impressive 66% above non-holiday days.
How to adjust your strategy based on the holiday:
Black Friday. Units sold rose 39% over the prior Friday. Edibles led at 46%, followed by flower at 42% and vapes at 37%. Every category grew at least 32%. Shoppers expect deals that day. Pair product-level visibility with a targeted offer on the same product.
Christmas week. Units sold rose 14% in the week before Christmas. Edibles grew 29% while the other categories grew between 9% and 14%. Edibles also led Halloween, at 19%. For edibles brands, the second half of December is the time for gift-focused messaging and bundle offers.
New Year’s week. Units sold came in 8% below Christmas week, the seasonal peak. Product views held flat. Keep spending at baseline to stay visible without overspending. It’s also a sensible week to move excess inventory before year-end.
Plan for the weeks before each holiday
Holiday shoppers do a lot of their deciding before they place an order, and frequent shoppers plan the most: BDSA found that 42% of weekly dispensary shoppers check a dispensary’s menu online before they go. On Green Wednesday, shoppers on Jane menus added more than twice as many items to their bags as the week before, while product views rose only 59%, which means most people opened the menu already knowing what they wanted.
All of this means that an ad campaign that starts on the holiday itself reaches people too late to have any significant influence. Start two to three weeks out instead. For Green Wednesday on November 25, that puts the planning window at November 4 to 18. Use those weeks to get your products in front of shoppers while they’re still comparing, and to confirm your products will be in stock at the stores where you’re promoting them.
If it makes sense for your brand, weight your plan toward the categories that move most:
Be visible where the final choice happens
Planning shapes what a shopper is looking for, but the menu is where they decide on a specific product. When shoppers are open to a similar product from another brand, the brand that’s visible and in stock at that moment has the advantage.
A few principles hold strong no matter what channel you use:
Time your messaging strategically. In the planning weeks, brand-level visibility keeps you in consideration. On the peak shopping days, however, product-level visibility matters more, because shoppers are ready to buy and often open to adding one more item.
Promote what’s on the shelf. Advertising a product that’s out of stock at the shopper’s store sends them to a competitor. Make sure whatever you’re advertising is widely available and well-stocked.
Measure by orders. Impressions and clicks don’t show whether a holiday campaign paid off. Completed purchases are the strongest measure of success you can get, especially when you have full attribution to tell you which purchases were influenced by which campaigns.
Advertising on the menu itself puts these principles into practice. Brands on Jane menus do this with On-Menu Merchandising from Jane Media. On-Menu placements include shoppable banners at the top of menus with brand imagery and products, product placements at the beginning of menu rows, cart toppers at checkout for the peak days, and more. Our reporting counts only fulfilled and paid orders, and separates new customers from returning ones.
Last year, ad-attributed orders on Jane menus grew faster than organic orders on Green Wednesday (+111% vs. +91%), Black Friday (+33% vs. +28%), and Christmas week (+12% vs. +8%).
Use holiday traffic to build loyalty
Holiday traffic brings in shoppers who haven’t bought from you before, along with lapsed customers coming back for the season. Most brands meet that traffic with discounts. BDSA found Green Wednesday 2024 carried the deepest average discount of any holiday that year, at 28.65% off.
Broad discounts may win an individual transaction, but they train shoppers to wait for prices to dip lower and lower, and they hand the same markdown to regulars who would have bought your product anyway. The long-term value of a holiday comes from turning first-time shoppers into repeat buyers. Research from Bain & Company, cited in Harvard Business Review, found that raising customer retention by as little as 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%.
A loyalty-minded holiday plan looks different from a blanket sale:
Target offers by customer type. Put your strongest incentive in front of shoppers who have never bought from you or haven’t bought in months. Regular customers don’t need it.
Use bundles to encourage trial. A BOGO offer on two products introduces a shopper to more of your lineup in a single order.
Keep your offers consistent across stores. A shopper who finds your deal at one dispensary and misses it at the next has less reason to look for your brand.
Jane Gold is a brand-funded cash-back program that runs across participating dispensaries on Jane. Shoppers pay the regular price, and brands send the cash back to their linked bank account after verifying the purchase. Brands can show deals selectively (e.g. only to shoppers who have never bought their brand or haven’t bought it in more than 90 days). Deals can be a percentage, a dollar amount, or a “buy X, get Y” bundle. The dispensary’s own pricing stays the same. Shoppers acquired through Jane Gold spend an average of 4.7 times their acquisition cost on their first order.
A Q4 planning calendar for brands
Window
What the data shows
Visibility
Offers and loyalty
Nov 4–18
Lead-up to the year’s second-biggest shopping day
Raise budgets, start brand-level visibility
Set up offers for new and lapsed customers
Green Wednesday (Nov 25)
Units sold +116%, every category up 90% or more
Keep visibility going strong with targeted offers
Targeted offers live on promoted products
Black Friday (Nov 27)
Units sold +39%, every category up 32–46%
Promote products that carry an offer
Keep offers running through the weekend
Christmas week
Units sold +14%, edibles +29%
Gift-focused messaging
Bundle offers, especially edibles
New Year’s week
Views flat, units sold 8% below Christmas week
Hold at baseline
Offers on excess inventory before year-end
If you’re a brand setting Q4 budgets on Jane menus, the Jane Media team can help map On-Menu and Jane Gold plans to the weeks you’re most likely to see success.
Units sold on Jane menus rose 116% on Green Wednesday 2025, more than on any other Q4 holiday.
Start holiday campaigns two to three weeks before each peak, while shoppers are still deciding.
Being visible and in stock on menus wins over shoppers who are open to switching brands.
Targeted offers to new and lapsed customers build more lasting value than broad holiday discounts.
Edibles brands should plan December bundles, since edibles led both Halloween (+19%) and Christmas week (+29%).
Bijan brings over seven years of experience in cannabis tech, ecommerce, and retail media, partnering closely with operators to build growth strategies rooted in how their businesses truly operate.
Ben Aronowitz
Sr. Director, Jane Gold
Ben has been a fixture at Jane for over six years, helping evolve the media business into what it is today. He currently heads Jane Gold, the dispensary-agnostic cash-back program to connect brands more deeply with customers.
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