Reddit announced at the end of January that it will now be offering cost-per-click (CPC) ads in an effort to attract a wider variety of online marketers to the platform.
What is Reddit?
Reddit is a social media site where users engage in discussion on a variety of topics, including entertainment, technology, current events, and much, much more. In fact, the entire website is really a collection of individual discussion forums, known as subreddits.
Subreddits are discussion threads built around a particular topic, from sports teams and niche hobbies to popular TV shows. The subreddit for the TV show Game of Thrones, for example, had almost 8 million unique views last year.
Users can give other people’s posts upvotes or downvotes (likes or dislikes, basically), and engage by sharing their own comments. In 2018 alone, Reddit users posted over 1.2 billion comments.
What advertising options does Reddit offer?
To capitalize on its popularity, Reddit has previously offered advertising opportunities in the form of promoted posts and video views. This has proved successful; according to AdAge, Reddit’s ad revenue has grown five-times over the past three years.
As it now branches into CPC advertising, Reddit could see this trend continue. Since ad spend is expected to increase in 2019 for big players like Facebook and Google, Reddit CPC ads could present advertisers with a lower-cost marketing alternative. The trade-off is, of course, Reddit has a smaller audience than the duopoly’s billions of diverse users.
That’s not to say Reddit hasn’t grown considerably since its inception in 2005. Dubbed “the front page of the internet,” Reddit now has 330 million monthly active users around the world. Over half of these users are located in the United States.
Who can I reach by running ads on Reddit?
Despite its high volume of users, the demographic of Reddit’s audience remains relatively narrow, with the majority of its users being young and male.
In the United States, more than 50% of Reddit users fall into the 18-29 age bracket. Around two-thirds are male.
What does this mean for marketers?
Marketers with this target audience may look to shift some of their advertising dollars from Google or Facebook to Reddit. Those with a different or wider audience, however, may opt to stick with the duopoly.
Either way, Reddit’s move into the CPC arena marks another example of smaller platforms battling for Google and Facebook ad dollars. Whether or not Reddit will be a viable contender, however, remains to be seen.
If you need help with your paid advertising strategy, our team of experts at Creative Website Marketing are happy to help and to provide access to the data you need to maximize your PPC investment. Contact us today!
Creative Website Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Nashville, TN, helping businesses throughout the country execute strategic brand awareness + lead generation efforts.
This opens quite a lot of opportunities for many business niche that are oriented to young adults sales and services. Definitely looks like a good idea to do few test campaigns with Reddit.