In a world where Facebook and Twitter dominate the headlines, it’s easy to forget that other social properties, like Reddit still send a ton of traffic to sites. But they absolutely do, and now you can buy your way into that. Starting today, Reddit is testing out a new closed beta experiment to allow anyone to purchase a sponsored link on Reddit’s homepage. Yes, that means you, not just some random advertiser. And not just the homepage, it’s the top overall link.
Now, obviously, this link will be clearly labeled as “sponsored,” but that shouldn’t make it that much less of an enticing opportunity for some individuals who want to drive traffic to their site. Reddit says it sees anywhere from a 2% to a 10% click-through-rate on the ads that run in this area. At the very least, this should mean thousands of hits coming to your site that wouldn’t otherwise get.
So what’s the catch? The only catch is money. As long as you’re willing to pay the minimum of $20 a day, Reddit will enter you into a pool with everyone else willing to pay to determine how much face time you’ll get on the homepage. For example, if the total bids for the day equal $200, and you bid the minimum $20, you’ll get 10% of the day in this ad slot. It seems very likely that the daily bids are going to be quite a bit more than that, so $20 probably isn’t going to buy you much, but still, it will get you something.
With this beta, there won’t be the ability to target specific Reddits (the Politics Reddit, for example), but the plan is to eventually offer that option to better match individual advertisers with the audience they are trying to reach.
Adding your own self-serve ad is as easy as can be. Once you’re accepted into the beta, you simply fill out a title for you link, enter the URL, put in the duration that you wish to run your campaign, optionally disable comments, put in your bid amount, and then upload an image (if you choose). You then pay by entering your credit card information into a form.
What’s great is that just like regular Reddit items, users will be able to vote up or down on your ad, which means that if your content actually is good, you can even appear on the homepage for longer than you’ve paid for.
The company notes that users have tried to game the system for years attempting to get traffic, so this is a logical extension to allow them to pay to get it. It officially unveiled sponsored links for advertisers (big name ones) in January. Reddit’s main competitor, Digg, also has a advertising voting system, but so far, it’s only open to Digg’s advertising partners, not anyone willing to pay. Assuming they put guidelines in place (which Reddit has), it’s not hard to see this type of model eventually making its way to Digg as well.
Reddit’s founders, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, recently left the company three years to the day after Condé Nast purchased them. But they’re still clearly involved, as we spoke with Ohanian about this new launch, and he seems pretty excited about it.
As a part of the launch, Reddit has given us some invites to give to TechCrunch readers to check out the self-serve advertising system. The first 50 people to email MArrington [at] reddit.com will receive the invites.
You have to applaud them for giving this a try, and it may even have enough legs to really take off. The question is, how much of this will the social web tolerate? I’m sure we’ll see those boundaries be tested.
Me and a few buddies developed a prototype network and widget as part of a startup a few years ago that attempted to explore this space. The project was called Anatomy Ads. You can see the remnants of it here: http://anatomyads.com
I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago about what exactly we tried to do, and how it worked. You can find there here if you’re interested: http://tumblr.r...sing-experiment
At the time, we really thought it was a cool idea. I’ve been waiting for someone to try this for a while now.
The problem with Reddit is that it doesn’t really target any specific group of people. The ads will probably be as ineffective as any social network’s adverts.
I read this today:
http://money.cn...____NY05515.htm
“Nevertheless, these conditions should eventually present outstanding investment opportunities resulting from distressed sellers. Experienced real estate investors have been raising capital in the private and public markets to take advantage of these conditions.”
Why should anybody raise hedge funds to invest in Web 3.0 or the tech bubble when commercial real estate is going to be pennies on the dollar this year?
I think TC should open another website called REITcrunch.com LOL.
That looks like where the money is at this coming year. Not web.
Eventually the cost will go up and up… But at least for a while it should start out a bit lower. Looks cool.
Yeah that’s the funny part of the variable CPM – at some point it will have be capped (I assume) to provide decent value. I know Reddit gets a lot of traffic, so lets say the daily homepage pageviews are 1 million, once they surpass $1000 daily aggregate investment the CPM hits $1, which is pretty high for untargeted traffic.
With targeted reddits I think it’ll be a lot more useful, as a site of mine fits perfectly into some but probably would get beaten up on the frontpage when being exposed to the general Reddit audience.
You can solve the value/dilution problem with a variable CPM model by allowing people to target individual pieces of content.
You can have an add running at the site level and still allow for micotargeting at the individual Reddit level (or even individual pieces of content and threads within Reddit) without too much trouble.
Those seeking a better value can spend the time to target deeper down. You just create a different pool for each piece of content, and weight the bid or sponsorship accordingly.
It will be interesting to see what effect the opening of sponsored posts is going to have on the credibility of the organic content. Are people going to assume those who were paying to game traffic will just go right for sponsored or will they be more weary of the content overall?
I suppose only time will tell what the net effect will be.
To be clear, reddit has had sponsored posts since January and I don’t think they’ve had much of an effect on reddit’s content – at least the site’s traffic growth hasn’t reflected that.
And I’d seen only a slight decline in the effectiveness of the ads’ CTR over the last 10 months, so it’s not showing much of a ‘banner blindness’ effect.
as a reddit user for more than 2 years ads has not effected reddits’ worthiness.
@Christopher
>The problem with Reddit is that it doesn’t really target any specific group of people. The ads will probably be as ineffective as any social network’s adverts.
The community as a whole are still interested generally in technology, and there will soon be an update to target specific communities.
It seems to be an experiment. Let`s see what the effect will be.
Will definitely be giving this a try. It’s about time they did something like this.
First couple of days of those ads should be quite cheap, I believe. It seems like a very good move by Reddit. The site usually sends good traffic, much better than Digg, so I’ll be willing to try this system for Filmaster.
Cool idea. Should be a good and cost effective opportunity for those who get in early enough.
“The company notes that users have tried to game the system for years attempting to get traffic, so this is a logical extension to allow them to pay to get it.”
This absolutely works. At my previous company, we used to persuade spammers on our ad supported free mobile SMS platform to pay next time and they would absolutely be willing to do that..
This would be perfect for a WP plugin that allows this for any site. It would allow all WP blogs to auction their space in a smart way.
I developed a network and widget that did just that a few years ago. A prototype, really.
You can have a look here: http://anatomyads.com
TC’ers must not frequent Reddit. They’ve had this for some time.
Booo! Didn’t get an invite, give me one, power to the people!
Don’t worry, if all goes well we’ll be expanding the beta pretty quickly.
Reddit will probably use this new product offer to get more attention for Reddit. The attention may help Reddit dominate the headlines like Facebook and Twitter. I see this as a win, win situation for Reddit its members and for the new product.
I would welcome a 2 to 10% click through rate from Reddit. Reddit traffic could make a huge difference for my site.
The daily bidding system could get a little tricky.
It would require some time to build trust. I can see companies with big pockets dominating and making it hard for others to compete.
I’m sure the beta and all the extras will be worked out. The actual product is a great idea. The devil will be in the system. I will probably check it out.
Reddit has a respectable image, the key to effective advertising will probably be to get in early and establish credibility, branding the company as opposed to using it as a point of purchase. Once you have become part of the Reddit furniture the point of purchase scenario would definitely prove valuable.
Rupert Murdoch take a page from Reddit.
More publishers are using self-serve ad platforms to reach advertisers directly.
Reddit yet again proves the point
Screenshots of how to do the same for your own site here – http://bit.ly/2ZlWEJ
That is nice move and I hope the price is not so high