Alphabet®
Reddit? Did it. Crushed it!
What is Reddit?
Reddit is a social media platform that is the self-proclaimed “front page of the internet.” The website has a very simple build and, at first glance, you may not believe it’s a thriving internet community of 234 million unique users (as of 2017).
It’s organized into Subreddits, which are unique forums based on interests. You may be surprised at how niche these Subreddits can get. They range from broad topics like “r/History” to the hyper-specific “r/SweetBagelHate: Bagels are fundamentally a savoury food” (which has 327 subscribers, believe it or not).
Reddit is home to a diverse crowd but is a definite favourite of tech-savvy users. That’s why we decided to test out the advertising feature for our client, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority.
An Educated Gamble – But a Gamble Nonetheless!
The Canadian Internet Registry Authority (CIRA) was looking for new ways to reach Canadians to build awareness of the .CA brand and ultimately purchase .CA domain names. When considering Reddit, we realized our message aligned well with the platform’s audience and the options for using Subreddits to target was appealing.
However, we were hesitant about the ad format since Reddit only allows text ads on the desktop website and text or image for the mobile site (depending on what view the user has chosen to use on mobile). CIRA has a fabulous brand with great imagery that has been working well on other platforms and pulling in great results with video. The plain format ads on Reddit felt like a step backward. We wanted to branch out to another platform, and CIRA was very interested in testing a different platform and market to expand their reach. So, we gave Reddit advertising a try.
The Campaign
We launched our first campaign in June of 2017. The ads ran for ten days, and we targeted Canadians on the front page of Reddit and throughout the site. We continued with our themes of “Choose Canada, Choose .CA” and “The Internet Needs More Canada”. With the visual pieces, we used iconic Canadian imagery along with these messages. For the text ads, we used our .CA logo for the thumbnail and similar messaging in the post copy.
The Results
The results were very encouraging. The Reddit platform offered an incredibly low Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) which allowed us to deliver 3.7 million impressions in those ten days.
With the success of our first foray into the Redditsphere, we decided to double down and go full tilt for July. Our July campaign ran for the full month and generated some excellent results.
Keep on Keepin’ On
The results of our first campaigns with Reddit confirmed what we had suspected: that Reddit was a fantastic space for CIRA to advertise and spread awareness of the .CA TLD.
Our Reddit ads have been running steadily since June and have accumulated a wealth of leads.
The Reddit advertising platform continues to grow and update with new features, and we’re excited to see how we can leverage this platform for more growth with CIRA and our other clients.
So, what did we learn?
New platforms, channels and ways to reach to reach your customers are appearing all the time. Some may not be new – but they can be new to you! The Internet is all about dynamic change – it’s the only constant. So, get out there and embrace the risk … go on … give it a big ol’ hug!