Even though there are many channels that we used for digital marketing, there are still platforms we might miss out on the opportunity. Reddit is the 7th most popular social network in the States that can generate a lot of traffic and sales to your product. However, you need to know which mistakes to avoid not to mess up with advertising on Reddit and for your investment (whether it is a budget or your time) to pay off.
This piece will give you a complete immersion in what Reddit is, how to build community on Reddit and how to advertise successfully via content marketing or paid Reddit Ads. Follow along! 

What is Reddit? 

Reddit is basically a massive collection of forums gathered under one roof where people discuss anything from bird photos to startup topics. 

You can post your content, communicate with other members and discuss issues on Reddit. It works like a digital space for arguments, discussions, and sharing of knowledge.

That’s what makes it great — you can find any topic you like or your product fits and you may have access to the audience gathered in one place who are into the same thing. 

What is a subreddit? 

A subreddit is a unit that is equal to the forum. As we said before, Reddit is a collection of forums. So eventually it consists of “subreddits” — forums covering a specific topic on Reddit.
Each subreddit is defined with r/ which is a part of Reddit’s URL. For instance, r/entrepreneur is a forum dedicated to entrepreneurship posts. 

In the picture below, we can see r/FacebookAds which gathers 12k people who are interested in solutions connected to Fb Ads.

To find communities (subreddits) you would like to follow, use the search bar at the top of the page. Once you joined a couple of subreddits you might find the bar with “Best”, “Hot”, “New”, and “Top” filtering options useful. Each button will help to filter out the new posts in subreddits according to their name. But it works only for communities or subreddits you follow.

Guidelines & Community of Reddit

This is a very important thing to take into consideration before starting any activity of Reddit. This platform is known for increased trustworthiness and humanity in the times of digital spaces. Reddit tries to recreate the IRL community feeling while using all the digital technologies. It is about creating valuable communities and commenting out with respect, knowledge, and tact. No matter if we are talking about cat pics subreddits or politics discussions. 

People appreciate real content, real opinion and get upset with useless promotions. You have to deliver value if you want to attract attention to your brand or your content.

You can see the guidelines on posting on Reddit below. As well you might notice that each community has its own rules that are set by mods (moderators). 

Posting to Reddit rules: 

1. Remember the human
2. Behave like you would in real life
3. Look for the original source of content
4. Search for duplicates before posting
5. Read the community rules
   

Read more community Rules here and make sure to check out the Reddiquette. 

Reddit language 

And yes, Reddit absolutely loves creating its own language. Few of the abbreviations you might wanna get accustomed to before diving into Reddit: 

Mods (moderators) — volunteers who moderate the content in the subreddits: they can change the look of the subreddit, remove content or sometimes even ban certain users. Though do not mistake mods with admins (who are official employees on Reddit) who have even more power over the content you post and who can take away mods’ right to influence subreddits. 

OP (original poster) — refers to a person who originally created a certain post. A well-respected human!

TIL (Today I Learned) — sometimes posts on Reddit can be as easy as TIL. People share their experience or knowledge of the certain areas. And this content works pretty well.

AMA (also IAmA) — refers to the “Ask me anything” thread. It is a type of Q&A where people can type any question they want to be answered.

TL;DR (Too long; didn’t read) — we all know what that means. Strive for engaging content for TL;DR to not happen with you 🙂

Upvote — a positive vote that users can do to a post in a subreddit to indicate that this post is bringing value to the community.

Downvote — a negative vote that users show to bring your post down in the subreddit tops. That means that your post is not engaging, not bringing value, or is against the guidelines of Reddit.

Karma — that’s a measurement of the quality of your content and profile on Reddit. There are two types of Karma on Reddit: post karma and comment karma. As you remember, Reddit wants you to remember that even if you are in a digital space, you have to remember to stay human and as IRL (in real life). So take care of your digital karma. 

Why advertise on Reddit? 

The real power of Reddit is in communities of engaged people who share the same interests in particular subreddits. Therefore, once you find a way to subreddit top and Redditors’ hearts — you are on the right way to receive a lot of inexpensive attention.

For example, these are the results some companies managed to achieve with Reddit Ads: 

Accuweather decreased CPI by 67%, tripled the CR rate, and increased sessions per install by 115%. 

Tushy (a bidet brand) has gained 450% ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), got 49% higher CTR, and leveraged 300% lower CPC. 

 

You may choose advertising strategies up to your budget by choosing one of the three available types of ads on Reddit:

1) Content Marketing — the infamous method which is low at its cost, but takes more time and other resources. 

2) Reddit Paid Ads — this is the same technique as Facebook Ads but on Reddit 🙂 You can set the budget, the bid, and test advertising through interest-based communities.

3) Ad Units by Reddit — this is sort of exclusive advertising which is held through the Reddit team. You can buy out your ad placements on the auction. And this is the most expensive option to go for.

Let’s reveal each of the methods in the following complete guide.

Complete guide: how to advertise on Reddit 

Before we dig into this guide, we have to define once again that there are three types of advertisement on Reddit: Paid Reddit Ads, Ad units available on auction, and Content Marketing on Reddit. 

How to advertise via content marketing strategy on Reddit

• Create an account and research the audience

The first rule of Reddit: before you start advertising, it’s better to create trust around your profile. If you want to blend in with the society of Redditors, you have to play the game by its rules. Research your target audience, see what people post in subreddits, enjoy the ride 🙂

• Earn the trust of the community 

Don’t start posting marketing content straight from a fresh profile. First things first you want to get accustomed to a platform. Interact with Redditors, try posting general content to a few of the subreddits you might need in the future, and comment on other people’s posts.

You need to earn some karma before you start promotions. The better karma you have, the better chances that your posts will be displayed higher in the subreddits.
Questions on subreddits are known as one of the most traffic-generating threads. Consider asking your community a few questions that might even help you in the future with your business. 

• Start slipping in marketing content upfront 

After you’ve been known in the community as a contributor, you can start spilling promotional posts. Just keep in mind that Redditors do not like shady marketing schemes. If you have something to say, just say it! Promote it!

Simply consider putting the value before the promotion. Each marketing action has to be tied to the benefits that readers will get from it. 

• Post consistent & authentic content 

Even if you do promotional posts, do not forget about the community. Post threads with valuable content on a regular basis. As with any social media, consistency is the key.

Here are a few rules you want to use for your posts on subreddits: 

• Instant value (with no weird marketing schemes)
• Relevant content to the subreddit
• No clickbait titles
• Use informative titles that showcase the value 
• Cover hot topics/concerns/trends and look for opinions
• Once gained some reputation, host AMA 

Remember Ask me anything thread? Well, by this moment you are a PRO Redditor, so we think you are ready to step up the game and host your AMA. Use other social media to bring attention to your AMA and try to get as many questions as possible. It is a very good way to generate users’ attention. Consider setting an agenda that would help users ask questions relevant to what you need to advertise. 

• Curate the content that people will contribute to themselves

One of the best social media phenomena is user-generated content. Some brands can easily trigger wider audiences to co-create content with them. It is known to be the cheapest way of marketing since you barely need any resources.

A great example is Spotify. They simply asked users a question: to mention songs and feelings/emotions tied to these songs in order to create a playlist. It turned out to be a playlist of 10,000 songs which basically can be equated to the amount of attention that Spotify got during this thread going viral.
It showcases once again that sometimes you don’t need big budgets, you just need to be creative and understand the human psyche

• Running a contest 

Well, this is not an easy way to market yourself because there are many things that can go wrong. We all know how shady sometimes content on the web looks like. And keeping in mind how picky Redditors are, it is probably even harder to host good content on Reddit.
However, remember the rules we discussed many times already: stay human and bring value. Think about the emotion that you want to cause when choosing a strategy for a contest.

A great example of successful content is Nissan. They asked a simple question: “What is one thing you want from Amazon?”. The thread went viral and Nissan treated the most unique commentators with the things they wanted on Amazon along with a Reddit Gold subscription. 

Sometimes even simple things can make people happy 😉 

Paid advertising on Reddit

Promoted posts

The first option to go for — to run paid ads. If you used Facebook Ads before, you know the drill. Except for the fact that setup on Reddit is way easier.

• Create an ad account for the company
  
  
• Find your target audience in subreddits and check activity

Before you start advertising, you have to do your research. Start by diving into the topics that might be interesting to your consumer. Define at least 5 to 10 subreddits that could fit your TA. Learn what people post there, how they communicate, become a contributor yourself. Before you advertise on Reddit, you really have to learn about your audience.                                 

• Create a campaign

After you’ve done the research you can proceed to create an advertising campaign on the main page. One of the first steps you will have to complete: choose an objective for your ads. If you tried Facebook Ads before, you already know what to do. Make sure to choose the objective according to the needs of your marketing strategy.

• Create an ad group

The hierarchy of the campaign on Reddit is the following: Campaign — Ad Group — Ad. This structure helps groups your ads in ag groups and in campaigns.
When creating an ad group, you narrow down the audience you want to use for targeting your ads. You can also choose interests, add communities, choose device type for targeting. In the ad group, you have to set the budget and a bit for your ad.

• Create a fascinating ad

The next step is to create your ad. You will have an opportunity to use existed post or to create a new one for your ad creative. You may choose the type of your creative from Video, Text, and Link. Access by the needs you have which type would work better for you.

• Wait for approval

After you created an ad you will have to submit it for approval. Usually, it takes about 24-48 hours for your ad to get approved. And once your ad is live — you will receive an email notification. 

• Analyze results and optimize strategy

As in every digital marketing activity, analytics is the key to success. Sometimes performance statistics can not show the numbers we expect to see, but we need to use this data to improve and get higher results in the future.
One of the best tools that you might use for analytics is an ad tracker. It allows you to track the performance of your ads (on all advertising channels) in a single dashboard and make conclusions for optimization. 

At RedTrack, we are focused on delivering the top-notch solution for conversion tracking & attribution. In a single tool you receive the following functionality: 

• Bird-eye view of all your digital marketing & advertising activities at all channels (including affiliates, PPC, Organic, etc.)
• In-depth granular analytics & reporting to understand every single bit of conversions
• Conversion attribution to analyze the users’ actions in complex funnels
• Seamless integration and automation of 20+ traffic sources for easy control of your ads

Ad auction on Reddit

Another way to run paid ads with Reddit is by using an ad unit. Reddit offers a bunch of exclusive display ads for placements on communities on an auction basis for a fixed CPM. In order to use this type of advertising, you must work directly with the Reddit team. 

A few ad units that Reddit offers: 

• Promoted post & video ad units (sort of Native Ads on Reddit)
• Takeover Ad unites (you get a chance to be at the top of the communities you are interested in for 24 hours)
• First View unit (be the first to be seen on the Home or Popular page)

This option is more expensive and the prices are not announced publicly on the website. So before you consider participating in an ad auction, consider trying content marketing on Reddit or simple Paid Ads. 

So is Reddit advertising for you? 

A lot of advertisers dump Reddit before then finishing typing Reddit.com. There is a reason for that, Reddit is known to be a hard platform to win its heart. But with complicated turns come amazing rewards.
If you choose to stick with advertising on Reddit, you get access to highly engaged communities that do not scroll but read the content. You might grab the attention of Redditors and co-create the content with their help as well as stumble upon discoveries you would not find on another platform.
And last but not least, while many advertisers are afraid of opening Reddit, you get the cut in the competition. So take your chance while you have it. Enjoy advertising on Reddit with this step-by-step guide.