Launching Ads on reddit: How to create a video campaign
Ready to expand your reddit ad campaigns with some sweet new video? All the segmentation you have used in your Traffic or Awareness campaigns are available for you to utilize in reddit Video Ad campaigns. So you can load up the exact targeting and ad segments from other campaigns (assuming you have saved those segments).
If you haven’t launched a reddit ad campaign with a standard image through Traffic or Awareness, we would recommend starting there. This will give you a better understanding of how the platform operates. You can get started with some additional reading that we have put out there with How To Launch a reddit Ad Campaign and/or How to Create a reddit Ad.
What’s different about a video ad on reddit?
All of the key considerations you might put forth with a standard Facebook ad campaign, Linkedin ad, or Twitter ad still apply. You’ll want to select the right subreddits that are aligned with your product or service, determine an appropriate budget, build great creative, and check results frequently through reddit’s native dashboard and Google Analytics (GA4). The most important, of course, is doing your subreddit research. Cannot overemphasize the importance of understanding your target audience on your subs.
Like Facebook or Twitter, reddit also offers autoplay for ads. Meaning that, as your target audience scrolls down their feed, and your ad enters that feed, it will be automatically play. So don’t rush your intro, or pop the logo at the intro for a brief moment (if brand recognition/retention is important for you).
In fact, we would recommend keeping your brand clear during your ad, especially if you have a longer asset and have a KPI focused on awareness. Keeping a clear wordmark visible for the entirety of the asset will help with brand recognition and brand retention. Wordmark definitely over logo, unless you have a nationally-recognized brand.
Why should you layer on video, if you already have a high performing ad campaign with great images? Well, according to reddit, campaigns combining image & video creatives in a single campaign have seen 10x higher lifts in memorability, 14x higher in message recall, and 3x higher in brand favorability. So video is a great place to invest if you have a successful display campaign already running on the platform.
Reddit video ad specs
Aspect ratio: 1:1; 4:5; 4:3; or 16:9
Frame rate: Up to 30 frames per second (FPS)
File formats: MP4; MOV
Minimum resolution: 1080 x 1080
File size: 1 GB max
Thumbnail display: 400 x 300 pixels
Thumbnail file size: 500 KB max
Length: Can be up to 15 minutes, but recommended 0:05 - 0:30 seconds
Associated text: 300 characters max
Reddit reports that video ads perform best in a 4:5 ratio.
Ok, how do I get started adding a new video campaign on reddit?
When selecting your campaign objective for video, you can either run your campaign objective focused on brand awareness, traffic, or video views. As you might expect, each selection will offer slightly different results. With an awareness objective, your ad will reach the broadest audience possible, and you will be charged based on CPM. With a traffic objective, reddit will serve your ad to users more likely to click, so you pay like any PPC campaign. Video views objective is incredibly similar to an awareness campaign, but you will be charged per view, or CPV.
We have not seen significant differences between Awareness and Video Views campaigns Mostly, it seems to come down to the math that the system is delivering back, but a CPC/Traffic campaign is definitely different than either Awareness or Video Views?
If your KPI is all about awareness or reach (CPG brands), then Video Views or Awareness campaigns are for you. If you’re looking to drive quality traffic to site, then a Traffic campaign is probably more your speed.
For us, we’re always more likely to run a reddit video campaign with a Traffic target. You’re likely to get a more engaged viewership, and a much more advantageous cost-per-click. I understand the argument about more efficient CPMs…but maybe it’s the old B2B marketer in me that really wants to see the traffic to site. Having a secondary source vet the quality of your traffic (in this case GA4), seems so much more reassuring than allowing a single platform to self report video views.
Checking Frequency for Awareness and Video Views Campaigns
Pro Tip: Reddit as an ad platform is still in its infancy. As such, delivery options and segments that more mature platforms offer are still coming. Of particular interest, if you are running awareness campaigns on reddit is frequency controls. Many advertisers have a target number of impressions that they want to serve to a target on a weekly, monthly, or campaign-level basis.
A general rule of thumb I have used from previous media planning experience, is ~7 impressions a month = brand awareness. So, if your reddit campaign is optimized towards awareness and you are serving dozens of impressions to a single user per week, you might look to either add subreddits, extend your audience, or shift funds elsewhere.
On the other hand, if you have a higher level required, e.g. Consideration or (gasp) driving sales, you may have to hit those higher frequency numbers to engaged your audience. In absence of a fuller amount of data, it’s hard to make a direct recommendation on your campaign…but in the end, checking GA4 for your number of engaged users sent by reddit to your site vs. your total spend is always a great litmus test for evaluating the strength or your reddit buy. Read more about UTM and evaluating your cost per engaged user here.
Selecting Video Views as your Campaign Objective
Ok, say you have selected Video Views as your campaign objective. You know you’re going to pay per view, and your campaign will be optimized towards views. What else is going to be different about this campaign, in relation to a standard image campaign?
Well…not too much, honestly, You ad will only be able to be served in-feed, rather than conversational placements, it will autoplay once it is in a users feed, but your character limits on headline and additional text, audience segmentation. thumbnail image, and call to action are all the same.
Make sure you start with a lower bid than what reddit is recommending to test out the space. Video can be a great asset if you are serving towards a remarketing audience, so get that pixel up on your site sooner rather than later, and enjoy the fact that you are now a reddit expert, with multiple campaign types live!
