Reddit introduces native promoted post ads in its mobile apps

Reddit announced the launch of native promoted posts for its mobile apps on Wednesday.

The company said in an email to advertisers that its apps are the most popular way its 330 million monthly active users access Reddit content on mobile, and they now account for 41 percent of time spent on Reddit across all platforms. Logged-in app users also spend 30 percent more time per day than users who log in from desktop, and 80 percent of app users don’t access Reddit on desktop, according to the company.

Reddit’s promoted posts will run in-feed on iOS and Android apps.

All those behaviors point to the reason Reddit is giving advertisers a way to reach its app users with native in-feed ads.

In-app promoted posts will have all the elements of a standard Reddit post, including upvotes, downvotes and comment threads. The native mobile ads will also include comments, which was not possible before on the mobile ads.

Native promoted posts will be available on iOS starting Monday, March 19, and will roll out to Android in the coming weeks.

Reddit has been steadily building up capabilities for advertisers. In November, the company updated its reporting dashboard in its ads platform, which launched last March. As we reported last fall, however, some advertisers still think of it as a scary place for brands and aren’t aware of Reddit’s efforts to create brand-safe opportunities to reach audiences.

Ads on Reddit can be targeted by user interest, subreddit, location, device and time of day. Locations and subreddits can also be excluded from targeting.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media’s Associate Editor, assisting with the day to day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.