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Mention Reddit in a paid media meeting and you'll usually get one of two reactions: nervous laughter, or a very specific image of a man in a cowboy hat with a pizza on a cat. But here's the thing: Reddit isn't that anymore. And if you're still dismissing it as a niche forum for gaming enthusiasts and internet deep-divers, you're missing a genuinely interesting diversification opportunity.
Reddit now reaches 60% of UK online adults, and it's overtaken TikTok on that reach metric. It's been the fastest-growing paid social platform for two consecutive years. And the demographic shift is just as striking as the growth: the audience is now roughly 50/50 male/female, with an age profile comparable to TikTok.
And surprisingly, one in three Gen Z women are now on the platform. Skincare, pregnancy, and parenting subreddits are doubling in size and outstripping some of Reddit's biggest communities. This is not your stereotypical Reddit audience.
Two things, and they're closely related. Reddit struck AI training deals with both Google and OpenAI, and around the same time, its organic visibility in Google search results spiked dramatically. Whether those two things are connected is a question we'll diplomatically leave unanswered. What matters is that Reddit content is showing up everywhere, which means Reddit communities are becoming influential in ways that extend well beyond the platform itself.
That has real implications for how your brand shows up in LLM-generated recommendations. A brand with genuine community presence on Reddit - like standing desk company FlexiSpot, which runs a dedicated subreddit with an active community manager - is being surfaced in ChatGPT results for relevant queries. That's organic influence you can't buy. (Well. Not directly.)
Tread carefully, but do tread. Reddit's ad platform is still maturing, and the data is increasingly hard to ignore. Across our client base over the last 30 days, Reddit drove a 15% lower CAC than Meta (at 93% lower spend), a 16% lower CAC than TikTok (at 81% lower spend), and a 56% lower CAC than Pinterest (at just 10% lower spend). Fospha has also reported an 82% year-on-year hidden ROAS increase for retailers on the platform. It is rapidly becoming one of the most undervalued channels in the media mix.
Big brands are starting to take notice, and the smarter ones are leaning into Reddit's notoriously ad-averse culture rather than fighting it. Dove's "r/eal reviews" campaign, launched in early February, is a good example: they committed to publishing the first 50 Reddit reviews of a new product, regardless of what the comments actually said. It's a bold move (have you ever read a Reddit ad with comments left on?), but leaning into transparent, even humorous creative is often one of the most powerful tools for stopping the scroll.
That said, Dove is a global entity with a massive budget. For most growing e-commerce brands, testing a secondary channel only really makes sense once Meta is completely nailed and you're actively scaling up. Our advice: don't go in with a Meta repurpose and hope for the best. Test with simplified creative, lean into the platform's language and culture, and use an attribution tool to understand what's actually working. We launched our first paid Reddit clients in Q4 last year and have just launched another. Early ROAS data is encouraging for sale-optimised campaigns, and Reddit is getting better at driving conversions.
Reddit isn't at the level of Meta or TikTok just yet, and it isn't going to divert significant budget away from the primary channels for now. But it is consistently rolling out more features focused on intent and sales, and one platform should be watching very closely. Pinterest is struggling for direction: the news is dominated by falling share prices and layoffs, while Reddit keeps growing in popularity and audience diversity. As paid social platforms mature and audiences develop increasingly ingrained preferences for where they spend their time, the incrementality of platform diversification only improves. The future of paid social advertising will be multi-platform, and Reddit will be there.
Reddit works best in specialist, research-heavy categories; tech, broadband, skincare, home, outdoor. If your customers are the type to spend three hours reading reviews before they buy anything (and honestly, who isn't these days?), there's a good chance they're already on Reddit talking about your category.
The question is whether your brand is part of that conversation yet.
Want to explore what Reddit could do for your paid social strategy? Get in touch with the team.
