Reddit’s expanding the availability of its Promoted Posts to its apps, giving brands a new way to reach the platform’s 330 million monthly active users, on the devices which they’re most active.
As explained by Reddit:
“We’re starting to roll out Promoted Posts to the Reddit apps. Previously, you could only advertise using Reddit Promoted Posts on our desktop and mobile websites. Next week, we’re making the ad inventory on our iOS app available, with Android to follow in the coming weeks.”
As you can see from the above example, Reddit’s Promoted Posts on mobile appear like regular Reddit posts, including the capacity to upvote, downvote and comment on each. The ability to downvote and comment could be intimidating for some advertisers – as can be Reddit more generally, given its users’ well-documented opposition to promotions. But at the same time, the ability will also help ensure Reddit advertisers take the time to understand the platform, and what users expect, in order to avoid being criticized in the interactive elements.
Giving marketers more ways to connect with Reddit users via mobile device has become an essential for the app – according to latest figures:
- 41% of time spent on Reddit is in the Reddit mobile apps
- 80% of Reddit app users are not on desktop
- Logged-in app users spend 30% more time per day
As with most social platforms, mobile is taking over as the preferred destination for Reddit users, meaning if the company wants to seriously boost its revenue potential, it needs to focus on mobile-first offerings.
The announcement is the latest in Reddit’s more recent updates designed to improve the monetization potential of the app. Last March, Reddit introduced user (and brand) profiles to enable users to build a dedicated presence on the platform, while they’ve also updated their ad creation system and process and launched a conversion tracking pixel to help improve ad performance.
The addition of Promoted Posts further expands this capacity – as noted, many businesses remain wary of the platform, but there are significant opportunities, with highly engaged subreddits on virtually every topic you can think of.
It takes research to tap into Reddit, you need to take some time to see how things work and understand where your brand opportunities best fit. But as the platform looks to expand its ad tools, and marketers seek alternatives to Facebook’s algorithm shifts, Reddit may well be worth the effort.