Play · Reddit Ads
Use Primer audiences to scale beyond subreddit targeting — while maintaining ICP precision and measuring real pipeline impact.
Subreddit targeting is too narrow, your ICP isn’t always in the right communities, and Reddit’s reporting doesn’t tell you what’s driving pipeline.
Primer fixes this by letting you build high-match audiences, so you can reach your ICP across all of Reddit and measure real company-level impact.
B2B product-based brands that aren’t leveraging Reddit are missing out. The CPMs are significantly lower than YouTube and LinkedIn. The ability to target with Primer makes it easy to connect with potential customers. And we're able to measure a 74X ROAS.
Step 1
Describe who you sell to. Primer builds the audience from your CRM and its own data, and matches each person to the personal email they use on Reddit.
Warning: Match rates vary dramatically by persona — as high as ~80% for IT and engineering, but as low as ~5% for finance or procurement. Reddit is still a niche B2B channel compared to Google, Meta, and LinkedIn, so audience size will depend heavily on who you’re targeting.
Product example: in Primer's chat, a marketer asks for an audience of data engineers and platform leads at US and Canadian companies with 200 to 5,000 employees running Kafka, excluding customers. Primer builds Data Engineers – Reddit, 41,600 people at 3,820 companies with an estimated 18,700 to 25,000 matched on Reddit, and explains that it matched work emails to the personal emails people use on Reddit. The preview lists people such as a staff data engineer at Ledgerline and a head of data platform at Quarry Labs.
Step 2
Pick Reddit Ads as the destination. Primer keeps the list current every day, and a customers and open deals audience becomes your exclusion.
Product example: the audience editor with Reddit Ads selected as the destination, the filter criteria (data and platform engineering titles, 200 to 5,000 employees, Apache Kafka, not a customer) and a job-title breakdown. A confirmation shows the audience synced to Reddit Ads as the customer list Primer – Data Engineers, updating daily.
Step 3
Create campaigns using Primer audience targeting for broad Reddit reach outside of specific subreddits. Optional: If you want a more constrained approach, layer Primer audiences with subreddit targeting.
Best practices: Use in-feed placements only (avoid audience network / low-quality inventory). Separate campaigns by Audience and ad sets by creative format since creative optimization needs to be done manually.
Product example: Reddit Ads Manager, Advanced Create, for an ad group of freeform posts. Communities are left empty to reach the audience across all of Reddit, the custom audience Primer – Data Engineers is included, customers and open deals are excluded, and placements are feed only. Estimates show 19,200 to 24,600 people and, for a $770 weekly budget, 232,000 to 261,000 impressions.
Step 4
Use formats like freeform posts (look like organic content), short-form video (lo-fi, native feel), link posts. Advanced tactic: Leave comments enabled. Engage directly with users in-thread.
Tip: Reddit doesn’t support native creative rotation well — you need to split ad groups by format to control spend and test performance, making experimentation more manual.
Product example: a promoted freeform post on Reddit mobile in r/pcgaming, Kafka is expensive. Here's the math., with comments on. A reader notes the ad is annoyingly relevant because they run Kafka at work, and the advertiser replies in the thread. Beside it, three ad groups, one per format: freeform post, lo-fi video and link post.
Step 5
tl;dr - Don’t rely on last-click attribution — focus on whether Reddit is influencing high-quality accounts and driving pipeline over time.
Ask Primer
Optimize using short-term signals like de-anonymized website visits that tell you if the traffic from Reddit is from within your ICP. Expect last click conversion volume to be limited.
Ask Primer: it answers at the company level — Reddit visits, confirmed clicks, form fills, opportunities and the ad group behind them — and can sync Reddit-engaged companies back to Salesforce or HubSpot.
Product example: asked how the Reddit Data Engineers audience is doing, Primer answers that 46 companies came to the site from Reddit in 90 days, 19 confirmed by a Reddit click, leading to 11 form fills and 7 new opportunities, on $9,840 of spend at a $3.10 CPM. The Paid Engagement report shows the visit breakdown and delivery by ad group, led by the freeform cost explainer.
Ask Primer
Measure long-term impact in Primer by tying Reddit exposure (i.e. site visits from reddit) to pipeline and revenue at the company level.
Ask Primer: it looks at any Reddit touch associated with a company before the deal, so you can see whether companies with a Reddit touch are more likely to become deals.
Product example: asked whether Reddit moved target accounts, Primer answers that 63 of 412 target accounts engaged this period, up 21, with 22 form fills, 9 new opportunities and 18 accounts showing warm or hot intent, described as associations rather than attribution. The ABM Impact report shows engagement stages and the most active accounts, such as Ledgerline and Quarry Labs with open opportunities.
Primer enables scale across all of Reddit
Primer improves match rates for targeting + exclusions
You reach buyers outside obvious contexts
Focus on pipeline influence instead
Better engagement and lower resistance
Yes. Reddit reaches technical and niche B2B buyers at low CPMs ($2–$5). The challenge isn’t cost — it’s knowing who to target, how to speak Reddit, and how to measure real impact. Primer audiences let you reach your ICP across all of Reddit, not just in niche subreddits.
Subreddits are inherently constrained, and buyers like engineers browse everything on Reddit, not just niche communities. Primer audiences target the people in your ICP wherever they are on Reddit, and you can still layer subreddit targeting if you want a more constrained approach.
Reddit users sign up with personal emails, while most CRMs are built on work emails, so native list uploads match poorly. Primer matches people to their personal emails, which improves match rates for both targeting and exclusions.
Match rates vary dramatically by persona — as high as ~80% for IT and engineering, but as low as ~5% for finance or procurement. Reddit is still a niche B2B channel compared to Google, Meta, and LinkedIn, so audience size will depend heavily on who you’re targeting.
Native formats: freeform posts that look like organic content, short-form lo-fi video and link posts. Leave comments enabled and engage in-thread. Reddit doesn’t rotate creative well, so split ad groups by format to control spend and compare performance.
Don’t rely on last-click attribution. Optimize short-term on de-anonymized visits from in-ICP companies, and measure long-term impact by tying Reddit exposure to pipeline and revenue at the company level. In Primer you can ask how the audience performed, sync Reddit-engaged companies back to your CRM, and see whether companies with a Reddit touch are more likely to become deals.
WarpStream reached data engineers across all of Reddit with Primer audiences, sustained ~$3 CPMs (vs. $75–$125 on LinkedIn) and measured up to 74x ROI in attributed pipeline.
Build the audience, sync it to every channel, and ask Primer what it drove.
