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Reddit userbase is way more hostile to ads on average, more block ads, a lot of the content is non-advertiser friendly, they have less information on their audi

Reddit userbase is way more hostile to ads on average, more block ads, a lot of the content is non-advertiser friendly, they have less information on their audience for targeting, etc. Reddit is more forum than social network, they'll need to get creative to make more revenue from users. Winning strategy for them might be to try and get more older users who don't care about ads so much and have lots of money

gruez 5y ago
>Winning strategy for them might be to try and get more older users who don't care about ads so much and have lots of money Isn't the most sought-after demographic 18-35 because they have the most disposable income? Afterwards disposable income drops off because of kids and/or retirement.
- wil421 5y ago
  Not by a long shot. Boomers are still the highest in spending[1]. I was a broke college student forever and somewhat broke for the years or so after (no loans I worked through college). I’m in the 30-40 range with kids and I spend much more than my twenties. Lots of college students are spending their parents money for these kinds of things. [1] https://resources.datadrivenmarketing.equifax.com/dyks-equifax-ddm/discretionary-spending-by-age-tier https://resources.datadrivenmarketing.equifax.com/dyks-equif...
  - nradov 5y ago
    While older consumers do have more money to spend, most advertisers prefer to target younger consumers. The thinking is that boomers already have established brand preferences and spending patterns so it's much harder to convert them into new customers.
    - xkjkls 5y ago
      This is only really true for television advertising, since most of it is brand building, instead of "click here and buy now" online.
- spfzero 5y ago
  That demographic is most sought-after by advertisers because it is the easiest to influence. The ads work better on them. For whatever reason, maybe just because they've seen more ads, older demographics are harder to reach.
  - NationalPark 5y ago
    Is it actually true that online ads work better (more conversions?) on that demographic? How do you separate the confounding factor of the effect of age and income on preferences?
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    > For whatever reason, maybe just because they've seen more ads, older demographics are harder to reach. Fascinating - in my experience older generations are much, much easier to beguile online. My guess would be the Reddit demographic is much less receptive to ads than the average, say, FB user.
  - 55555 5y ago
    This is absolutely not true. Setting aside product market fit, older demos are better, ideally conservative.
    - spfzero 5y ago
      Product-Market fit is of course important. No point in marketing Red Bull to older demographics; the product was not designed for them. Aside from products targeted at one demographic or the other, older audiences are more skeptical, and have seen all of the ad gambits in earlier forms before. Imagine the person saying "don't believe everything you read in the news" Is that an older person talking to a younger one, or vice-versa?
leereeves 5y ago
> Winning strategy for them might be to try and get more older users who don't care about ads so much and have lots of money Won't be easy getting older users on a site where "boomer" is a slur.
zozbot234 5y ago
> Reddit is more forum than social network Reddit is mostly cat pictures and funny memes at scale, even calling it a "forum" is a stretch. More like a glorified image board.
- SkyPuncher 5y ago
  Two specific feeds, /r/popular and /r/all, are a lot of this. There are a lot of good niche communities that have deep, meaningful conversation on Reddit.
  - s5300 5y ago
    He is clearly unaware of /r/cannedsardines
- timdev2 5y ago
  I'm not sure I understand your taxonomy. In my mind, an image board is a type of forum (generally anonymous and ephemeral). Reddit is more like a forum than a typical forum than popular imageboards, since users have long-lived identities and posts are permanent by default. As far as "most cat pictures and memes", maybe it is, by volume. But that doesn't diminish the substantial corpus of more substantive, forum-like, discussion hosted on the site.
- 13415 5y ago
  I've started to add +Reddit in Google searches to obtain useful information when I need to know something. With all those fake top 10 list sites and paid reviews showing up in searches, Reddit is pretty much the only place left for getting reliable product information, for example. There are friendly and knowledgeable subreddits about all kinds of topics.
  - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
    Yeah. Doing a Google search for best anything returns pages of content farms and Pinterest links. Remember when Google search used to be good?
xkjkls 5y ago
Also reddit itself gives a huge number of ways for advertisers to access the reddit audience without paying for it.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  I think this is reddit's biggest issue. Astroturfing is more effective than advertising and it's cheaper too.
  - granshaw 5y ago
    Astroturfing as in hopping into a group and creating a post promoting your product? Have you ever seen that actually work? Almost every subreddit I see bans any kind of promotion and even posting of links.
    - DangitBobby 5y ago
      The number of pictures that are actually just ads upvoted to the front page was absolutely astonishing when I used reddit. I didn't understand how people could see a Coke can with a funny name on it and not realize that was an advertisement.

gruez 5y ago

>Winning strategy for them might be to try and get more older users who don't care about ads so much and have lots of money Isn't the most sought-after demographic 18-35 because they have the most disposable income? Afterwards disposable income drops off because of kids and/or retirement.

wil421 5y ago
Not by a long shot. Boomers are still the highest in spending[1]. I was a broke college student forever and somewhat broke for the years or so after (no loans I worked through college). I’m in the 30-40 range with kids and I spend much more than my twenties. Lots of college students are spending their parents money for these kinds of things. [1] https://resources.datadrivenmarketing.equifax.com/dyks-equifax-ddm/discretionary-spending-by-age-tier https://resources.datadrivenmarketing.equifax.com/dyks-equif...
- nradov 5y ago
  While older consumers do have more money to spend, most advertisers prefer to target younger consumers. The thinking is that boomers already have established brand preferences and spending patterns so it's much harder to convert them into new customers.
  - xkjkls 5y ago
    This is only really true for television advertising, since most of it is brand building, instead of "click here and buy now" online.
spfzero 5y ago
That demographic is most sought-after by advertisers because it is the easiest to influence. The ads work better on them. For whatever reason, maybe just because they've seen more ads, older demographics are harder to reach.
- NationalPark 5y ago
  Is it actually true that online ads work better (more conversions?) on that demographic? How do you separate the confounding factor of the effect of age and income on preferences?
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > For whatever reason, maybe just because they've seen more ads, older demographics are harder to reach. Fascinating - in my experience older generations are much, much easier to beguile online. My guess would be the Reddit demographic is much less receptive to ads than the average, say, FB user.
- 55555 5y ago
  This is absolutely not true. Setting aside product market fit, older demos are better, ideally conservative.
  - spfzero 5y ago
    Product-Market fit is of course important. No point in marketing Red Bull to older demographics; the product was not designed for them. Aside from products targeted at one demographic or the other, older audiences are more skeptical, and have seen all of the ad gambits in earlier forms before. Imagine the person saying "don't believe everything you read in the news" Is that an older person talking to a younger one, or vice-versa?

leereeves 5y ago

> Winning strategy for them might be to try and get more older users who don't care about ads so much and have lots of money Won't be easy getting older users on a site where "boomer" is a slur.

zozbot234 5y ago

> Reddit is more forum than social network Reddit is mostly cat pictures and funny memes at scale, even calling it a "forum" is a stretch. More like a glorified image board.

SkyPuncher 5y ago
Two specific feeds, /r/popular and /r/all, are a lot of this. There are a lot of good niche communities that have deep, meaningful conversation on Reddit.
- s5300 5y ago
  He is clearly unaware of /r/cannedsardines
timdev2 5y ago
I'm not sure I understand your taxonomy. In my mind, an image board is a type of forum (generally anonymous and ephemeral). Reddit is more like a forum than a typical forum than popular imageboards, since users have long-lived identities and posts are permanent by default. As far as "most cat pictures and memes", maybe it is, by volume. But that doesn't diminish the substantial corpus of more substantive, forum-like, discussion hosted on the site.
13415 5y ago
I've started to add +Reddit in Google searches to obtain useful information when I need to know something. With all those fake top 10 list sites and paid reviews showing up in searches, Reddit is pretty much the only place left for getting reliable product information, for example. There are friendly and knowledgeable subreddits about all kinds of topics.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  Yeah. Doing a Google search for best anything returns pages of content farms and Pinterest links. Remember when Google search used to be good?

xkjkls 5y ago

Also reddit itself gives a huge number of ways for advertisers to access the reddit audience without paying for it.

colinmhayes 5y ago
I think this is reddit's biggest issue. Astroturfing is more effective than advertising and it's cheaper too.
- granshaw 5y ago
  Astroturfing as in hopping into a group and creating a post promoting your product? Have you ever seen that actually work? Almost every subreddit I see bans any kind of promotion and even posting of links.
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    The number of pictures that are actually just ads upvoted to the front page was absolutely astonishing when I used reddit. I didn't understand how people could see a Coke can with a funny name on it and not realize that was an advertisement.