On most ad platforms you describe a person and hope the platform finds them. On Reddit you pick the room. People sort themselves into communities by what they care about, from skincare routines to used trucks to spreadsheet formulas, and Reddit lets you put an ad inside the exact communities where your customers already ask for advice.
That is the whole reason to advertise there, and it changes how you plan a campaign. This guide covers how Reddit Ads works in 2026, what Reddit requires before anything can run, and a playbook for a first campaign.
Checked October 2026: the product facts below come from Reddit's own Ads documentation and from campaigns we built in a real Reddit Ads account this week. Reddit changes its ad products often, so confirm budgets and options inside Ads Manager before you commit money.
What Reddit Ads is
Reddit Ads is Reddit's own ad platform. You sign up and run campaigns in Ads Manager at ads.reddit.com.
A Reddit ad is a promoted post. It looks like any other post in the feed or on a comments page, with a "Promoted" label, and it is published by a Reddit profile that belongs to your business. That detail matters: people on Reddit read ads the way they read posts, so an ad that sounds like a person from that community does better than one that sounds like a billboard.
How a campaign is structured
There are three levels, and each one holds different decisions:
- Campaign: the objective. What you want the money to produce.
- Ad group: the daily budget, the bidding, the targeting, and the pixel the results report to. This is where most of the real choices live.
- Ad: the promoted post itself.
Because the budget sits on the ad group, a campaign with three ad groups has three separate daily budgets. That is useful: one ad group per audience means you can see exactly which audience is paying for itself and move money toward it.
Targeting: communities first
Reddit gives you several ways to choose who sees an ad. They can be combined in one ad group.
| Targeting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Communities | Shows the ad to people active in the subreddits you name |
| Interests | Broader groups Reddit builds from what people read and join |
| Keywords | Places the ad near posts and conversations that mention your terms |
| Locations | Country, region, city or postal code |
| Devices | Phone or desktop, and the operating system |
| Custom audiences | People from your customer list or your site visitors, for retargeting |
Communities are the sharp tool. Five well-chosen subreddits usually beat a broad interest, because you know exactly what those people talk about and can write the ad for them. Interests and keywords are how you widen out once something works.
Two practical notes. Not every community accepts ads, so pick from the ones Reddit's targeting actually offers rather than a list you assumed. And smaller communities can be worth more than huge ones: a subreddit of forty thousand people who own the exact product category you sell into is a better room than a general one with millions.
What a Reddit ad is made of
| Piece | What to know |
|---|---|
| Headline | The post title. Up to 300 characters, but shorter reads better |
| Image, video or carousel | Optional. An image ad needs a landing page to send people to |
| Text post | No image at all: a headline and a body, like an ordinary Reddit post |
| Button | A call to action such as Learn More, Shop Now or Sign Up |
| Landing page | Where the click goes |
| Comments | You choose whether people can comment on the ad |
One thing surprises people coming from Meta or Google: the words of an ad cannot be edited after it is created. The headline and image live on the post itself. To change the copy you make a new ad and switch the old one off. Budget, targeting and on or off can change any time.
Text posts deserve a look. They are the most Reddit-native format, they cost nothing to produce, and a good one reads as a useful post that happens to be sponsored.
Objectives and bidding
Reddit offers these objectives, among others:
| Objective | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Brand awareness and reach | You want the most people to see it |
| Traffic | You want clicks to your site |
| Conversions | You want purchases, leads or sign-ups, counted by your pixel |
| Video views | You want people to watch |
| App installs | You are promoting an app |
| Catalog sales | You sell from a product catalog |
For bidding, the simplest option lets Reddit maximize results inside your daily budget with no cost cap. You can also set a cost cap or a target cost per result once you know what a result is worth to you.
A conversions campaign asks you to pick the one event it optimizes for, such as a purchase, a lead or a sign-up. Reddit does not let you change that choice later, so decide before you launch.
What Reddit requires before an ad can run
A pixel on the ad account. Since July 2026 Reddit requires a pixel on every ad group, including plain traffic campaigns. A pixel is the small piece of tracking that tells Reddit what happened after the click. The good news: a Reddit ad account normally comes with one already (check Events Manager), and it only has to exist to launch. Installing it on your site is what makes purchase and lead counts work, so do that before you run a conversions campaign.
A payment method. Added under Billing in Ads Manager. Campaigns can be built without it, but nothing serves until it is there.
A Reddit profile for the business. Every ad is a post, and every post needs an author.
Ad review. Reddit reviews each ad before it can serve.
The minimum budget. Reddit's minimum is 5 a day in your account's currency. That is enough to start, though a few days at a higher budget tells you far more, far sooner.
A simple playbook for your first Reddit campaign
This is general advice from running ads on several platforms, not a Reddit recipe. Adjust it to your business.
1. List the communities, not the demographics. Write down ten subreddits where your customers ask the questions your product answers. Read the top posts in each for ten minutes. You will learn the words they use, which is most of the copywriting job.
2. One ad group per kind of community. Hobbyists in one, professionals in another, deal hunters in a third. Each has its own budget, so you will see which audience actually pays.
3. Write like a member. Lead with the specific problem that community talks about. "We tested 40 vitamin C serums so you do not have to" belongs in a skincare community. "Premium skincare solutions" belongs nowhere.
4. Run an image ad and a text post side by side. Same audience, different format. On Reddit the plain text post wins more often than people expect.
5. Start on traffic, then move to conversions. Traffic needs nothing installed. Once the pixel is on your site and counting, switch your winning audience to a conversions campaign.
6. Read the comments. If you leave comments on, people will tell you what they think of your offer. That is free research, and replying well is free advertising.
7. Read it weekly. After a week, switch off the ad groups with impressions but no clicks and move their budget to the ones that are working. Reddit's numbers can take a few hours to settle, so judge full days, not this morning.
Run Reddit Ads from a chat
You do not have to do every step by hand in Ads Manager. AdWhispr connects Reddit Ads next to Meta, Google, TikTok, X and ChatGPT Ads, so you can run all of them from one chat in plain English.
What it does on Reddit today:
- Connect by signing in on Reddit's own screen. AdWhispr never sees your password.
- Find communities for you. Ask for the subreddits that fit your subject and you get real ones with their member counts, so you never guess a name.
- Launch the whole thing in one request, paused. The campaign, the ad group with its budget and targeting, and the ad are built together and nothing spends until you resume. You see a preview of the exact headline, image and link first.
- Image ads and text posts, from your own image or one in your Creative Library. Give two or more and they run as a creative test. Video ads are not built from the chat yet.
- Traffic, sales, leads and awareness goals. Other objectives are refused with an explanation instead of being quietly swapped for something else.
- Manage and report. Pause, resume, change the budget, rename, and read spend, clicks and the purchases and leads your pixel reported.
A first launch can be one message:
Find Reddit communities for home espresso. Then launch a Reddit campaign
called "Grinder launch" for traffic at 20 a day, targeting the three biggest
ones in the US. Headline: "We measured 12 grinders at the same setting.
Here is how much the grind actually varied." Use my grinder-hero image
and link to my site.
One honest limit: an age range cannot be set on Reddit from the chat, so add it in Ads Manager if you need one.
Where it runs. Reddit Ads works in the AdWhispr web app, through the custom connector at https://adwhispr.com/api/mcp in any MCP client, in Slack, and in the AdWhispr app for Shopify. The full reference is in the Reddit Ads docs.
Reddit Ads Manager vs AdWhispr
They do not compete. Ads Manager is where your account, billing, pixel and ad review live. AdWhispr builds and runs the campaigns next to your other platforms.
| Reddit Ads Manager | AdWhispr | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Reddit, Meta, Google, TikTok, X, ChatGPT Ads | |
| How you use it | The web interface at ads.reddit.com | Plain English in a chat |
| Objectives | Everything Reddit offers | Traffic, sales, leads, awareness |
| Ad formats | Image, video, carousel, text | Image and text |
| Billing, pixel setup, review | Yes | No, those stay in Ads Manager |
| Finding communities | Search inside the ad group form | Ask, and get matches with member counts |
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to advertise on Reddit?
There is no price list. You set a daily budget, with a minimum of 5 a day in your account's currency, and Reddit charges for the impressions or clicks your ads get in the auction.
Do I need a pixel to advertise on Reddit?
Yes. Reddit requires a pixel on every ad group. Most ad accounts already have one, and it only needs to exist for you to launch. Install it on your site before you run a conversions campaign.
Can I target specific subreddits?
Yes. Community targeting is the main reason to advertise on Reddit. You name the subreddits and your ad appears to the people active in them.
Can I edit a Reddit ad after it is live?
You can change the budget, the targeting, and whether it is on. You cannot change the headline or the image. Create a new ad with the new copy and switch the old one off.
Are text-only ads allowed?
Yes. A text post is a standard Reddit ad format, and it often performs well because it looks and reads like the rest of the feed.
