Reddit Exec on How the Platform is Fueling Small Business Growth with Organic Opportunities to Connect with Customers

Small business takeaway:

• Reddit is where customers do their homework — asking for recommendations and calling out hype — so brands win on credibility, not gloss. Effective campaigns mirror the platform’s discussion topics and the community’s language. Reddit is leaning in with small-business resources: a free dashboard for topic and engagement insights, SMB playbooks, newsletters, and creative examples, plus ad formats that amplify proven posts.

Reddit has become fertile ground for small businesses to connect with consumers and grow their sales.

The discussion platform, known for its group chats on specific topics and its rigorous monitoring to maintain integrity as a credible content source, has seen the number of SMB advertisers on the platform double in the past year, said Stephen Riad, Executive Vice President of Advertising Sales at Reddit, in an interview with CO—.

Now the digital message board is amplifying its paid and free resources for small businesses — from newsletters on business strategies to data insights on user engagement — that are designed to help them grow.

“What makes Reddit truly special is the level of trust and intent people bring to the platform,” Riad said. “For SMBs, it provides a huge opportunity to grow both their credibility and reach where customers are already leaning in.”

With 127 million-plus daily active users and 100,000-plus communities, Reddit enables marketers to reach potential customers at a time when they may be considering specific buying decisions. For example, users may be asking group members in a subreddit for new parents for advice about diaper travel bags, knowing that the recommendations of other users “carries weight,” said Riad.

In addition, Reddit has integrations with leading e-commerce platforms Shopify and WooCommerce that are making it easier for marketers to reach people who are interested in making purchases, he said. Brands that advertise on Reddit can now link to their e-commerce sites directly from Reddit ads.

Organic Reddit conversations and free resources help brands learn about their customers and develop marketing strategies

Organic conversations on Reddit — both listening and participating — provide a key way for brands to get started on the platform, and Reddit offers a playbook with advice on how to optimize this strategy. It includes tips on how to join conversations, such as listening to what other users are saying in the conversation to gather context before joining in.

“I’d recommend SMBs treating Reddit like a conversation rather than a broadcast channel,” said Riad. “Listen to what your audience is talking about and what they’re paying attention to. Remember to be human, be honest, and be helpful.”

Reddit offers free online tools to help brands make the most of the platform. These include Reddit Pro, which can help businesses get started using Reddit, monitor topics of interest, and analyze data around user engagement.

Reddit also offers two newsletters — “Conversations with Reddit” and “Reddit Digest” —that provide thought leadership for business strategists and updates on the latest Reddit news for marketers, respectively.

And for Small Business Week in May, Reddit released a new guide to help SMBs understand more about Reddit users and how other businesses have successfully tapped into its communities to grow their businesses. 

[Read more: How Brands Both Big and Small Are Tapping Reddit to Drive Business]

Reddit promotional vehicles: From an ‘inspiration library’ of well-performing ads to AI-powered creative campaigns

For businesses that want to target Reddit communities with advertising, the platform offers a variety of tools.

One easy way for businesses to get started is to use the analytics in Reddit Pro to pinpoint their best-performing content posts and then turn the post into a paid ad by promoting it on the platform. Marketers can also use Reddit’s popular Ask Me Anything (AMA) feature, which allows brands to sponsor a question-and-answer session with a subject matter expert, or create what Reddit calls “free-form” ads that can incorporate text, pictures, and video to blend into users’ feeds and conversations.

To help SMBs better understand and navigate the platform, Reddit offers a Reddit Ads “inspiration library” that shows brands examples of creative ads that have performed well. SMBs can also receive free support from Reddit Ads experts, who can help them set up their first campaign and grow their businesses.

“We share educational resources and advise SMB advertisers on what tends to resonate, whether that's hosting an AMA, creating a free-form ad, or just being an additive voice through advertising in community conversations that would benefit from their expertise,” said Riad.

[Read more: CO— Trend Watch: Reddit for Business, AI in Beauty, and the B2B Pivot Driving Growth]

Reddit also recently launched a new type of ad campaign called Max Campaigns, which uses AI to automatically optimize ad targeting, creative, and budget in real time.

Bitly joins Reddit conversations to drive B2B marketing

Marketers report that Reddit provides a unique opportunity for community engagement, whether through organic content or paid advertising.

Bitly, which supplies digital solutions such as QR codes and customized link shorteners to businesses, observed a shift toward AI-driven searches that often led to Reddit communities.

“The more that we dug in, we found that there were conversations that were happening across the community about our product and about our brand that we weren't a part of,” said Tara Robertson, Chief Marketing Officer at Bitly, in an interview with CO—.

The company hired an agency called Foundation that helped Bitly get involved in the right conversations that were taking place on Reddit. Bitly became involved in Reddit communities — which are essentially discussion boards about specific topics — such as r/content_marketing and others focused on small businesses and entrepreneurship.

“Our goal is to show up and be helpful wherever that conversation is happening,” said Robertson.

Bitly found that ensuring its ads aligned with the conversations was key to its success. The company tested several different ad formats and found that videos generated the best response, in particular, videos that showcased how businesses are using Bitly’s solutions.

The company exceeded its goal for click-through rates by 150% and saw “tens of thousands” of new users visit the site, Robertson said.

Reddit delivers 75% product signups for Dolphin Air Freshener

Riley Bates, Founder of Dolphin Air Freshener, stumbled on the marketing potential that Reddit offered when she was trying to find a dolphin-shaped car air freshener she remembered from her childhood.

Her search led her to Reddit, where she found several other people who were also searching for the distinctive air fresheners. Still unable to find any retailers that were selling the product, Bates decided there was an opportunity to restart the business herself.

“Since I got the idea for the Dolphin Air Freshener business from those on Reddit, I figured it would be the best platform for me to start advertising on,” said Bates.

She began by promoting a waitlist where customers could sign up to get the products once she was ready to begin selling them. Although Bates was also promoting the waitlist on other social media platforms, about 75% of her sign-ups came from Reddit, she said.

“I had tested some other advertising platforms, and they did drive traffic to my site, but they did not convert,” said Bates.

She explored targeting her Reddit ads to a variety of different communities on the platform, such as groups of people who liked dolphins and groups focused on nostalgia from the early 2000s, when the original dolphin-shaped air fresheners were popular. She also did some geographic targeting based on people who live near ocean beaches.

Bates also said she noticed that in some discussions, Reddit users mentioned that they had previously hung a dolphin air freshener in a Volkswagen Beetle, which then led to targeted ads using those keywords.

“I kept an eye on the conversations, and I would search for ‘dolphin air freshener’ to see if anything new popped up, so I could be engaged in those conversations,” she said.

Monitoring the Reddit conversations has also yielded valuable feedback, she said. Although Bates launched the line with a blue dolphin, she noticed that some users were asking about a pink version they remembered, which led her to expand her line to not only pink dolphins but also yellow and purple versions, based on ads she ran polling users about the colors they would like to see. Each color also has its own scent.

“Green was the next color in line, so I’m working on a custom green dolphin air freshener based on the feedback from the ad campaign,” said Bates. “When I run ads on Reddit, I feel like people are helping me make my next business choice and validate it.”

CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.

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