Community-Driven Advertising with Reddit
Developing the Perfect Audience & Approach to Marketing on Reddit
One of the most important platforms to today’s lexicon and emerging trends is Reddit. The user-generated content giant is a source for all your news and memes, but should it be a source of your marketing budget? It depends on your business objectives, of course, but Reddit is ranked in the top 20 for global internet engagement.
Redditors are a highly informed group of users: Reddit boasts that their user base conducts 4x as many research sessions and purchases 9x faster than the average consumer. Major iOS 14 updates are imminent, so marketers must explore new avenues for revenue. Reddit can be a strong advertising option for those who want to diversify their channels, especially with top-funnel awareness.
Successful Ads Start with Audience Development
Before you start, understand that Reddit is a massive community built by smaller communities called “subreddits.” Subreddits are niche groups—small and large—of users that share similar interests and contribute their content freely for Karma. Any user who regularly visits Reddit has a list of subreddits they follow.
When it comes to audience strategy, consider what subreddits your target customers belong to, as well as what type of content might interest them, and that gains traction. Once you’ve answered those questions, you can develop the right audiences for your next campaign.
Layering the Perfect Audience
Like any social media audience, it’s best practice to layer in combinations of relevant interests to find the best possible mix of audiences. On Reddit, you can target users based on their location, devices, interests, and communities.
Interest Targeting
When you target interests, you are picking topics that users engage with on Reddit—via posts, comments, or upvotes (its version of a “like”). For example, if your client was a game studio selling the newest racing app, it would be wise to target gaming and technology interests and break out your campaigns by mobile device.
Subreddit Targeting
Once you’ve honed in on a few different user interests, you can target individual subreddits that your demographic might be reading. One way to choose subreddits is to search for those that garner a lot of daily traffic. You can view active users in the about section of a subreddit profile.
For example, r/gaming currently has 29.5 million subscribers and 33,000 active users. Large communities like this are a good place to begin to develop a broad audience. However, taking the time to research smaller, more focused communities may also help lead to better conversion performance.
Get Creative
Millions of subreddits exist today, ranging from virtual reality to reality TV. Each subreddit has its own set of rules, posting style, and inside jokes. It’s crucial that you read a subreddit’s posts to get a feel for what type of content users contribute and what users expect to see when they log on. Since your ad will appear as a post in the subreddit, you should prioritize making the ad feel natural as the user scrolls through – the ad should never feel out of place to the user.
Consider Ad Format
It’s also important to consider the format of your creative. Most Reddit feeds are text-heavy, so incorporating images or video can help your message stand out. Some brands go as far as “memeing” their ads to appeal to Reddit users.
In Sum:
Reddit is a strong, community-driven channel that allows marketers to reach highly engaged users. Its users are more informed and ready to purchase. Users on Reddit are also more willing to share their reviews—both good and bad.
To begin advertising on Reddit, develop a mix of both broad and narrow audiences using highly active subreddits.
Combine interest and subreddit targeting to reach a more focused group of users that match your brand’s target customer.
Your ads should fit into a subreddit’s feed seamlessly. As always, understanding the communities you are targeting is critical to success.
Get creative. An out-of-place corporate post could have the opposite intended effect and create a negative brand interaction.
