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Reddit announced last week that in Q2, it earned $100 million in quarterly ad revenue for the first time. It’s a milestone (and a year over year jump of 192%), but if you saw what other platforms posted, then you know that’s small potatoes compared to, say, Facebook’s $28+ billion.
- CEO Steve Huffman is well aware. Last week, he told The New York Times that Reddit has “grown up in the shadow of Facebook and Google, and pretty much every dollar we make we’ve had to fight for.”
ELI5: Despite the huge disparity, Reddit isfinding its footing in an increasingly privacy-focused ad landscape. The site told Ad Age that in April, it nixed programmatic ads entirely in favor of native ads.
- The change may go hand in hand with Reddit’s recently minted in-house creative agency that’s meant to help brands tailor campaigns to the site.
- The switch to native-only is a glimpse into how companies are adapting to a post-cookie world. FWIW, Twitter and Facebook (Instagram included) also only sell ads through their own platforms, as opposed to open exchanges.
Reddit has been fighting a reputation for being a Wild West of content moderation. It partnered with Omnicom Media Group earlier this year to give the company’s agencies access to tools that can help marketers advertise more effectively on the site. That followed moves Reddit has made aimed at giving advertisers brand safety controls; in September, it created “inventory types” to let marketers have more choice around where their ads appear.
To the moon: Alongside its ad revenue milestone, Reddit said it’s raising up to $700 million in an upcoming private funding round, for a valuation of $10+ billion.—ZS