Reddit Ads Updates

August 16, 2019

Update to Reddit Ads Email Notifications

Thanks to /u/jeromysonne suggesting the feature, Reddit will now be adding usernames to the emails that they send out about the platform. The usernames will be added to the subject line of emails Reddit Ads sends out about rejected ads and about ads that were approved.

The announcement was made in a post dated August 14th, 2019 in the Reddit Ads subreddit titled “Update to email communications!”

Sticky

December 04, 2018

You Can Now Track Conversions (better) With Reddit Ads – The Reddit Conversion Pixel

Reddit Ads have been a nightmare for analytics data based marketers trying to optimize their Return On Ad Spend. For the longest time Reddit Ads data and Google Analytics Data were not in agreement but the solution then was easy, just track conversions in Google Analytics from Reddit.com, use UTM tracking, or use a special funnel to track leads from Reddit. Then Reddit launched their new design as default in April of 2018. The new design stripped referrer data from all outbound links meaning analytics trackers would no longer be able to tell that traffic was coming from Reddit and all conversion data would be assigned to the “direct” channel, making it far more difficult for marketers to track success. Reddit then introduced a tracking pixel, but that tracking pixel was very basic in what it could do.

That all changed a little today when Reddit announced a new and improved version of their own conversion tracking pixel. Similar to the Facebook pixel known and loved by marketers this pixel can track various events occurring on your website by a user that visited from an advertisement on Reddit.

You can learn how to install the new conversion pixel on this page: Installing the Reddit Conversion Pixel

Here’s a peek at the new conversion pixel shared by Reddit Ads team member h0neybe8r

It’s good to see the Reddit Ads team continuing to evolve their offerings. I really wish they would stop using the rel=noreffer attribute so we could at least try and validate the data provided by Reddit Ads, but this new conversion pixel is a huge step in the right direction.

Sticky

July 09, 2018

Reddit Ads Has Launched Call To Action Buttons

Starting today you can now include a Call to Action (CTA) button with your Reddit Ad. CTA buttons have long been the go to way to get users to take an action on a webpage, inside of an app, or from an advertisement. This should allow marketers more flexibility to drive value out of the Reddit Advertising system.

CTA’s are not available for ads running on the “old” design of Reddit or more obviously in 3rd party apps. CTA buttons will show for users on the New Reddit design, Not logged in users on desktop, Official Mobile Apps, and the mobile version of the website.

To find the CTA’s navigate to the bottom of the Ads Creation Page in your Reddit Ads Dashboard and choose a CTA Button from the Drop Down Menu.

What the CTA button selection looks like on the Reddit Ads Creation page.

Reddit is launching this feature with 13 different types of CTA copy and doesn’t appear to have any plans to allow this featured to be customized. The CTA buttons at launch are:

Download
Install
Shop Now
View More
Sign Up
Learn More
Contact Us
Get Showtimes
Get a Quote
See Menu
Apply Now
Watch Now
Play Now

What the CTA buttons look like on the desktop version of Reddit

What the CTA buttons look like in the official Reddit mobile app.

Update: /u/h0neybe8r a Reddit staffer who works on the Product Marketing team responded to questions about Reddit possibly allowing customization in the future: “We will be updating the look and feel of the button as we gather and incorporate feedback. No plans for custom copy, as we want to keep things simple/streamlined and we don’t want to add more time to ad review.”

Discussion: On /r/RedditAds

Sticky

July 08, 2018

Reddit Ads Stripping Referrer Data

The new Reddit design has the platform stripping HTTP referrer (referer) data from outbound links on the website. This includes ads. I asked the Reddit Ads staff about this and they informed me that this was added intentionally.

The “noreferrer” HTML attribute strips away the referral data from one website to the next. This means that a website can look at their server data and know how many website visitors came to their website on a particular day from another website and look for patterns to help those users have a better experience.

There doesn’t appear to be any security or privacy reasons for this change and it only appears on ads using the new Reddit design. On the old design the links send referrer data normally.

If you’re an advertiser this means that you’re likely seeing an ever larger discrepancy between your Reddit Ads reported data and the data in your analytics tracking. The only way to track Reddit Ads data now is to use UTM parameters. If you’re an agency your clients should be noticing a drop in Reddit traffic from both organic and paid due to this change. There is currently no way to improve the tracking of organic Reddit traffic.

For those using the “old” Reddit design you can replicate this by going to Reddit.com using Chrome’s incognito tab, navigating to any advertisement (or any organic post), right clicking on the link included in the ad/post and selecting ‘inspect element’.

Sticky

June 12, 2018

Reddit Will Start Running Auto-Play Video Ads Soon

Reddit recently became the #3 website in the USA according to Alexa and now the website is trying hard to capitalize on their popularity by rolling out the red carpet for advertisers with auto-play video ads. This move as reported by VideoInk will most likely prove very unpopular with current Reddit users who frequently complain about such ads on YouTube and news websites.

The auto-play video ads will only be visible to Reddit users who use the new card-based design layout (i.e. the new default layout) and likely won’t be seen by users using old.reddit.com / the legacy design. Currently this program is only open to ‘select partners’ but Reddit plans to open it up to all advertisers as soon as this summer.

VP of brand partnerships Zubair Jandali was cited by VideoInk saying that he thinks these auto-play video ads “[are] adding to the utility that the company offers marketers”

This move is something marketing experts like Joe Youngblood and others have expected from the platform’s recent interests in redesigning the site.

Sticky

March 30, 2017

Reddit Ads UI Update and Feature Upgrades March 2017

Reddit Ads, the self-serve system for advertisers on Reddit has launched a brand new UI and newly-built advertising system.

The ads themselves are the same, but marketers now have access to some much needed new features, better reporting, and a more aesthetically pleasing user interface.

Here are the main changes to the Reddit Ads:

Post-pay Billing – Reddit advertisers are no longer required to pre-pay for ads and will be charged after ads run. This is great news as it means advertisers no longer need to deal with the messy and often slow process of getting a refund for unused advertising spend.
Better Reporting – Reddit Ads will now allow you set the date ranges for your reporting, has better looking charts, and will allow you to more easily track CTR, eCPM, and eCPC.
Multiple Creatives in One Campaign – Up until now Reddit Ads has required advertisers to create one creative per campaign. Now you’ll be able to create multiple different creatives per a single campaign, similar to the Google Ads campaign we recently covered.

.

Check it out.

Sticky

October 31, 2016

How to Opt Out of Reddit’s Personalized Ads

If you want to Opt-Out of the new Interest based targeting or Personalized advertising on Reddit, they’ve made the process very simple.

Simply visit this url: https://www.reddit.com/adsprefs
Uncheck the box marked “Show me personalized ads from Reddit on this browser”
Then click “Save Options”

The opt-out option is cookie based so it works on a per browser basis. If you opt-out on Chrome while logged in and you log out then continue to browse Reddit your preferences to not be targeted with personalized ads should stay.

This also means that if you clear cookies or use a different browser you’ll have to reset your preferences. Because the system uses cookies if you want to have one account that you opt-out of advertising for and another that you leave opted in and you login to both using the same browser then you’ll notice the last action in the browser is what counts.

User could alleviate this by using one browser to opt-in to the targeting and one to opt out of the targeting.

Sticky

October 31, 2016

Reddit Launches Interest Targeting for Ads

On Thursday Reddit announced “Interest Targeting“. This is a new update to the advertising platform that goes beyond “Collections”. Interests are groups based on what subreddits users visit most often. For example if you visit /r/NoMansSky and /r/Gaming you might be considered as part of the Gaming Interest Group and if you visit /r/Enrepreneur and /r/BigSEO you might be considered as part of the Business Interest Group.

Users can opt-out of the new targeting in their user panel. It should be noted that this new targeting is cooked based but only includes Reddit data, so no re-targeting (yet). The Opt-Out options work on a per browser basis and are set for both logged in and logged out users, these are cookie based so users must reset them if they logout and clear cookies.

For now interest groups are only based on the type of content an account visits frequently based on the sub-reddits they visit. That means being able to target things like gender and sexual preference are not possible with this ad type.

One other interesting distinction with this advertising unit is that Reddit will not link various accounts owned by the same person. CEO Steve Huffman himself stated that Reddit wants users to be able to openly express themselves on Reddit and keep different parts of their lives separate on their own will. This runs in stark contrast to Google and Facebook the former of which has spent the last 5 or 6 years trying to combine information across Google accounts about one user.

Interest Groups are only available on desktop for now, it’s very possible that Reddit could release this on mobile soon, but for now they are not.

Here are all of the current Interest Groups

Art & Design – art lovers, creators, and designers
Books & Writing – aspiring authors, bookworms, and writers
Business – business savvy users, from startups to corporations
Comics & Hobbies – comic readers, cosplayers, and conventions goers
DIY / Crafts – ‘Do it yourself’ and crafty users
Entertainment – moviegoers, TV show enthusiasts, and music lovers
Fashion & Style – users interested in the latest fashion trends Food & Drink – foodies, chefs, and home cooks
Gaming – PC, console, and mobile gamers
Health & Fitness – fitness experts and newcomers
Home Decor – homeowners and decorators
Humor – users who love to laugh
Life Advice – users looking to improve themselves and others
Music – music makers, concert goers, and all things musical
Personal Finance – users learning to invest, save money, and reduce debt
Photography – professional and amateur photographers
Programming – developers, engineers, and aspiring programmers
Relationships – users keen on discussing their relationships
Science – users interested in all things science related
Shopping – shoppers, savers, and bargain hunters
Sports – users who are up to date in the sports world
Technology – Reddit’s tech savvy enthusiasts
Travel – travelers, bloggers, and nomads
Vehicles – automotive enthusiasts

This is what the new targeting looks like inside of the Reddit Ads Editor

Sticky

August 24, 2016

Reddit Changes Ecommerce Advertising Rules

Reddit recently announced changes to their Reddit Advertising policies for ecommerce websites. They are no longer going to allow advertisers to use “misleading” ads or ads where delivery times vary a lot. In fact they’ve added 4 rules to their ecommerce advertising that take effect effective immediately, they are:

No ‘free’ products or misleading pricing
The cost of the item cannot be rolled into the cost of shipping
Estimated shipping time must be 30 days or less
Estimated shipping time must be clearly indicated at checkout

This means advertisers will not be able to sell products they claim are free but come with a hefty shipping cost, sell a product but wait a long time to ship it, or not provide estimated shipping dates in a clear fashion before the user makes a purchase.

Reddit Advertising staff said about the changes:

Our goal with these changes is to ensure a quality ad experience for our users by promoting transparency. Furthermore, we want to protect advertisers from aggressive or distasteful comments and private messages that revolve around these ads. – MyNameIzKhan

This update appears to impact only “Free Products” that are tangible and not intangible items (i.e. digital downloads) or free services (i.e. free sketches). We’ve asked about things like 30-day trails, free services, free digital downloads, and charging a few cents for a product with shipping to see if those are still acceptable.

Sticky