Reddit Advertising Guide for Business

With 1.8 billion page views per month, Reddit generates a lot of traffic. And with 130,000  communities covering every possible topic, Reddit is the world’s largest community website that can offer targeted advertising opportunities to maximize your budget and snag those customers you’ve been dreaming about.

What Can Businesses Do with Reddit in 2022?

If you stick to social media for advertising, you may not be capturing your ideal clients. While social media has its place in capturing the general public, Reddit is often overlooked from a B2B standpoint.

Redditors are typically engaged contributors to the site, and often spend most of their social media time adding to and commenting on the website. These people are invested, and why wouldn’t they be? They have the opportunity to spend hours reading and interacting with people in their chosen niches. It’s exciting!

The numbers speak for themselves. Reddit has 52 million daily active users and has been valued at $10 billion. It refers to itself as “the front page of the internet.”

A lot of viral content is also created on Reddit, where celebrities and interesting people come together and tell the world “ask me anything,” and people (including celebrities!) discuss every topic under the sun. Obama himself did an AMA 10 full years ago and it’s STILL the top post on that subreddit. And that’s just one tiny corner of Reddit. 

Finding your niche is as easy as searching for it, joining the subreddit, and participating. That said, there’s a way to do it. First, a quick guide to self-service advertising on Reddit:

Reddit: The Advertising Basics

Types of Reddit ads

Promoted post

Promoted posts are divided into two types: text and link ads. Text and link ads on Reddit look and feel the same as user-submitted content:

Link ad

Your website or product landing page can be accessed via this external link. They look like headlines. The ads can be created quickly and easily on Reddit’s self-serve advertising platform without having to write a lot of copy. Example: 

Text ad

This is an internal link to another Reddit page. If your advertisement links readers to a page with more information about your offers, external links, or a discussion forum, you can include a longer description there. While link ads redirect to a website or landing page, text ads redirect to another Reddit post or page.

Display ad

Display ads are traditional online display ads, such as banners and rich media ads. Reddit’s sales team can help you if you’re interested. Reddit’s managed advertising program offers this type of advertisement.

Prices start at $30,000 and go up from there. Reddit’s display ads are usually reserved for agencies or major media buyers with huge advertising budgets.

As well as providing a more dynamic ad campaign, Reddit’s managed advertising program provides perks, such as a dedicated account manager and personalized analytics reports.

Check out Reddit ads’ case studies of Mitsubishi and Audi to see for yourself.

A Guide to Self-Serve Reddit Ads: How to Advertise on Reddit

Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way. Here’s where we give you a step-by-step on how to use the self-serve advertising on Reddit:

1. Set Up Your Campaign

Access the campaign management tool on Reddit to begin. All you need is:

• An account on Reddit
• The headline of the ad
• Thumbnail image (maximum 140*140 pixels)
• Mobile card view image (1200×628)

You can now name your campaign once you’re signed in.

2. Decide Your Target Audience

It is important to have created marketing personas at this point in your campaign.

You can narrow your search using several parameters when using Reddit ads with your target audience in mind:

• Interests
• Locations
• Reddit subreddits
• Web platforms (desktop and mobile)
• Smartphones (Android or iOS)
• Targeting by the time of day

A subreddit is one of the best ways to connect with and find niche communities on Reddit. If you’re looking for the best subreddit to use with your Reddit ad campaign, use the List of Subreddits directory.

Using Reddit’s search bar, you can see:

• Number of readers
• Online users in real-time

A negative targeting option is also available in Reddit ads, which means your ad will not appear next to the selected keywords or subreddits. Taking this step ensures your Reddit ad isn’t associated with sensitive topics or a competitor.

3. Determine your Budget

A daily budget can be set or a campaign budget can be set. Ads on Reddit are priced based on CPM, meaning you pay X per 1,000 impressions.

There is a second price auction for Reddit self-serve advertising. When there are two bids in a target audience, the second-highest bid plus $0.01 wins.

You should choose a bid that reflects how much you’re willing to spend.

4. Select your Creative

Having created your ad, you can now submit it for approval.

The last few steps to creating your ad are as follows:

Select your ad type

Select between a link ad and a text ad. Comments can also be enabled for your ad.

Your headline

Keep it to 100 characters and avoid excessive capitalization and symbols.

Upload your images

In card view, upload an image for desktop, mobile site, and mobile devices.

Give your creative a name

Users won’t see this. It’s just for tracking your ads.

Send for approval

Your ad will be reviewed by Reddit within 24 hours.

There you have it—your first Reddit ad.

Reddit Advertising: What Do Marketers Need to Know?

If done correctly, Reddit can be a fantastic channel for marketers trying to reach new audiences who are actively looking for information.

According to their website: “People come to Reddit to be informed. Because they trust the opinions here, users look to Reddit for product and brand recommendations.”

How Can Advertisers Benefit From Reddit Advertising?

Reddit offers unique benefits that aren’t found anywhere else. The traffic Reddit offers is cheap, low-funnel, highly engaged, and incredibly specific. In addition to providing a great opportunity for organic promotion, it’s also a boon for PPC marketers.

The challenge is that advertisers need to have a deeper understanding of the platform and its users than they would with other digital channels. The rules and cultures of each subreddit are different. When an ad is not placed properly, the community may react negatively, limiting the effectiveness of the ad.

Many Reddit users are vocal about their dislike of marketing. You’re about to see how one company’s CEO won over Reddit users simply by being herself. First, you need to understand the nuances of Reddit:

Understanding Reddit comes down to knowing how its reputation system works: Karma. Karma is a measure of each user’s internet reputation. The Karma score shows how a user interacts with Reddit and its communities. As a visual representation of Redditor activity, it provides a tell-tale sign of a user’s behavior. 

Karma is divided into two categories: Comment Karma and Link Karma. Your link submissions earn you Link Karma, whereas your comments earn you Comment Karma. 

This isn’t the whole story. Karma is also deducted when someone downvotes your link or comment. This number is displayed publicly in a user’s profile as a record of their contributions to the site. Because of this, it’s important to ensure your posting on Reddit is authentic and useful. 

Reddit Karma

The ability to post and comment on Reddit is affected by Karma. As a method to fight mass-produced spam accounts, some subreddits require a certain amount of Karma before a user can post or comment. Users with low Karma may even have their posts removed or their comments closed by moderators. Reddit advertising requires a decent amount of Karma. 

Understanding and building Karma is all about being active and authentic on the platform. Any brand can integrate itself into the Reddit communities if they put enough effort into it. 

Being Active

When you spend time in a subreddit, you don’t just read the top posts. You should participate actively. Self-promotion without engagement on a subreddit will not win you fans or customers. Respond to posts with relevant comments to build up your Karma. Engage with subreddits and users to build relationships. Remember to follow the subreddit’s rules as much as possible when posting, editing, and responding.

There are different rules for each subreddit. For newcomers to Reddit, some subreddits have high barriers to entry for organic posts. The success of a post depends on whether the content is relevant to the subreddit, however, breaking simple rules like title structure or video length can result in the post being deleted automatically and your account being banned.

Being Authentic

The Reddit community is highly engaged. It’s not enough to follow the guidelines of a subreddit. A Redditor can spot a fake user very easily. A community will not tolerate an onslaught of unrelated ads and posts. A negative response is certain. You need to know what the Reddit audience likes before you advertise on Reddit. Users can upvote and downvote any type of content, including sponsored content.

Authenticity in Action: A Success Story with Uniqlo

To reach the millions of Reddit users, Uniqlo decided to market directly to them. The company’s e-commerce manager, Arielle Dyda, maintained her personal account as an official company representative and replied to customers’ questions, and kept tabs on the conversation.

Keeping a light and friendly tone, Dyda invites users to Uniqlo meetups and posts product launches and deals on Reddit. By using the platform as it was designed, she appears to be one of the users, not a promoter.

As a result of Dyda’s interactions on Reddit, 64% of the company’s 3% social media-driven sales have been realized. Dyda explained, “I’m savvy with the Reddit lingo and that makes me one of them. I’m not just Uniqlo, I’m midnight1214, and I understand the jokes and I understand frustrations, but I’m going to be here to help you when you need it.”

Prepare yourself for success with Reddit advertising!

Due to Reddit’s large, highly engaged, and self-segmented user base, it’s a perfect marketing opportunity for firms. You can reach a whole new group of customers by targeting subreddits or interests on this highly-popular site.

By making organic posts and following the rules, you can provide users with the content they are looking for and learn what they want. Knowing your customers is essential for being a successful businessperson, isn’t it?

Engaging with users on the platform and effectively marketing yourself requires authenticity. Reddit advertising can expose your brand to your ideal target audience. It’s worth exploring the nuances of Reddit and its communities to analyze and deliver effective advertising to the customers you are after.