5 ms·

Reddit opens self-serve ads to the public (promo your site for as little as $20)

48 points by kn0thing 17y ago

orblivion 17y ago
I wonder how quickly $20 will be way too low of a bid.
- presidentender 17y ago
  I'd love to see an auction for ad space once they're saturated.
  - Frazzydee 17y ago
    It never gets saturated; "advertisers get a proportional amount of exposure based on how much they bid compared to everyone else" [http://tjantunen.com/2009/11/26/reddit-homepage-advertising-beta-test-results-–-what-i-got-for-40/ http://tjantunen.com/2009/11/26/reddit-homepage-advertising-...]
    - orblivion 17y ago
      Yeah but if you want your ad to show to more than one person, pretty soon it becomes effectively saturated.
      - blhack 17y ago
        Well, nobody would pay $20 per impression. It will go exactly as high as people are willing to pay for it.
- jedberg 17y ago
  Hopefully soon!
  - rms 17y ago
    What's the timeline for being able to target based on subreddit?
ramanujan 17y ago
It's not obvious to me that this is necessarily a good place to advertise. Reddit's community is very fickle.
- kn0thing 17y ago
  But what if you're selling the shiny new object of the moment?!
  - freakball 17y ago
    ...targeted at the Secret Santa crowd. The projections for the ammount of money that will be spent [in/on] this little endeavor are astounding, to say the least.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- bumblebird 17y ago
  Also they all run adblock etc.
  - aarongough 17y ago
    I don't think that's likely to be an issue in this case because the ads are not presented in a standard ad format, instead they are part of the usual list of reddit items.
    - bumblebird 17y ago
      Sure. I was more meaning that they may not be easy to monetize once they click through to your website.
      - ericd 17y ago
        Yeah, probably not good for ad-based sites, but those usually don't have high enough revenue/user to make advertising cost effective anyway. For a cool new consumer product or service that makes money directly, though, this could be great. When I tried it, the CPC was very low. Whether it's worth it depends on how good a fit the thing you want to advertise is with the audience of Reddit.
bumblebird 17y ago
The bidding seems like a complete lottery. What may work well one day, may completely fail the next. You could be throwing money away. It's a sort of interesting idea, but completely impossible to calculate ROI etc before you spend. Also, WTH "only accepting US credit cards." Hate it when sites pull that one.
- Janteh 17y ago
  Agree. Once tried to order something from Newegg with a European credit card (I'm in the US at the moment) and after ordering I got an email that I canceled my order. I had to go the customer chat room and chat with one of their guys to find out they do not allow foreign credit cards. Went to Amazon and purchased the same product without problems. That was a $100 loss for them and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
nkohari 17y ago
Sure would like to try this out, but I'm getting 503 Service Unavailable when I try to put in my CC info... (edit: seems to have been fixed now)
staunch 17y ago
They should stick one of these sponsored spots at the bottom of the page too. No one would mind, and it'd provide a nice cheaper tier.
blhack 17y ago
Just want to stop by and say that I used this service back when jedberg was here talking about it (a month ago or so I think) and was really happy with it. I had some problems with their credit card processor and they (being reddit) responded to my emails withing a few minutes until we were both sure that everything was as it should be (this was impressive to me because I was spending such a small amount of money). That and it ended up costing me about $0.10 CPC - considerably less than I remember spending on google ads back when I tried them. The lottery system really scared me, but it ended up working out pretty well. I'd definitely recommend it to anybody else. People say that redditors are a terrible market to advertise to (they use adblock, etc.) but I disagree. I think they'd probably be a terrible audience to market to if you're selling teeth whitener or pyramid scheme "Google pays me $1000/hr from home!" things, but if you've got something useful to show them (like a webapp that they would like) then you're going to be buying a lot of eyeballs for not a lot of money. All-in-all try it out - I was really happy with it.
- timdorr 17y ago
  I tried it as well. I have to say the best part was having comments enabled on my ad. I got some good feedback from members (if not a few posts advertising competitors) and even answered some tech support questions in the thread. Combine the fact it was dirt cheap and the bounce rate was insanely low (60%!) compared to things like StumbleUpon or AdWords, and you've got a no-brainer on your hands.
johng 17y ago
We beta tested this and were very happy with the results. The program is simple to use, works as expected and you really can't ask for more.
callmeed 17y ago
Interesting. I might give it a try. Is anyone familiar with Reddit's photography sections? Would any be good for pro/prosumer photo services?

48 points by kn0thing 17y ago

orblivion 17y ago

I wonder how quickly $20 will be way too low of a bid.

presidentender 17y ago
I'd love to see an auction for ad space once they're saturated.
- Frazzydee 17y ago
  It never gets saturated; "advertisers get a proportional amount of exposure based on how much they bid compared to everyone else" [http://tjantunen.com/2009/11/26/reddit-homepage-advertising-beta-test-results-–-what-i-got-for-40/ http://tjantunen.com/2009/11/26/reddit-homepage-advertising-...]
  - orblivion 17y ago
    Yeah but if you want your ad to show to more than one person, pretty soon it becomes effectively saturated.
    - blhack 17y ago
      Well, nobody would pay $20 per impression. It will go exactly as high as people are willing to pay for it.
jedberg 17y ago
Hopefully soon!
- rms 17y ago
  What's the timeline for being able to target based on subreddit?

ramanujan 17y ago

It's not obvious to me that this is necessarily a good place to advertise. Reddit's community is very fickle.

kn0thing 17y ago
But what if you're selling the shiny new object of the moment?!
- freakball 17y ago
  ...targeted at the Secret Santa crowd. The projections for the ammount of money that will be spent [in/on] this little endeavor are astounding, to say the least.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
bumblebird 17y ago
Also they all run adblock etc.
- aarongough 17y ago
  I don't think that's likely to be an issue in this case because the ads are not presented in a standard ad format, instead they are part of the usual list of reddit items.
  - bumblebird 17y ago
    Sure. I was more meaning that they may not be easy to monetize once they click through to your website.
    - ericd 17y ago
      Yeah, probably not good for ad-based sites, but those usually don't have high enough revenue/user to make advertising cost effective anyway. For a cool new consumer product or service that makes money directly, though, this could be great. When I tried it, the CPC was very low. Whether it's worth it depends on how good a fit the thing you want to advertise is with the audience of Reddit.

bumblebird 17y ago

The bidding seems like a complete lottery. What may work well one day, may completely fail the next. You could be throwing money away. It's a sort of interesting idea, but completely impossible to calculate ROI etc before you spend. Also, WTH "only accepting US credit cards." Hate it when sites pull that one.

Janteh 17y ago
Agree. Once tried to order something from Newegg with a European credit card (I'm in the US at the moment) and after ordering I got an email that I canceled my order. I had to go the customer chat room and chat with one of their guys to find out they do not allow foreign credit cards. Went to Amazon and purchased the same product without problems. That was a $100 loss for them and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

nkohari 17y ago

Sure would like to try this out, but I'm getting 503 Service Unavailable when I try to put in my CC info... (edit: seems to have been fixed now)

staunch 17y ago

They should stick one of these sponsored spots at the bottom of the page too. No one would mind, and it'd provide a nice cheaper tier.

blhack 17y ago

Just want to stop by and say that I used this service back when jedberg was here talking about it (a month ago or so I think) and was really happy with it. I had some problems with their credit card processor and they (being reddit) responded to my emails withing a few minutes until we were both sure that everything was as it should be (this was impressive to me because I was spending such a small amount of money). That and it ended up costing me about $0.10 CPC - considerably less than I remember spending on google ads back when I tried them. The lottery system really scared me, but it ended up working out pretty well. I'd definitely recommend it to anybody else. People say that redditors are a terrible market to advertise to (they use adblock, etc.) but I disagree. I think they'd probably be a terrible audience to market to if you're selling teeth whitener or pyramid scheme "Google pays me $1000/hr from home!" things, but if you've got something useful to show them (like a webapp that they would like) then you're going to be buying a lot of eyeballs for not a lot of money. All-in-all try it out - I was really happy with it.

timdorr 17y ago
I tried it as well. I have to say the best part was having comments enabled on my ad. I got some good feedback from members (if not a few posts advertising competitors) and even answered some tech support questions in the thread. Combine the fact it was dirt cheap and the bounce rate was insanely low (60%!) compared to things like StumbleUpon or AdWords, and you've got a no-brainer on your hands.

johng 17y ago

We beta tested this and were very happy with the results. The program is simple to use, works as expected and you really can't ask for more.

callmeed 17y ago

Interesting. I might give it a try. Is anyone familiar with Reddit's photography sections? Would any be good for pro/prosumer photo services?