[Build Backlinks Online] The Advertiser's Guide To Surviving Reddit

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'The Advertiser's Guide To
Surviving Reddit'

Posted by anthonycoraggio
If you've so far neglected the advertising and marketing opportunities on
Reddit, you're not alone.Historically, the relationship between Redditors and
those who market to them has been contentiousReddit is a cohesive community in a
way that social platforms like Facebook or Twitter are not, and Redditors will
fight to protect its integrity from spammers and lazy attempts at commercial
gain. Done well, however, advertising on Reddit represents a tremendous
opportunity. The site is one of the fundamental drivers of internet culture, and
boasts roughly115 million monthly unique visitors, low ad costs, and high
potential for engagement and virality. Even better, Reddit is finallygetting
serious about monetizing the business and attaining profitability, rolling out
new features for advertisers and even offeringfree campaigns for international
advertisers to get started. Reddit can be a tough nut to crack, but handled
correctly it can become your secret weaponand I'm here to show you how.
There are three main things you need to know to successfully brave the brash,
quick-witted, and anonymous crowds of Reddit as a paid advertiser.The raw
materials: What kind of inventory is there to work with? The culture: What makes
Reddit tick? How to execute: Bringing it all together without ticking Reddit
off.
Alright, pencils ready? Let's get rolling!First things first: Advertising
options on Reddit
Before I delve into working with and advertising to the Reddit community, let's
get familiar with the tools at your disposal. Reddit offers a number of options
you can mix and match as appropriate in the lifecycle of a campaign or larger
marketing strategy here's a quick rundown of what they are and where they fit
into the Reddit ecosystem.Self-serve advertising: sponsored links
Reddit's self-serve advertising is the best place to start for the novice
Reddit advertiser. Cheap, easy, and surprisingly flexible, they are the
"promoted post" of the Reddit world.

A sponsored link, as seen live on Reddit
As you would in typical Reddit use, you have the option of submitting either an
external link or an internal link to a text post, which users may then
upvote/downvote or comment on. Your money buys you the top-of-page spot for your
link in the feed of either Reddit's front page or a topic-specific subreddit of
your choice.Cost
Reddit is currently offering a flat $0.75 CPM for self-serve advertisingyou'll
get the same price regardless of the choices you make in targeting or content.
There is a minimum buy of $5 for any individual sponsored link (which you'll
also have to pay for individually). This isn't a big hurdle budget-wise, but can
be problematic when there isn't $5 worth of impressions left to buy in your
chosen timeframe. Smaller, niche subreddits are particularly vulnerable to this
issue, and it's not yet possible to make multiple-subreddit buys through the
interface. Plan early and don't wait until the last minute to make your buys, or
you might get shut out entirely!

Inventory is limited; act fast!Content
You'll be given space for a title and either an external URL or a text post.
There are no hard limits here in character length like you'll find on AdWords,
Bing, or Twitter, but don't get caught up writing a novel. Your title should be
punchy and engaging to draw interest, and if you use a text post be clear and
concise in communicating your message and actions for the reader. You'll also
note that you have an option to allow or disallow user comments. I strongly
recommend you allow them to get the most bang for your buckI'll circle back to
that here in a minute.Performance data
Reddit's traffic data isn't the prettiest, but you'll get a solid picture of
spend, impressions, and clicks down to the hour. In general, you can expect
clickthrough rates similar to most display advertising (0.10-0.20%), but
exceptionally well done campaigns can reach far higher. Remember, you'll need to
manually tag your links before you submit your ad so you can track your campaign
performance properly in analytics!Restrictions
One more caveatyou can't launch your ads near-instantaneously as you might on a
platform like Facebook or Twitter. It can takeup to 2 days for your ads to be
reviewed and set live, and the interface will typically not allow you to choose
same or even next day start dates.Display ads
Display advertising on Reddit runs on the AdZerk engine, and is much closer to
what you might find on a standard network, with a couple of twists. Users can
upvote and downvote banner ads (the latter will block the ad for that user in
the future), and while banner ads don't quite fit into the normal discussion
thread flow, each is linked to a unique comment thread on asubreddit designated
for discussion of banner ads on the site.

Reddit sidebar banner, with downvoting options selected
To buy these ads you'll need to get in touch with Reddit's ads team directlyyou
can choose from homepage or subreddit roadblocks, individual banners, or the
design and creation of cobranded ad units with the Reddit team.Sponsored Q&As
Sponsored Q&A's are similar to Reddit's popular "Ask Me Anything" threads, but
are set up directly with Reddit and targeted for promotion across select
subreddits. These can run over the course of a few hours or a few days, with
specified times set for your Q&A experts to interact with the Reddit community.
You can check out an examplehere, a Q&A with the physicists behind the Higgs
Boson discover for Particle Fever.
Right then! Now that we know what we have to work with, let's learn how to be
good citizens of Reddit.Reddiquette for advertisers
I am writing this article both as a Redditor and a professional in advertising
- I believe good advertising should bring value to the audience as well as the
advertiser, and nowhere is that principle better enforced than on
Reddit.Reddiquette is Reddit's informal code of conducta codification of the
values that have grown organically within the community. Taken as a whole, it
creates an environment that demands five key things of marketers who want to
participate in this community. Defy these at your own peril!1. Bring something
of value to the table
This is possibly the most important and fundamental law of advertising on
Reddit. If you're not contributing, you're wasting your time. The essence of
being successful in Reddit advertising is the same principle common to social
media and content marketing in general: Contribute value to the community. As an
advertiser you've already been marked "sponsored"a potential invader to be
scrutinizedand have to meet a high bar to prove you're not a faceless corporate
con man come to poison the well or game the system. This doesn't necessarily
mean you can't sell a product;you just have to deliver it the right way, to the
people who are going to smile when they see what it can do. For example:

The above image is an ad run on
/r/showerthoughts, "asubreddit for you to share all those thoughts, ideas, or
philosophical questions that race through your head when in the shower." Note
the 323 upvotes, and the subsequent comments:
2. Be transparent
Don't try to game the system or trick users into clicking to your
over-optimized conversion page. Redditors live the internet, are thus experts at
spotting cheap online marketing tactic, and you will get mauled if you
contaminate their precious community with scams or clickbait. Instead, be
honest, straightforward, and prepared to communicate. Who are you? Why are you
here? If you are questioned in the comments, respond as a real person. This
alone won't guarantee you success, but it will earn you sorely needed respect.3.
Have a sense of humor
Redditors are for the most part here for entertainment, socializing,
discovering new things, and generally just to waste time. If you get in the way
of that or take yourself too seriously, they will take corrective action and
you'll likely wind up skewered in the comments.Take Woody Harrelson'scalamitous
attempt to hawk the movie Rampart in an "Ask Me Anything" (AMA, in Reddit lingo)
thread as a cautionary tale.4. Speak the language
Know your subreddit's cultureany specific rules, language used, common posts,
themes, or memes. If you haven't spent at least a half hour on that subreddit
reading comments and following links, you're not ready to run an ad there.5.
Roll with the punches
Get comfortable with anonymity and brutal honesty. If you screw up, Redditors
will let you know about it. Sure, you could disable comments, but this is merely
avoidance, and tosses out the baby with the bathwater. Think of this as the most
honest focus group in the worldif Redditors think it, they'll probably post it.
Respond (again, with good humor), validate any concerns, and use the feedback to
juice up your next run.
These rules can be a little tough to process if you're not a Redditor yourself,
so before we move on I'm about to give you the best assignment of your working
life. Just use reddit. Find fun topics. Comment, post, and find part of the
community that speaks to you. Native advertising works a lot better if you're a
native yourself!Bringing it all togetherPick your audience and stay with them
Of course, to run an engaging promotion on Reddit, you need to start by talking
to the right people and hold up your end of the conversation. You might be
surprised at the breadth and depth of audience you can find on Reddityes, you
will find a lot of geeky males aged 18-29, but the user base and the interests
represented on the site go far beyond that stereotype. You can find subreddits
dedicated to everything from ethnomusicology to baking. Take the time to do your
research and find the parts of the community that will really care about what
you have to say.
Once you find the right spot for your promotion, don't simply fire and forget
or use the same subreddits every time. Check back every time you launch a new
campaign and stay up to date on the doings of your target subredditsmoderation
controversies can lead to the breakout, similar subreddits with different
standards of conduct that may be better or worse for your purposes as a
marketer.
For example, a banner ad for the film
Under The Skin featuring an underwearclad Scarlett Johansson was recently
placed on the /r/gentlemanboners subreddit, which I expect the advertiser (not
unreasonably) assumed would appreciate the ad. No dicethe subreddit is strictly
PG-13 and doesn't permit images without full clothing. The community and
moderators responded harshly, and the ad was actuallytaken down.Use Reddit as
Reddit, not just another line ofadinventory
You can run basic, conversion focused ads pushed to a PPC style landing page,
like the Audible and Aquanotes examples above. But don't think of Reddit as just
a set of ad inventory. Rather, consider it as a social ecosystem, enhanced with
the power of paid promotions tools. You can still ultimately point users to a
conversion, but don't waste the opportunity to do more. Ask questions, share
opinions, and start a conversation. You can also offer incentives unique to
Redditors to make your message that much more specialthis recent ad by Vodo
created in partnership with Redditis an excellent example:

There's alsoa lot of value to be had in launching your content marketing into
the Reddit universe to be shared, talked about, and built upon. It can be
challenging to get off the ground at times, but that's where the paid
advertising comes inpoint a few thousand users at your piece, hit critical mass,
and the ball rolls from there.
You can also find success by intertwining organic and paid activity,for
example,using a sponsored Q&A or paid promotions to redirect people to visit
anAMA so others can tweet it, share it on social media, and multiply your
impact.Degree antiperspirant's clever use of anAMA withBear Grylls is a classic
example, sending Twitter traffic to the thread and creating storm of reciprocal
visits and coverageacross various channels.

In a more recent example,Ethan Hawke's AMA gathered 9.6 million unique viewers
in 24 hours and generated press coverage that brought in 15 million more. Not a
bad bit of marketing!Parting words

Social media outlets like Reddit havedone nothing more than they have scaled
word of mouth marketing - to succeed in Reddit advertising, you need to
understand the community and participate in it honestly.Don't abuse the
privilege of running ads here by spamming users with a hard or gimmicky
sellyou'll burn away any trust and goodwill might have quickly.To paraphrase
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, honest conversations from honest people about
quality, relevant products and services are what shape opinions and produce
results on Reddit. Go forth and be good!

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