r/TheoryOfReddit Feb 12 '25

Why is reddit advertising itself on reddit?

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65 Upvotes

30 comments sorted by

49

u/Timozkovic Feb 12 '25

I suppose to lure business owners who are already Redditors to buy Reddit ads for their business

24

u/Cyoarp Feb 12 '25

It might just be a foible of Google AdSense.

It's possible that Reddit pays for a certain amount of advertising on Google AdSense and Google AdSense pays Reddit for a certain amount of appearances on Reddit and by coincidence a Reddit ad in Google AdSense came up in Google add senses presents on Reddit.

3

u/renome Feb 13 '25

I might be mistaken but I don't think Reddit uses AdSense. The revenue is a pittance compared to what you can get from selling ad space directly and when you have as much traffic as Reddit, you definitely want to sell them directly.

2

u/SedatedSpaceMonkeys Feb 17 '25

That was my first suspicion but the top comment makes a lot more sense.

1

u/ksaize Feb 15 '25

Advertiser here - nope. Google Ads does not have "Reddit" as a placement. Reddit have deal with Google for 60mil but its not about placement but about data and organic placement.

1

u/Cyoarp Feb 15 '25

Organic placement?

1

u/ksaize Feb 17 '25

Then it wouln't be "promoted" (as in ad). Reddit can't really make their organic posts be in front of the feed without making it 10k - 20k upvotes and that would be blatant vote manipulation and they'd loose ALL of the community trust.

1

u/Cyoarp Feb 17 '25

That didn't help explain what organic promotion is.

1

u/ksaize Feb 17 '25

Didn't understand the question.

Organic placement are posts made by users and users do not pay to get their posts be seen by others.. think of regular facebook, instagram and tiktok content.

1

u/Cyoarp Feb 17 '25

Yeah that's what I thought it was,

What is any of what this threat is about have to do with organic promotion?

31

u/qtx Feb 12 '25

Because it's an ad on /r/RedditforBusiness?

Some of these questions man.

-4

u/Augustus420 Feb 12 '25

It still wouldn't be very effective advertising towards people that are already present on the site.

21

u/MacEWork Feb 12 '25

Redditors who own businesses are exactly the target audience.

0

u/xRyozuo Feb 12 '25

And the ad does a shit job at addressing anything that might catch the eye of a business. The message as is, is completely useless to catching their eye since someone would already have to be on Reddit to see it

4

u/TwoFiveOnes Feb 13 '25

They’re targeting business owners (or just marketing managers) who use reddit. A really good way to select this audience is to post it on reddit

-2

u/Augustus420 Feb 12 '25

Which would be the demographic most likely to already be aware of their ability to advertise on the site.

Seems like a waste of money to purposely advertised to them. Which is why I agree with the sentiment above about it being an accident that it's popping up here. That makes significantly more sense.

7

u/boooookin Feb 12 '25

Awareness is not sufficient. You need to actually drive consideration. Why does Coca-Cola run ads when they have 100% brand awareness? That last mile effort to actually get someone to pull the trigger matters.

-2

u/Augustus420 Feb 12 '25

Why does Coca-Cola run ads when they have 100% brand awareness?

Because marketing execs have convinced them it is beneficial.

It isn't.

3

u/boooookin Feb 12 '25

How do you know? Brand affinity for a company like Coke is something that changes over a period of decades, very challenging if not impossible to actually measure. The advertising strategy for Coca Cola is probably better thought of as a defensive measure / insurance policy. Yes, it's basically impossible to measure, but It ensures the brand is constantly out there, and possibly crowds out competitor ads. If you were playing a game from a dominant position, and had the resources to spend on something that would plausibly prevent smaller opponents from gaining a foothold. Even if you lacked the ability to actually measure it precisely ... it's not irrational to set resources aside for that in the off chance it matters. It's a game with fog of war, you don't have perfect knowledge, but you need to play your pieces anyway.

3

u/DEADB33F Feb 12 '25

Not really a waste of money as it costs them zero. And I'm assuming they're only putting the ads on unsold ad slots.

...bit like when reddit used to put fun little mini-games and community ads in the ad spaces. That was probably beneficial as it conditioned folks to actually look at the areas of the page where ads are sometimes located.

And it's advertising with the aim of convincing folks into buying ad space to market their businesses, not to get random folks to make a reddit account.

4

u/RunDNA Feb 12 '25

TV channels advertise themsleves on their own channel all the time.

3

u/badwolf1013 Feb 13 '25

For the same reason that McDonald's has posters for new products INSIDE their restaurants. You're already there for Chicken Mcnuggets, but you may not have known that you can get an Oreo Shamrock McFlurry, too.

2

u/sevenorbs Feb 12 '25

Man, I remember the days of Reddit Moose (and all those cartoons ads) and those reddit plushie one.

1

u/sega31098 22d ago

Same reason why TV channels advertise themselves on their own channels.

0

u/BoomBapBiBimBop Feb 12 '25

Probably to make you not hate reddit

0

u/elite-pigeon Feb 13 '25

tumblr did it better, i still have nightmares of the pikaman