There’s a pretty simple reason why you’d want to advertise on Reddit: It’s one of the most visited websites in the world.
With that much traffic, you need to be able to target your ideal audience. Advertisers have a handful of ways to use the high-traffic platform to get in front of a target audience or focus on building their brand in a new way. While there may not be a ton of targeting options in Reddit, advertisers will find a mix of new and familiar options to create effective marketing campaigns. Let’s run through them.
Location targeting
Reddit’s main form of location targeting is by country. Advertisers in the United States can also narrow down the targeting to state and city level if need be. These same rules apply to the locations to exclude.
You should know that Reddit is like every other ad platform we are familiar with: If you do not select a location to target, your ads will be eligible to show worldwide, depending on what other targeting options you select.
Interest targeting
This one is pretty straightforward: Advertisers can target users who have recently interacted with certain categories of content. The important part of that last sentence is “recently interacted.” We’re not targeting users who are currently looking at these interests. This key phrase makes this targeting option pretty broad. Here is a list of the current Interests that Reddit advertisers can target:
Animals & Pets
Art & Design
- Arts & Crafts
- Design
- Fine Art Photography
- Interior & Landscape
- Visuals
Automotive
- Car Culture
- Auto Type
- Auto Repair
Business & Finance
- Business
- Personal Finance
- Career Planning
- Cryptocurrency
News & Education
- College Education
- National News
- Science
Entertainment
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Horror
- Movies
- Music & Audio
- General Entertainment
- Stories & Literature
- Podcasts
- Humor
- Reddit Meta
Gaming
- Video Gaming
- eSports
- PC Games
- Tabletop Games
Style & Fashion
- Fashion Trends
- Beauty
- Men’s Fashion
- Women’s Fashion
- Weddings
Food & Drink
- Alcoholic Beverages
- Cooking
- Fast Food
Family & Relationships
- Parenting
- Dating
- Marriage & Civil Unions
- Life Advice
Healthy Living
- Fitness & Exercise
- Wellness
- Outdoors
Sports
- Baseball
- Basketball
- College Sports
- Cycling
- Track & Field
- Soccer
- Wrestling
- Football
- Hockey
Technology & Computing
- Consumer Electronics
- Computing
- Virtual Reality
- Programming
Television
- Animation
- Comedy
- Drama
- Reality
- Science Fiction
- Cordcutters
Travel
- Travel Locations
- Lifestyle
This is an exhaustive list, but just looking at it proves again how broad this targeting option is. Targeting “Travel Locations,” for instance, doesn’t let you to specify which travel locations—if you’re only after customers for your resort in Florida, you don’t want your ads to appear on pages about Mediterranean cruises or South American vacations. Interest targeting doesn’t allow advertisers to get that specific.
If you need to find a deeper level of targeting in Reddit, let’s move on to the next option.
Subreddit targeting
Subreddits are forum categories in the platform dedicated to specific topics or categories. Advertisers have the option to target users who either have recently interacted with certain subreddits or are currently subscribed to a subreddit. It’s pretty easy to search for subreddits related to your business to see if any options show up by searching under the “Target Specific Communities” option.
If you’re not finding your desired Subreddit populating in the campaign options, it means there isn’t enough volume for that Subreddit to be eligible for targeting.
Device targeting
By default, your Reddit ad groups are going to target all devices. Advertisers do, however, have the option to target either desktop only or mobile only if they choose.
This will give you the option to break out your campaigns or ad groups by device if you want to better control performance. If you are planning to run a campaign with the App Installs objective, however, you will only be able to target mobile users which should be any surprise to you.
Time of day targeting
Reddit advertisers can select which hours of the day within the days of the week their ads can be shown. All you have to do is click and drag to highlight a block of consistent hours, or you can click any square one-by-one to choose random sets of hours.
Google Ads’ ad scheduling has the time zone set to whatever you chose when creating your account. Reddit Advertising is different. The times you select will show your ads based on the ad viewer’s time zone. Keep that in mind when selecting your schedule.
Research for yourself
Reddit isn’t going to work for every brand out there. But with that much traffic, it’s worth trying. You’re going to have to dig into the targeting options yourself to see if your target audience could potentially be on the platform. The good news is that many of the targeting options are going to be familiar to an experienced PPC marketer. Just remember the subtle differences in how the targeting options work for Reddit so your campaigns can launch with the best foot forward.