Reddit Is Fast Becoming A Serious Marketing Channel

Reddit is one of marketing’s great underutilised opportunities.

According to Alexa, it’s the fifth top digital property in both Australia and New Zealand.

Only trailing the big three, Google, Facebook and YouTube in Australia.

While in NZ, it trails the same, plus Trade Me.

In December, Reddit breached 430 million active users globally, putting it ahead of Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok and Snapchat in terms of comparative usage.

However, up until very recently, Reddit was considered a place where only the brave, or bonkers, dared tread for marketing and comms purposes.

Anyone remember Woody Harrelson’s epic 2012 Reddit meltdown when promoting a new movie release…

Reddit CEO, Steve Huffman, discussing major 2018 product redesign

“Reddit grows primarily through word of mouth. Many of us evangelise Reddit and tell people how awesome it is, what an impact it’s made in their life, how much it makes them laugh, etc., and then when those new people decide to check out Reddit for the first time they’re greeted with dystopian Craigslist. We’d like to fix that.”

Accompanying the 2018 Reddit product redesign has been a host of new marketing features and functions, with an explicit focus on brand safety.

The latest instalment in Reddit’s marketing onslaught is Trending Takeovers.

Reddit’s Trending Takeovers

With this new offering, brands looking to position themselves at the centre of discussion on Reddit now have premium venues in two of the most commonly visited areas of the platform:

1. Reddit’s Search tab
2. Reddit’s Popular feed 

Reddit’s 430 million monthly active users engage within 100,000+ interest-based communities, with one-third visiting Reddit’s Popular feed every day. 

As a platform where the majority of users believe that Reddit influences cultural trends and millions of searches are conducted daily, the new Trending Takeover product gives advertisers access to millions of Reddit users who are in an active, information-gathering mindset. 

With a maximum campaign life of 24 hours, Trending Takeover aligns brands with the most popular and relevant trends and conversations of the day.

Users can see the Trending Takeover ad unit in the second slot of the Trending Today module on Reddit’s Popular feed, as well as the second slot of the Trending Today drop-down in Reddit’s Search tab.

Similar to organic trends on Reddit, clicking on a Trending Takeover ad in the ‘Trending Today’ module within Search or Popular will drive users to a landing page featuring conversations, posts, and communities relating to handpicked advertiser keywords. 

With Trending Takeover, advertisers can promote their campaign next to the largest trends on Reddit. Advertisers will also be able to spotlight their trend on the Trending Takeover landing page, driving further engagement and visibility.

For now, the Trending Takeover ad unit is only available on a reservation basis. Advertisers interested in buying ad space for this format should contact Reddit Advertising. In time this will likely simplify.

Reddit Reaches The Parts Other Platforms Cannot

Let’s be clear; Reddit’s marketing offerings are coming from a low base. It is years behind even LinkedIn, in terms of its marketing product mix.

However, the past 18 months have seen the gradual transformation of the platform, as it has rebooted its offerings to include new ad formats like autoplay in-stream video, cost-per-click, app install and more.

From a reporting perspective, Reddit also offers pixel tracking and conversion attribution reporting, as you’d expect as standard now within any online channel.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, Reddit is simply mimicking existing social media marketing solutions, but opening up very unique online audiences, often unreachable across Facebook, Instagram et al.

Monica Peart, eMarketer forecasting director March 2019

“Reddit’s users are tech-savvy and highly engaged, making them attractive to advertisers. A large portion are unique users, meaning they don’t use other social platforms. That means advertisers have the potential to reach new audiences in a highly targeted way.”

Given the improvements in Reddit’s ad offerings and brand safety, it needn’t be quite as daunting for marketers wanting to unlock the more “niche” pockets of the web any longer.

Step forth, brave marketers, thou needn't “do a Harrelson”, thou can just run normal ads.