Reddit Ads Playbook
How to set up, track, and run Reddit ads. Ads show in feeds and in comment threads, and people can reply to them, so plan for comments.
Account structure
- Give each campaign one objective.
- Split prospecting and retargeting into separate ad groups.
- Use a consistent naming pattern, for example
Objective-Community-Creative-Version.
Tracking and measurement
- Install the Reddit Pixel directly or through Google Tag Manager.
- Add the Reddit Conversions API for server-side events. Send a matching event ID from both to deduplicate.
- Map standard events, such as PageVisit, ViewContent, AddToCart, Purchase, Lead, and SignUp.
- Check events in Events Manager before launch.
- Add UTM parameters to every destination URL.
Campaign types
| Objective | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Brand awareness and reach | Impressions to a defined audience. |
| Traffic | Clicks to your site. |
| Conversions | Actions tracked by the pixel, including catalog sales with dynamic product ads. |
| Video views | Video reach. |
| App installs | Installs and in-app events. |
Targeting
- Target communities (subreddits) that discuss your category.
- Use keyword targeting to reach people reading related posts.
- Use interest targeting to scale after community targeting works.
- Build custom audiences from site visitors and customer lists, and lookalikes from them.
- Read each community’s rules before you advertise there.
Creative
- Write like a person in the community. Plain, direct copy works better than polished ad language.
- Test text, image, and video posts. Some communities prefer text.
- Keep video short and add on-screen text. Many people watch without sound.
- Decide whether to allow comments. If you allow them, someone must read and answer them.
Budget and bidding
- Use automatic bidding to start. Move to a cost cap or manual bid when you know your target cost.
- Narrow community targeting can limit delivery. Widen it if the budget does not spend.
Review cadence
- Daily: comments and sentiment. Escalate problems to community or PR teams.
- Weekly: results by community and creative; adjust bids and rotate ads.
- Monthly: compare cost per result with other channels; review brand safety settings.
Pre-launch checklist
- Pixel and Conversions API verified, with deduplication.
- Rules checked for each target community.
- Comment moderation owner and escalation steps agreed.
- Brand safety and suitability settings chosen.
- UTM parameters on all URLs.
- Budgets and spend alerts set.