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I was a long time and happy Reddit advertiser myself up until last month when their original ad system was deprecated. I experienced the exact same change in r

I was a long time and happy Reddit advertiser myself up until last month when their original ad system was deprecated. I experienced the exact same change in results as the OP describes: An effective 10x increase in CPA with the same ad copy and what I understood was the same targeting. When you think you're paying for the same thing but experience worse results by an order of magnitude, then you know something is up. The deceptive nature of this change is that their new ad platform does not explain any of details that their product manager has graciously offered here. It's too bad that it has taken a front-page HN post to get this information to light; this already undermines the trust of the ads product team at Reddit. Thank you to the OP for explaining the change in laymen's terms. Next, despite spending tens of thousands of dollars with Reddit, it's nearly impossible to be in contact with a competent person on their ads team. My support requests have gone routinely unanswered, or at best I receive a template response after days and days. After this most recent change I tried a last resort option of posting in the Reddit ads subreddit, which also received no response: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditads/comments/6wlyya/using_the_new_ads_center_is_like_going_back_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/redditads/comments/6wlyya/using_the... The only benefit I've seen in the new platform is conversion tracking, which is a basic feature that has existed on even the most rudimentary ad systems for more than a decade. The Reddit Ads platform is way behind the times, which is sad because they're sitting on some of the most valuable web traffic in the world.

soared 9y ago
If you spent $10k+ on facebook or google they'd assign you an account rep. That rep likely wouldn't be much help, but at least you have a name and an email for when something goes wrong.
jamiequint 9y ago
Hey jmarbach, we haven't made any changes to targeting in the last month. The changes described in this post were made 6+ months ago, which means any performance difference you're seeing over the last month are entirely coincidental. The deprecation of our old ads platform didn't involve any changes to the way ads were trafficked on the back-end, it simply turned off our outdated front-end interface for ad buying.
- jrcii 9y ago
  Oh, you snuck in the (harmful, secretive) changes a while back so it's okay. You have nothing to say about that fact that the user is only able to squeeze a response out of reddit because he made a front-page Hacker News comment. This response confirms everyone's worst suspicions about what's going on here.
- jmarbach 9y ago
  Can you please indicate exactly when the change from contextual to behavioral targeting was made and when it was communicated to existing advertisers? For example, in the initial announcement post (Mar 30) there is no indication that changes to the targeting methodology had been made already: https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/62fake/weve_launched_a_completely_revamped_selfserve_ads/ https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/62fake/weve_laun...
- huhtenberg 9y ago
  Jamie, I am a very heavy reddit user and I was constantly finding myself in a situation when I would see ads for, say, diapers while browsing /r/software. I was also given an option to "report" such ads for violating Reddit's advertising guidelines and one of the option was to file it under "This ad is not relevant to this subreddit". From users perspective this makes it look like the ad was sneaked onto /r/software by a disingenuous advertiser. -- Also, the very decision to show ads outside of their targeted subs is EXCEPTIONALLY STUPID and I don't use caps lightly. Previously they felt and acted as community-oriented announcements - you see one, look at it, perhaps visit the link, hide it and be OK with looking at another one. But now ads come across as a irrelevant stream of random bullshit, just like all other ads everywhere else. Reporting doesn't do anything. Hiding is plain broken on mobile, with hidden ads showing up again and again with "unhide" option... which would've been funny if it weren't obnoxious. The change basically managed to destroy all the goodwill and tolerance I had for reddit's ads in a matter of days, prompting to add a cosmetic rule to uBlock. I genuinely wish I didn't have to, because some of sub-restricted ads were in fact interesting.

soared 9y ago

If you spent $10k+ on facebook or google they'd assign you an account rep. That rep likely wouldn't be much help, but at least you have a name and an email for when something goes wrong.

jamiequint 9y ago

Hey jmarbach, we haven't made any changes to targeting in the last month. The changes described in this post were made 6+ months ago, which means any performance difference you're seeing over the last month are entirely coincidental. The deprecation of our old ads platform didn't involve any changes to the way ads were trafficked on the back-end, it simply turned off our outdated front-end interface for ad buying.

jrcii 9y ago
Oh, you snuck in the (harmful, secretive) changes a while back so it's okay. You have nothing to say about that fact that the user is only able to squeeze a response out of reddit because he made a front-page Hacker News comment. This response confirms everyone's worst suspicions about what's going on here.
jmarbach 9y ago
Can you please indicate exactly when the change from contextual to behavioral targeting was made and when it was communicated to existing advertisers? For example, in the initial announcement post (Mar 30) there is no indication that changes to the targeting methodology had been made already: https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/62fake/weve_launched_a_completely_revamped_selfserve_ads/ https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/62fake/weve_laun...
huhtenberg 9y ago
Jamie, I am a very heavy reddit user and I was constantly finding myself in a situation when I would see ads for, say, diapers while browsing /r/software. I was also given an option to "report" such ads for violating Reddit's advertising guidelines and one of the option was to file it under "This ad is not relevant to this subreddit". From users perspective this makes it look like the ad was sneaked onto /r/software by a disingenuous advertiser. -- Also, the very decision to show ads outside of their targeted subs is EXCEPTIONALLY STUPID and I don't use caps lightly. Previously they felt and acted as community-oriented announcements - you see one, look at it, perhaps visit the link, hide it and be OK with looking at another one. But now ads come across as a irrelevant stream of random bullshit, just like all other ads everywhere else. Reporting doesn't do anything. Hiding is plain broken on mobile, with hidden ads showing up again and again with "unhide" option... which would've been funny if it weren't obnoxious. The change basically managed to destroy all the goodwill and tolerance I had for reddit's ads in a matter of days, prompting to add a cosmetic rule to uBlock. I genuinely wish I didn't have to, because some of sub-restricted ads were in fact interesting.