With millions of passionate users and thousands of active subreddits, Reddit can be an advertiser’s dream come true when they are starting to run ads. Reddit ads are often praised for their ability to target specific subreddits filled with an engaged audience, their tech-savvy users, and their comparatively low ad campaign costs.

Do Reddit ads work? Reddit ads can be a highly effective way to market your business, products, and services. The comparatively low cost, interest-targeting features, and relatively low competition for ads make Reddit an ideal advertising platform for any business to make their mark.

Although Reddit ads can have excellent results, there are a few pitfalls and helpful ad tips that can set you up for an even greater chance of success with your Reddit ads. Reddit ads can work well for you and your business, as long as you get to know the idiosyncrasies of the site and how to create ads that appeal to the average Reddit user.

Reddit Ad Results

Reddit is the sixth most popular site amongst online users and the self-proclaimed front page of the internet. Because of its massive popularity, it can be a goldmine for savvy marketers who are willing to take the time to learn how to use the site properly. The landscape of Reddit can be intimidating for anyone who is new to the site. Once you’ve set up an account, take the time to look around and get to know the site before you start your campaign. Those with the greatest success rate are advertisers who took the time to study Reddit before launching ad campaigns.

You don’t have to look for long to find a slew of companies who have experienced positive results from their Reddit ad campaigns. Whether they were looking to spread brand awareness, boost site traffic, or increase their conversions, many advertisers have found success with Reddit’s ad features. Many successful ad results are a direct result of detailed subreddit targeting. This feature is available to anyone setting up an ad campaign, and successful marketers say that it’s worth researching the right subreddits that are relevant to your business.

Many marketers who’ve experienced successful ad campaigns prefer Reddit’s paid advertisements to Reddit’s free ads. Although free ads can also be incredibly effective, they can also be tricky to get just right. A poorly executed free advertisement, usually in the form of a post or comment in a subreddit, can result in a negative reputation for the brand. However, when you choose to create a paid advertisement, your ad will appear on Reddit as Redditors scroll their feeds and will not be seen as an interruption to the conversation.

Although reading about other marketer’s success on Reddit can be helpful, you can also set up your own campaign to test out Reddit Ads. Because of the low cost of ads, it’s relatively easy to set up your first ad so that you can start to see the results of Reddit advertising for yourself. If you take the time to do great audience targeting and if your product and services are in their very best condition, you can go ahead and set up your first Reddit ad. Although many successful advertisers are active members of the site, even a new user can complete a test ad.

Because ads are still relatively new to Reddit, there is a lot of opportunity for change and growth. If you have helpful feedback from your ad tests, share it with Reddit and they may even put it into practice. Reddit ads are constantly evolving and improving, and you have the chance to help shape how the platform grows.

Successful marketers all have several consistent traits. There are some things that all great ads have in common, and some pitfalls that they manage to avoid. Before you run your test ad, familiarize yourself with the various ad tools at your disposal to ensure that you see positive results from your campaign.

Reddit Ad Pitfalls

If you are new to Reddit, you may fall victim to one of the pitfalls that keep your ad from working well. In order to achieve the best results from your ads, you want to avoid getting downvotes, marketing to the wrong people, and not doing subreddit research. All of these aspects, when done incorrectly, will have a negative effect on your marketing efforts and may result in a lackluster ad campaign. Reddit campaigns often require a little more time and research than other social media platforms but can produce much richer results as well.

Let’s take a look at each pitfall in-depth so that you can get the most out of your Reddit ads:

Downvotes. Reddit relies on a system of voting to determine what content is the most popular. Content like posts and comments can be upvoted or downvoted based on whether or not the audience approves.

Reddit ads can also be upvoted or downvoted. Your ad can receive downvotes if it contains poorly written or scammy sounding ad copy, has low-quality images or videos or appears on subreddits where it is irrelevant. In order to avoid this fate, make sure that your ads are in great condition and that they are being shown to your target audience.

Marketing to the wrong people. Reddit has some of the most detailed audience targeting features available. You can narrow down your audience by age, gender, location, and interests. You’ll also get access to demographic research that helps you understand your audience’s online habits.

In order to run a successful ad, you’ll need to go into the setup process with an idea of who your target audience is and stay consistent as you set up your ad. If you are familiar with your audience going into this process, it will be easier to find your target market on Reddit.

Not doing subreddit research. Subreddits are the key element of Reddit and, thus, of Reddi advertising. You can target specific subreddits when you are creating your ad. You’ll want to research the types of content that perform well in this subreddit, ensure that it is incredibly relevant to your business, and see what time of day it’s users are most active.

This information will be invaluable for your ad set up. After you’ve observed and maybe even participated in the Reddit for a while, you’ll be ready to advertise to them strategically.

What are the trademarks of a great Reddit Ad?

Great Reddit ads that really work have a few trademarks that they share. Firstly, and most importantly, these ads share value with the Reddit community. You can create value in your ads by offering important knowledge, coupon codes, or another type of exclusive deal or discount for Reddit users. Reddit as a whole can be somewhat resistant to marketing, but if you offer them something of value, they will likely be more receptive to your business and more willing to view and interact with any future ads that you put decide to publish.

Top-performing ads are also generated by companies that understand Reddit. If you are an active community member who contributes to conversations across the site, you’ll likely find higher rates of success with your ads. Even if you are simply an observer of Reddit, it can help you get to know the average Redditor and what types of content they like to interact with. If you can strike the right tone with a subreddit, your ads will work. Ads that cater to specific problems and questions put forth by Reddit users can be some of the best performing ads on the platform.

Visually appealing ads will also contribute to your success with Reddit ads. The typical Redditor is scrolling through their feed and will only stop for something that catches their eye. If your ad copy is bland or your photos are lifeless, your ad may be ignored by your target audience. Always make sure that you are putting the best of the best on Reddit if you want your ads to be successful. In addition to visually striking ads, you’ll also want to make full use of the audience targeting tool at your fingertips to ensure your beautiful ads are being seen by the right people.

How to set up a successful Reddit ad campaign

When you are ready to set up your ad campaign, you may be tempted to get started right away. Before you sit down with Reddit’s step-by-step ad campaign creator, it can help to have some of your key information already put together. By doing this work beforehand, it ensures that you will have a smooth and stress-free ad creation experience.

Here are a few things you should get to work on before you set up your ads:

Gather your subreddit list. Your top goal is to find subreddits that align with your business, products, or services. Make sure that any subreddits your include in your ad campaigns have a high number of subscribers and that they are an active community with new postings daily. If a subreddit has strict rules about self-promotion, you can reasonably assume that they won’t be open to your ads either and omit them from your list.

Decide on your campaign objective. You’ll have the option to choose Brand Awareness and Reach, Traffic, Conversions, Video Views, or App installs.

Determine how many ad groups you will have. Each campaign can have multiple ad groups based on your target audience, behavior, and ideal ad schedule.

Choose your target location, preferred device, and time of day when you wish to run your ads. You can determine this information by studying the subreddits on your list ahead of time and making notes about these details.

Think about how much you want to spend. You’ll want to have your budget goals in mind before you set up your campaign. If you’re just starting out, you can always run a smaller ad as a test to see what kind of results you get. This can help you set your long term budget for your Reddit ads.

Decide how long you want your campaign to run for. If you’re testing, choose a shorter amount of time. Your ads can be stopped at any time, but if you’ve optimized for a longer span of time and decide to cut your ads short, your results will not be as powerful.

One of the most important factors in any advertising campaign is your budget. Before setting up your ads, you should take a look at all of the budget options for Reddit and determine what will work best for your ads. Compared to other social sites, Reddit ads offer more affordable prices for their ads.

Reddit Ad price optimization for your budget

One of the most important aspects of creating a quality ad that works well is to optimize your Reddit Ad budget. The amount you spend on your ads can greatly affect whether they are successful or unsuccessful. When you are establishing your budget, you’ll want to set out with a number in mind. Before you’ve started your campaign, consider what price you’d like to pay per conversion, per day, etc. When setting up your ad on Reddit, you’ll be able to choose from a daily budget, a lifetime budget, or a bid which includes the newly instated cost-per-click method.

For each ad, you’ll have the option to set up a daily budget. The minimum amount for your daily budget is $5 per day. The daily budget can be applied to any type of ad. Remember that your budget is a huge factor in how often your ads are seen, and sometimes picking the cheapest option may result in fewer ad interactions than you want. Sometimes the final number for the day will be a bit more or a bit less than your target number. You will be charged roughly the amount that you input as your daily budget every day while your campaign is active.

You also have the option to choose a lifetime budget for any of your ad campaigns. For both lifetime and daily budgets, you will not be able to switch the budget type once the campaign has started so make sure you choose the best option for your ads. Lifetime budgets will attempt to disperse your entire budget over the date range that you have selected. Reddit will attempt to spend around the same amount each day until your ad money runs out. This means your ads may get turned off a few days before your chosen end date if they spend the budget.

The final budget method available is the bid. Bids must be used for specific campaign objectives. Within the bid method, you’ll have three different options: CPM, CPC, or CPV. CPM is used for Brand Awareness and Reach campaign objective and you can select your bid per 1,000 impressions. The second bid type, CPC, is used for Traffic, Conversions, or App Install campaign objectives. With CPC, you’ll add your bid per click. The final bid method, CPV is used for the Video Views campaign objective. For this option, you’ll add your bid per video view.

Reddit Ad competition

Reddit is a great choice for advertisers who are not looking to compete in an oversaturated ads market. On Facebook, you will find nine million advertisers who use the site to promote their businesses, products, and services. This number is constantly growing and shows no sign of slowing down. With such a large number of ads populating the average Facebook users feed, it is easier for them to tune out ads as “noise”. The millions of advertisers with established ad campaigns and retargeting campaigns can make it difficult for a newcomer to be seen.

Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, you can expect to see similar numbers of advertisements popping up on feeds around the world. Ads on Twitter are also running rampant in people’s feeds. Even high-follower accounts are starting to notice that the site is slowly being overrun by ads. On social media sites, users often complain about the ad ratio – the number of ads as compared to the amount of other users’ content – being skewed more heavily toward ads. This tends to make users feel a bit more disconnected from the site and the ads as well.

Because of Redditors’ natural aversion to advertisements, the site has historically had a low number of advertisers, meaning there is more space for your ads to shine. The dominant theory among advertisers who swear by Reddit is that Redditors are not averse to advertisements, but to bad advertisements. There is plenty of room to win over Reddit with your high-quality advertisements.

As long as you stick to ads that create value, avoid over posting, and other scam tactics to try to boost traffic, using active subreddits to their full advantage, and creating and maintaining a budget that works with your campaign goals. you’ll likely see some very positive results from your Reddit ads.