As a retailer, you’ve likely dabbled in Facebook advertising, researched your options on Snapchat or even signed up for a business account on TikTok. But did you know you could also advertise on Reddit and even achieve performance-driven results? A community-based online platform that houses over 430 million monthly active users, Reddit is a goldmine of opportunity for advertisers. In fact, Reddit is the third largest forum (after Google and Amazon) that consumers go to research products before purchasing. Interested but not sure where to start? Let’s get you briefed on the significance of Reddit ads.
Reddit is a network of communities based on people’s interests. These interests may include beauty, gaming, sports, celebrities, crypto, science research and every other topic you can imagine.
Reddit is also a content contribution site. Anyone can share content on these themed communities text, links, images and video which creates a constant flow of content on the platform. Redditors react to the posts by voting, which gives an “upvote” that increases visibility (vs. “downvote” that decreases visibility). As users share the content they like, this gives them a sense of ownership in the community and increases interaction.
What makes Reddit different? Reddit is considered a social media platform, but what makes Reddit special is its focus on community (i.e., subreddits) rather than people. Subreddits cover a mainstream topic like nutrition to something more niche like “SkincareAddiction” and “CryptoCurrency.” In January 2021, 59,586 subreddits were added to Reddit.
72% of US Reddit users report that they use Reddit for entertainment purposes. Other common reasons for using Reddit include following the news and staying up to date with brands and companies.
Here’s a breakdown of why people use Reddit:
Other reasons include the following:
Paid Advertising
Why should you advertise on Reddit? Other than the fact that Reddit houses millions of passionate and dedicated users, subreddits means one thing for advertisers: advertisers don’t have to guess what users, or “Redditors”, are interested in.
With user’s interests shared freely on the platform, advertisers can target their ideal audience with relevant offerings in sponsored posts. Now, all advertisers have to do is find the right interests (i.e audience targeting) to promote their product/business. The bulk of Reddit’s targeting scale is in fact audience targeting using interests as triggers. For example, you’re finding someone interested in sports wherever he or she is on Reddit.
Reddit also helps retailers to extend reach, capture attention and drive clicks.
This includes:
There are 52 million daily active Reddit users worldwide. Reddit’s audience is highly engaged and offers a higher retention rate than other platforms. For instance, unlike Facebook users who may be on the platform to view their home feed, Redditors are actively researching the platform for new content.
When it comes to the platform’s gender breakdown, Reddit is more popular among males. In the U.S, 56% of men and 44% of women use Reddit with 18-34 (58%) being the most popular age group, followed by 35-49 (28+) and 45+ (19%). Reddit’s audience is also leaned-in and unduplicated, meaning that 23% of U.S Redditors are not on Facebook.
However, remember that Reddit’s demographic vary based on the subreddit’s topic. For example, there are subreddits largely targeted towards women like AskWomen and GirlGamers.
Similar to Pinterest, Reddit is a gateway to other content – 62% of the posts on Reddit link to another website. This makes Landing Page Views as an objective a natural action for the Reddit community and an additional support to Click-Through Rates (CTR).
Reddit promotes two approaches to their advertising: Brand and Performance. Performance advertising on Reddit focuses on driving efficient ROI at scale while Brand engages key communities at scale. With Reddit ads, you can convert communities into customers, track conversions via Reddit Pixel and drive mobile app installs across key audiences through promoted posts, conversation ads and pixel retargeting.
Reddit offers five objectives: Brand Awareness and Reach, Video Views, Traffic, Conversions and App Installs.
Brand Awareness and Reach is ideal for advertisers looking to generate interest in their product or service. The traffic objective is ideal for driving traffic to a URL such as your website’s landing page or a blog post. Conversions focuse on prompting valuable action on your website like purchases. App Installs is optimized to encourage people to install your app and generate app events, and the Video Views objective gets you the most plays of your video ad.
Here’s some additional metric breakdown:
CTR benchmarks:
VCR (Video Completion Rate):
Available on auction (CPM, CPC or CPV), the following ad units are available on Reddit:
With promoted ads, you can promote a brand, products and services using Reddit’s primary ad unit with text, images or video. Promoted carousel is Reddit’s newest post type that enables you to share multiple images or gifs in a single post. This ad format includes all elements of a standard Reddit post (upvotes, downvotes and comment threads) which makes it feel and look native to the platform, providing a better experience for your target audience.
Promoted Post
Key Features
Promoted Video
Key Features
Promoted Carousel
Key Features
With First View, your brand will be the first one users see on Reddit’s most visited real estate – Home (feed of all the communities a user joined) or Popular feeds (the feed of the most popular posts on Reddit). This way, you can reach the most engaged Reddit users efficiently.
Similar to Twitter’s trending feed, Reddit’s Trending Takeover ad unit amplifies your trend for 24 hours across Popular and Search, where people discover the most popular topics on Reddit.
Takeover ad units include:
Own top communities in your selected category for 24 hours
A Category Takeover ensures your brand is the first seen in top communities in a category of your choosing across 9 verticals. When anyone visits those communities, your brand will be the first ad they see.
Category Takeover includes:
Own the Front Page for 24 hours
Your brand will be the first to be seen on the most visited real estate on Reddit, the Home and Popular for 24 hours, where your brand will hold the top slot.
Front Page Takeover includes:
Amplify your trend across Popular and Search for 24 hours
Be the only brand seen in Trending Today where people discover the most popular topics on Reddit. When anyone visits Popular or Search, your trend will be the first they see.
Trending Takeover includes:
Maximize your impact with Reddit’s widest-reaching package
Be the top brand seen when a user visits Home, Popular, or Search for 24 hours by leveraging both the Front Page Takeover and Trending Takeover.
Reddit Takeover includes:
Ads from other social channels can be re-purposed. Reddit recommends using humor and question-based posts to engage your audience in your ad. Lucky for you, Reddit users pay x2 more attention to ads on social media vs. non-reddit users.
With Reddit’s focus on community, it’s no surprise that their targeting capabilities are interest-based as opposed to demographic or age-based like the other social media platforms.
Community targeting delivers ads to users based on topics they engage with via subreddits. Reddit targets subscribers and visitors of a subreddit, showing ads to these users either while they’re browsing the targeted subreddit or exploring other subreddits.
Reddit offers five different ad targeting categories:
To best reach Reddit’s audience, keep the following performance creative best practices in mind:
If you’re looking for a young and highly engaged, growing and passionate audience with a variety of interests, Reddit is for you. As one of the most used social media platforms in the world, Reddit sets a unique opportunity for brands looking to advertise on a platform that has relatively little competition. Happy advertising!