The idea of social media as a ‘village square’, where ideas and news can be discussed communally, is not a new one. Most platforms reference ‘communities’ in some form or other, with social media acting as a conduit for people to express themselves, showcase their lives, keep in touch with friends and family, and follow their interests.

Arguably, one social media platform has embraced that idea of being a virtual ‘community’ more than any other. Reddit was founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian – then roommates at the University of Virginia – and Aaron Swartz, and has grown from being a small platform for niche discussion into a cultural behemoth. Today, Reddit is one of the world’s biggest social media sites, offering its 73.1 million daily active users – who remain anonymous – the chance to ask questions, find answers, challenge one another, and join like-minded people in discussing anything from the news of the day and social issues to recipes or DIY.

Advertising is the primary source of revenue for Reddit, at more than 95% of income. The company has a long-standing team working on the insights behind its advertising strategy and helping advertisers make the most of the opportunities Reddit offers.

“I have spent my career looking at how to make advertising valuable to consumers,” says Ryan Brendle, global head of marketing science at Reddit. “People come to Reddit to find belonging, interests, and to plug into our deep communities, and advertising can be valuable there. We have seen examples of where people are looking for solutions and advice, and advertising can add to that.”

Going deeper

Running a platform based around different groups discussing topics on ‘subreddits’ means the company has a rich array of data to draw upon when plotting its development and strategy. “It is one of the advantages of having such a deep platform – there are a lot of interesting insights and information,” Brendle says. His team, while primarily focused on the platform’s advertising, also uses that data to feed into Reddit’s product development, including new features.

Brendle’s team focuses on three broad areas. The first is helping advertisers to understand the value of the Reddit platform and improving outcomes. The second focus is on data analysis, which means getting in place the right first- and third-party data tools. “We’re only as good as the data tools that we have, so we spend a lot of time making sure we are building those and have the right relationships,” Brendle adds. Finally, the team looks to use data from its research to benefit other areas of the business, such as marketing and sales.

As well as a broader analytics department, there are separate teams working on qualitative research. “We are focused on making sure we have the right creative, the right campaign setups,” Brendle explains. “We are then at the tail-end of the process – when the campaign runs, we’re the ones judging the effectiveness and then recycling those learnings back into the ecosystem, so we can continue to improve.”

Research plays a key role in examining the effectiveness of the company’s advertising products. When doing alpha and beta testing, the team will often replicate measurement used by advertisers and feed the information back to the product team, to highlight what works and what doesn’t before it is released to the public. A second role is working directly with advertisers to help them improve their outcomes, understanding their goals, risks and opportunities, then building a strategic plan with them to make sure they see the benefits of advertising on Reddit and engage audiences effectively.

“Wherever we start, we want to make sure we are continuing to drive better outcomes for advertisers,” says Brendle.

“Reddit is, compared with its peers, quite small in terms of head size. We want to make sure we are maximising our resources, doing a good job of providing as many advertisers with value as possible. We are really thoughtful about how we do that in a cost-efficient way.”

The company recently partnered with Samsung for the launch of its Galaxy Z Fold phones. Aiming to drive interest among ‘fence sitters’ – people deliberating whether to buy the product – Samsung and Reddit developed a campaign based on Reddit’s community and behavioural insights, and influenced by conversations and behaviours observed on Reddit.

The result was the ‘Switchers Anonymous’ campaign, written, directed, produced, edited and launched by Reddit’s in-house creative agency, KarmaLab. It included Reddit ‘Easter eggs’ in videos, free-form posts (adverts on the platform that combine text, images or videos) that complemented the video adverts, and conversation posts that aimed to drive people to the free-form posts. The campaign resulted in a seven-point rise in ad awareness, as well as improvements in purchase intent and brand favourability, according to data from Reddit.

A new challenge

Reddit, being an anonymous platform where people can exchange very frank comments, ideas and experiences, has not always appeared an obvious place for brands to engage with customers and potential customers in the same way they do on other social media sites. However, the company has released a tool that allows advertisers to create profiles and interact with users directly on the platform, in the same way that others signed up to Reddit would. In addition, there is a dashboard available to businesses to understand the reaction and sentiment towards their posts on the platform. “Now they can have more real discourse,” Brendle suggests. “I think that is how you can change consumers’ hearts and minds, by engaging and helping them understand the [advertiser’s] value, and understanding where the [consumers’] pain points are.”

The platform also complements Reddit’s work to understand its users. “We want to make sure we are using qualitative data to understand how individuals are showing up on the platform – how are cat lovers interested in cat food, and those types of things,” Brendle adds. “From that, we can generate very powerful, relevant advertising hypotheses that we can take to advertisers.”

Brendle’s team also works with marketing to make sure “the strengths of the platform are understood – where we have competitive advantage”, as well as benchmarking with competitors.

Social media is a fast-changing industry. From the rise of TikTok to the dramatic changes at X, formerly known as Twitter, Brendle works to keep on top of the latest trends in the sector.

“The measurement space, especially in the past couple of years, and probably in the coming years, is evolving pretty rapidly,” he explains. “We have to look at the information we have on the platform and understand how our advertisers are viewing that data, and how they are making decisions.

“The platforms themselves and consumer tastes change pretty rapidly, so you always want to check in and
see how we are doing compared with others. It doesn’t drive everything we do – we know we are distinctly different from others in the market, and our contextual advertising platform is valuable, especially in a more privacy-centric world. But we do want to understand where we sit in the ecosystem.”

Brand sentiment measurement is carried out with Kantar, covering issues such as how to drive awareness, favourability, and action and intent.

There are other challenges, one being the end of third-party cookies.

“I do worry about that a little,” says Brendle.

“We have advertisers that are very sophisticated and ready, we have some that are still not clear what a cookie is – there’s a whole spectrum. I want to make sure we are doing a really good job in bringing everyone along, and doing our part to educate people and help them understand how they can connect to Reddit.”

Reddit, through its use of forums and its encouragement of deep discussion and interaction on the platform, has a large amount of rich first-party data to draw upon. “We are a strong contextual platform, which makes us a little more signals-resilient than other places,” says Brendle. “We are not as dependent on individual identity. I think that will be really valuable. As a key challenge, we want to make sure we are helping the industry understand that you can have really great performance without needing the same signals you maybe have in the past.”

Then, like everyone in the world, there is how to grapple with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI). Brendle is optimistic about its impact on his team and on Reddit more broadly. “Research and data can be such an intensive process. Anything that accelerates that, and allows analysts to spend more time doing the analytics portion [of their work] will continue to be very powerful. AI holds a lot of gains in terms of productivity.

“I am very excited about the pace we can do analysis – that, in my world, will be one of the bigger benefits. We are seeing some great gains in speeding up the development process, and having impact and learnings more quickly.” Whatever happens, Reddit’s role in connecting people and building communities will probably see it through.

This article was first published in the July issue of Impact