Reddit’s mobile app users will soon start seeing multimedia-sponsored posts inside their feeds. Reddit recently announced the rollout of native promoted posts. The ads will appear like a regular Reddit post with the same tools — excluding the blue “promoted” ad label — and will start rolling out to iOS users first, with Android to follow in the next few weeks.
Reddit anticipates the new Promoted Posts, a type of native mobile ad, will lead to more engagement because the usual slew of options like upvotes, downvotes, and comments are all intact. The platform’s existing mobile ad formats do not allow for comments, a change that the company suggests will result in better performance on those new ads.
The new ad format maintains Reddit’s other ad tools, including the option to target users based on interests, community, geography, or the device being used. Comments can also be turned off on the ads, just like with desktop-based ads.
The company says that the ads allow businesses to reach Reddit’s unique group of mobile users. After launching the app versions (iOS and Android) of one of the 10 largest websites less than two years ago, the apps have grown in popularity. Now, 41 percent of the time spent browsing Reddit comes from a user on a mobile device. Stats also show mobile users spending 30 percent more time on the platform compared to desktop users.
The new ad format also brings new options for a unique group of viewers — Reddit says that 80 percent of mobile app users aren’t on the desktop version. The new format will also open up more chances for placing ad bids on the Reddit platform.
The new ad format is launching without testing, which means Reddit doesn’t have solid statistics on the ads yet. Reddit has now grown to 330 million users that are active monthly on the platform, creating an average of around 14 billion screen views every month. The platform brings in nearly 11 million post submissions in that same time frame. On a daily basis, Reddit sees 2.8 million comments and 58 million up or down votes. Young adults are the most active on the platform, with 79 percent of users falling in the 18-34 age group. About half the users are U.S.-based, with 70 percent from English-speaking locations.
