Brands are comfortable with advertising across Google (display, PPC), Bing, Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, and in-app and leveraging programmatic. My list could go on. However, over the last year, we’ve been carefully observing the rise of Reddit as an advertising platform. Previously considered a slightly dark part of the internet, the site has undergone a bit of a rebirth. The platform is now enjoying a renaissance, attracting new users and brands as their content is cleaned up and advertising becomes integrated into the platform.
In this article, we’ll explore the basics of what Reddit is and demonstrate why brands should be aware of it as potential channel to market.
What is Reddit?
Reddit is a website that aggregates social news, content and media; user volunteer admins manage it. Content (text, images, video, audio, and links) can be shared and uploaded to relevant subreddits, allowing for community discussion. Content can be upvoted or downvoted by users; the popularity of the content then determines what is shown on the front page of Reddit. In essence, discussion is valued over content. Users can also organise their own ‘homepage’ based on interesting topics. As you can imagine, these topics sit within the subreddits above, spanning far and wide. If you can think of a topic, there’ll be a subreddit. Here are some of the most popular subreddits to give you a flavour:
- r/all: This is the default subreddit that shows the most popular posts from all other subreddits.
- r/memes: A subreddit dedicated to sharing and discussing memes.
- r/AskReddit: A popular subreddit where users ask questions and receive answers from other users.
- r/dankmemes: Another subreddit focused on memes, but with a more edgy and dark humour.
- r/aww: A subreddit dedicated to cute and adorable content.
- r/todayilearned: A subreddit where users share interesting facts and information they have learned.
- r/gaming: A subreddit for discussing video games, gaming news, and reviews.
- r/worldnews: A subreddit for discussing current events and news from around the world.
- r/politics: A subreddit for discussing politics and current events related to government and policy.
- r/science: A subreddit for discussing scientific research, discoveries, and theories.
Subreddits can also get incredibly niche, such as r/cartalkUK or r/BritishTV; in essence, users are able to find their topics of interest and come together as a community.
What’s changed at Reddit to make it a hot topic?to mean that we’re talking about it?
In February 2024, Google and Reddit announced a $60 million deal to collaborate. This partnership has significant implications for advertising on Reddit. Google, in its quest for content to train its AI models and populate search results pages, will now have access to the vast wealth of user-generated content on Reddit. In return, Reddit will be able to use Google’s AI tools to automate some of its content moderation. The partnership also allows Reddit to benefit from the Google Ad network and expertise, enabling the platform, which has historically operated at a loss, to continue developing its revenue stream. Moreover, access to Google’s advanced targeting capabilities could help Reddit deliver more relevant ads to users, thereby improving the user experience and increasing ad effectiveness.
Part of the process of working with Google is Reddit’s opening up to the broader internet. For many years, the platform was a bit of a backwater of the internet, full of great content with a loyal user base, but the lack of moderation meant that over the years, the platform has had to tidy up its act. It’s now appealing to a broader audience. With subreddits now included in search engine results pages, the website is gaining increased awareness, especially amongst search engine search queries.
How can brands leverage Reddit?
Reddit presents a unique advertising platform for brands, offering a range of media for advertising, much like other popular social media sites. However, what sets Reddit apart is its direct interaction feature, allowing brands to engage with their audience in a more personal way.
As highlighted above, Reddit is composed of thousands of niche communities where subject matter enthusiasts engage, read and discuss specific topics. This provides brands the opportunity to target a highly engaged audience. Whilst many Reddit users don’t actively contribute to sub-reddits, they’re there reading content and spending time in the areas that interest them. However, for those who actively add to the discussion, long conversation threads build debating topics in great detail. The system is built to allow users to follow and respond to other comments easily, and there’s no word/ character limit. Therefore users can go into great detail. Aside from direct advertising, it’s an ideal platform for building genuine relationships where brands input into a conversation.
With the majority of content being created and shared by users, there’s a high level of trust. Many threads offer or request recommendations, so if brands can target and engage subreddits appropriately, it’s a perfect platform to leverage brand advocacy. Whilst this needs to be appropriately managed, being visible and entering the conversation allows awareness and conversation to develop.
For those brands either with a personality at the head or potentially an interesting product or service, there’s always the option to host an r/AMA (Ask Me Anything). From ex-presidents and sports stars to waste-refuse workers, the AMA subreddit captures a lot of engagement and is a personal way to actively communicate with potential customers. Naturally, this approach is at the top of the funnel, with conversion challenging to attribute to this technique. However, any marketing activity needs to consider the whole buying journey.
As with any advertising platform, measurable campaigns are essential; here, Reddit is no different. The tools to track performance and measure ROI are all there. What sets Reddit apart is the advertising costs are generally lower, allowing greater reach and affordability. Brands can reach their audience by blending different creative formats and standard performance marketing best practices. With a growing 1.2 billion active monthly users, it’s certainly a platform to be addressed.
So, if you’re planning on exploring Reddit, here’s our top three tips:
- Don’t be salesy – Redditors don’t like to feel they’re being sold to’ve been sold, so make sure your content or creative is genuinely interesting. That doesn’t stop you from running an ad, but it needs to be targeted and creatively interesting.
- Be authentic and deliver value – with content visibility based on up or down votes, make sure that you’re adding value to their experience.
- Live in the right place – maximise the niche nature of the platform.
- Test and Learn – I said three, but here’s a fourth – like any ad platform, you’ll need to build learnings and develop content and strategies that work over time based on performance data.
