Reddit Ads Up: Brands Can Pay To Be "Trending"

After six months of beta testing with major brands like Adobe, Spotify, and Method, Reddit rolled out "Trending Takeovers." This is an advertisement platform product in which the "trending today" system on Reddit can be "sponsored" by brands. They'll appear in links very similar to all other trending links, much like Google includes paying brands to appear in search results.

"Reddit is home to more than 430 million monthly active users engaging deeply within 100,000+ interest-based communities – one-third of whom visit Reddit's Popular feed every day," wrote a Reddit ads representative. "As a platform where the majority of users believe that Reddit influences cultural trends and millions of searches are conducted daily, the new Trending Takeover product gives advertisers access to millions of Reddit users who are in an active, information-gathering mindset."

Each "Trending Takeover" will have a "maxiumum campaign life" of 24 hours. These links purchased by brands will appear as a "Trending Takeover ad unit" in the second slot of the Trending Today module in the main Reddit Popular feed.

This same Trending Takeover ad unit will appear in the second slot of the Reddit Search tab's Trending Today drop-down menu. Brands will be able to pay for Trending Takeover ads via reservation.

The entire Reddit Ads plaform is an auction-based system. Inside this system, brands have a minmum bid and no maximum capped bid amount. Per Reddit, "The bid you place is the highest CPM (cost per thousand impressions), CPC (cost per click), or CPV (cost per view) that you're willing to pay for your ad to be seen or clicked by the target audience."

Objectives listed by Reddit's Ads group for brands are: Brand Awareness & Reach, Traffic, Conversions, Video Videos, and App Install. Brands make bids based on these criteria. UPDATE: The new Trending Takeover system will be available only through direct buys, rather than programmatically.