You may find it interesting to know that Reddit saw the second biggest year-on-year (YoY) growth in US social network users in 2021 (14.4%), coming in just behind TikTok (18.3%).
If you are not familiar with the platform, “Reddit is a network of communities where people can dive into their interests, hobbies and passions. There’s a community for whatever you‘re interested in on Reddit.”
These communities are known as subreddits, and all revolve around particular topics, from football or gaming to catsonkeyboards. Users can choose to contribute to these discussions using text, photos and videos and/or vote on posts (up or down). Then depending on how popular a post is, based on the number of upvotes it receives, the more visibility it gets.
However, did you know that you can also place ads on Reddit too, much like you can on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram?
What are the advantages of advertising on Reddit?
Target niche audiences
Due to the nature of Reddit, it can be perfect if you’re trying to find a very niche audience, something that may be hard to pinpoint on the other channels. Especially now that some of the detailed targeting options have been removed from Meta, for example.
Users are very active and engaged
A typical Reddit user is 18-35 years old and can spend an average of 34 minutes a day on the platform. Very popular subreddits include gaming, fashion, and entertainment, so if you are offering a product or service to these types of people, Reddit could definitely be worth a punt.
The number of users on Reddit is small compared to the other platforms (Facebook, YouTube etc):
However, users on it are very engaged and active within their communities, which can be both a blessing and a curse. Redditors can be very vocal and if they don’t like something, they’ll tell you. But if executed in the right way Reddit ads can be a great way to get in front of an engaged, niche audience.
Lower competition and/or costs
Competition is likely to be lower on Reddit which can mean that cost per impression and cost per click can be lower than the other platforms. Also, as user numbers are lower and audiences can be more targeted, you’d hope to see better click through and conversion rates.
Setting up Reddit Ads
In a very similar fashion to the other platforms (Facebook, Pinterest etc), Reddit campaigns can be created with different objectives (brand awareness, traffic, conversions etc), optimisation events (impressions, clicks, conversions) and bid types (CPM, CPC, CPV).
Structuring campaigns is also very familiar – campaigns contain ad groups which contain ads, for example.
For each ad group there are different targeting options:
- Interests (a definitive list to choose from)
- Community (people that have engaged or subscribed to chosen subreddits)
- Custom audiences (customer lists, remarketing etc).
Please note that you cannot target by age or gender, but location targeting is available.
There are two places where ads can be shown on the platform: feeds or conversations. Feed ads are shown in users’ home/popular feeds as well as within subreddits. Conversation ads appear one level deeper, to users interacting with a specific post.
There are also four ad types available on Reddit:
- Text
- Image
- Video
- Gallery (Carousel)
Recent updates to Reddit Ads
Reddit has recently updated its ad platform, to improve usability, these updates include:
- Live support chat
- Sign up incentive – you get $100 in free ad credit when you sign up
- Pixel helper
- There are now more communities available to target
- Audience manager – allows advertisers to create and share audiences between accounts
- Post Library
- Easier options to edit ads in real-time
- Forecasting auction results / estimation tool
- UI updates to Reddit Ads Manager
If you think your business could do well on Reddit, get in touch and we can help.