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Reddit Ads Is a Scam

28 points by stewones 1y ago

kwillets 1y ago
I interviewed for an adtech position there last year, and it went pretty badly. I only had about 5 YOE in this area, but it seemed like they had even less, and it was like we were speaking different languages.
nhinck2 1y ago
If you have ever looked and their end of year reddit usage recap you would know that they have absolutely no idea how to calculate usage and engagement correctly.
ceejayoz 1y ago
> Reddit's advertising dashboard showing suspiciously high engagement metrics. Note the reported 161 clicks and nearly 27,000 impressions for a relatively small spend. That's hardly suspicious if you've seen Reddit ads. High impressions, low clicks is precisely what I'd expect out of them. > UserPath's analytics dashboard showing the real picture: only 93 new users total across ALL traffic sources during the same period, with significantly lower engagement metrics. That's post-click engagement. Impressions are a pre-click (non!)engagement and would never show up in the page's analytics without a subsequent clickthrough. > Discrepancy in Numbers: Reddit claims 160 clicks, but our first-party analytics only detected 43 unique users. That's a 73% discrepancy! No, it isn't. Those are two very different metrics. > Despite Reddit reporting 160 clicks, not a single user who came through the Reddit ads downloaded our application. Failure to convert isn't necessarily indicative of fraud. Especially with only 160 clicks to analyze. Most of my own Reddit ad clicks are accidental, as they now make them look like posts/comments in your feed that are barely difference in appearance. > Our analytics runs through our own domain, making it immune to ad blockers and privacy browsers. The implementation at https://userpath.co/docs/setup-pixel https://userpath.co/docs/setup-pixel looks entirely blockable. uBlock does a pretty good job of uncloaking these first-party analytics calls. This appears to just be an ad for UserPath.
- klysm 1y ago
  I don't know much about the space, but is there any incentive against companies like Reddit or Google hunting for accidental clicks by making the ads look exactly like 'normal' elements? There are so many examples like Reddit, GMail, etc.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    To some extent. Enough of it and ROI on a click drops below what they’re charging to deliver it. I’m sure they adjust to stay just over that threshold.
- stewones 1y ago
  Yeah, UserPath is our partner; without it, we would keep burning money through bad ads. Now we know where to invest, when to stop, and all that shit. There's nothing wrong with recommending good tools. Btw, it is free to try, set up an account, and see for yourself. Regarding the uBlock being able to block our analytics requests, I'll give you $1oo if you prove me wrong. Of course, any privacy tool will be able to do that as long as the user configures it to do so, but I challenge anyone to show me it doing that by default.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    The footer of userpath.co says "built by @stewones". More than a partner, yes? Your own product?
    - arcza 1y ago
      Good spot lol
thrown-0825 1y ago
[dead]
arcza 1y ago
Your post was very unconvincing to read and riddled with errors. Rage bait to prop up the Userpath thingy?

28 points by stewones 1y ago

I interviewed for an adtech position there last year, and it went pretty badly. I only had about 5 YOE in this area, but it seemed like they had even less, and it was like we were speaking different languages.

nhinck2 1y ago

If you have ever looked and their end of year reddit usage recap you would know that they have absolutely no idea how to calculate usage and engagement correctly.

ceejayoz 1y ago

> Reddit's advertising dashboard showing suspiciously high engagement metrics. Note the reported 161 clicks and nearly 27,000 impressions for a relatively small spend. That's hardly suspicious if you've seen Reddit ads. High impressions, low clicks is precisely what I'd expect out of them. > UserPath's analytics dashboard showing the real picture: only 93 new users total across ALL traffic sources during the same period, with significantly lower engagement metrics. That's post-click engagement. Impressions are a pre-click (non!)engagement and would never show up in the page's analytics without a subsequent clickthrough. > Discrepancy in Numbers: Reddit claims 160 clicks, but our first-party analytics only detected 43 unique users. That's a 73% discrepancy! No, it isn't. Those are two very different metrics. > Despite Reddit reporting 160 clicks, not a single user who came through the Reddit ads downloaded our application. Failure to convert isn't necessarily indicative of fraud. Especially with only 160 clicks to analyze. Most of my own Reddit ad clicks are accidental, as they now make them look like posts/comments in your feed that are barely difference in appearance. > Our analytics runs through our own domain, making it immune to ad blockers and privacy browsers. The implementation at https://userpath.co/docs/setup-pixel https://userpath.co/docs/setup-pixel looks entirely blockable. uBlock does a pretty good job of uncloaking these first-party analytics calls. This appears to just be an ad for UserPath.

klysm 1y ago
I don't know much about the space, but is there any incentive against companies like Reddit or Google hunting for accidental clicks by making the ads look exactly like 'normal' elements? There are so many examples like Reddit, GMail, etc.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  To some extent. Enough of it and ROI on a click drops below what they’re charging to deliver it. I’m sure they adjust to stay just over that threshold.
stewones 1y ago
Yeah, UserPath is our partner; without it, we would keep burning money through bad ads. Now we know where to invest, when to stop, and all that shit. There's nothing wrong with recommending good tools. Btw, it is free to try, set up an account, and see for yourself. Regarding the uBlock being able to block our analytics requests, I'll give you $1oo if you prove me wrong. Of course, any privacy tool will be able to do that as long as the user configures it to do so, but I challenge anyone to show me it doing that by default.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  The footer of userpath.co says "built by @stewones". More than a partner, yes? Your own product?
  - arcza 1y ago
    Good spot lol

thrown-0825 1y ago

[dead]

arcza 1y ago

Your post was very unconvincing to read and riddled with errors. Rage bait to prop up the Userpath thingy?