While Meta and LinkedIn ads are typically the most common paid social channels our clients ask about, Reddit advertising is a generally lesser known tactic that offers unique competitive advantages in reaching your target audience.
Reddit ad types and best practices
The most common ad types on Reddit are:
- Image: A single photo or graphic accompanied by a headline, no body text
- Video: A single video accompanied by a headline, no body text
- Carousel: A slideshow of 2-6 images accompanied by a headline, no body text
- Free form: This ad type is very unique in that you essentially create a faux organic post
- This text-heavy ad type can include up to 20 images and 5 videos placed within body text up to 40,000 characters long
- Hint: Optimal for repurposing blog content or any other text-heavy content
Other ad types include Conversation ads (ads placed within conversation threads) and AMA (sponsored live Q&A sessions).
How does Reddit advertising compare to other social platforms?
Most social ad platforms allow you to target locations, demographics, interests, job titles, and more – these interests are typically more broad e.g. food, music, fitness, etc.
The two main factors that set Reddit apart as an advertising platform are the ability to 1) target organic subreddits (organized on-platform communities) and 2) bid on relevant audience-specific keywords.
Niche Subreddit Targeting Places your Reddit Ads Where Your Audiences Already Are
Where Reddit differs most is the ability to target organic subreddits that are self-directed and more niche e.g. r/SEO, r/numismatics, or even r/RealBeesFakeTopHats. It’s worth noting that not all subreddits are available for targeting, and there is no comprehensive list of available subreddits to check. Our team does extensive research and audience planning to determine the best strategy for our clients.
Enter The Conversation Naturally- Use Keyword Bidding to Reach Users Discussing Relevant Topics
Another major difference to take into account is the ability to bid on keywords. With keyword bidding, your ad can appear alongside not only relevant posts, but also within comment threads in which relevant keywords are present in user-to-user communication (limited to certain ad types). This gives advertisers the ability to show up wherever and whenever users discuss relevant topics.
Why do Reddit Paid Ads Drive Stronger Engagement?
With its focus on niche subreddit communities and direct user interactions, Reddit has a stronger culture of actionable engagement compared to other platforms that are typically more oriented around content consumption. When paired with strategic paid advertising, Reddit’s engaged culture can be a crucial component to building positive brand-user relationships. Another relevant pattern of user behavior is that Reddit users are oftentimes in “research mode” on the platform, digging deeper into certain topics in search of information and recommendations.
Most social media advertising platforms, such as Meta, only allow advertisers to use a cost per thousand ad impressions (CPM) payment structure. Reddit offers additional flexibility in what advertisers pay for, with their Traffic, Conversion, App installs, and Catalog sales ad campaigns having the option of either CPM or cost per click (CPC). In a CPM model, advertisers pay for visibility on the platform, as opposed to paying only when users take a desired action, such as in a CPC model.
Generally speaking, we see Reddit ads cost a bit more than Meta ads but less than Pinterest and LinkedIn (the latter being notoriously the most expensive for social ads).
What industries do well with Reddit Advertising?
Reddit has the incredible advantage of hosting niche communities around just about any topic you can imagine. Due to this, Reddit ads are applicable to a near-endless variety of B2B and B2C advertisers.
- While there may not be a specific subreddit perfect for every service or product, keyword targeting capabilities massively increase our ability to place ads in front of your target audience
- Like other social media channels, engaging visual content optimized for a specific audience is extremely important for the success of any campaign
How to use Reddit to Support SEO and LLM Search Results
Intellitonic is a search-first agency which means most of our clients are creating content across their website to optimize for search results. New content e.g. blog posts, case studies, and even select evergreen pages, can be a great opportunity to repackage onto Reddit as a Free Form ad. This not only squeezes more juice out of one topic, but ensures your messaging is consistent and spread far and wide, resulting in stronger brand awareness and more action.
Additionally, Reddit threads are increasingly being prioritized in search engines, including Google and LLMs like ChatGPT. This creates an opportunity for businesses to post natively on the Reddit platform to establish topic authority and expertise.
Are you ready to advertise with Reddit? Our team is here to help with every step of the process, from account setup and campaign strategy to the campaign buildout and ongoing maintenance of your Reddit ads.
