How to Run Reddit Ads in 2026

The short version

Reddit Ads work when your product has a clear home community. Read those subreddits before you write anything, because ads that feel out of place get called out.
Write like a person, not a brochure: be open that it is an ad, say plainly what you sell and what it costs, and lead with something specific and useful.
Comments are off on new Reddit ads unless you turn them on. If you do, someone must answer questions and fair criticism promptly, because every reply is public.

Reddit is built around communities. People join subreddits for a hobby, a profession, a product category or a problem they are trying to solve, and they spend time reading what other people in those communities recommend.

That makes Reddit useful for advertisers who can be relevant to a specific community. It also makes it unforgiving for ads that feel out of place. Redditors can comment on ads, and they will say what they think.

This guide walks through setting up Reddit Ads step by step, with the parts that are specific to Reddit: fitting the community, writing creative that reads like it belongs, and handling the comments.

Who Reddit Ads Are Right For (and Who They Aren't)

Reddit tends to work well for:

Products and services with an obvious home community, such as gaming, tech, software, personal finance, fitness, beauty, home improvement or a specific hobby
Businesses whose buyers research before they buy and ask for recommendations
Brands that can explain clearly and specifically why their product is better
Advertisers prepared to answer questions in public

It is usually a weaker fit when:

You can't say which communities your customers belong to
Your offer relies on hype, vague claims or pressure tactics, which Reddit users tend to call out
You sell a local service in a small area
Nobody can check comments and reply
Your category has extra rules or is not allowed under Reddit's advertising policy, which has specific sections on areas such as alcohol, gambling, healthcare, financial products, dating and political ads

What You Need Before You Start

A Reddit account to sign up with, and a username you are happy for people to see on your ads
A payment method
A list of communities where your customers spend time, plus the words they use
A landing page that answers the questions a sceptical reader would ask
Several images or videos, so you can test more than one idea
Tracking: the Reddit Pixel, and ideally the Conversions API
Someone to own the comments while ads are live

Step 1: Set Up Your Reddit Ads Account

You need a Reddit account first, and Reddit says you can use an existing one or create a new one. Karma doesn't affect ad performance, but ads can't run from accounts set to Not Safe For Work (NSFW) (Reddit Ads Help).

Go to Reddit's ads sign-up page and choose your Reddit account, or create one.
Set your username. It can appear on your ads, and Reddit says it can't be changed later.
Enter your name and your business's legal name, which are shown in your ads and on billing receipts.
Add your website, your industry, and whether you work with an agency.
Choose your country and currency. Reddit says these can't be changed later for that ad account, so get them right.

Not every country is supported in the same way for advertisers or for location targeting. Check availability in your target country, and in the country where your business is registered, before you plan a campaign around Reddit.

Step 2: Choose the Objective

Reddit lists four main objectives (Reddit for Business):

Awareness and consideration: reach new audiences, optimised for impressions
Traffic: drive clicks to your website
Sales: optimise towards a conversion event such as a purchase, sign-up or lead
App promotion: drive app installs

You can build a Standard campaign, where you control objectives, targeting, delivery and creative, or a Max campaign, which automates more of it. A campaign holds the objective and an optional spend cap. Ad groups hold targeting, schedule and bids, and ads hold the creative (Reddit Ads Help).

If you want sales or leads, choose the conversion objective and install tracking first. A Traffic campaign will find people who click, which isn't the same as people who buy.

Step 3: Set Up Targeting

Reddit lets you reach people based on their interests, the communities they are part of and the keywords they use (Reddit for Business).

Community targeting

Target the subreddits where your customers spend time. This is the main reason to use Reddit. A brand selling mechanical keyboards, accounting software or skincare can name the exact communities where those topics are discussed.

Keyword and interest targeting

Keyword targeting reaches people using specific words or engaging with conversations that contain them. Interest targeting is broader. Use both to add scale around your core communities.

Custom audiences, location and automated targeting

You can retarget website visitors with Pixel data, upload customer lists and set locations. Reddit also offers automated targeting to expand into related keywords, communities and interests. Reddit recommends it, but notes you can keep it off if your budget is limited or you want more precise targeting (Reddit Ads Help).

Placements and brand safety

Ads can appear in the Feed (Home, Popular and community feeds) or in Conversations, on comment pages between the post and the first comment. You can also choose communities or keywords to avoid (Reddit Ads Help). Some placements aren't available for every objective.

Step 4: Check the Community Fit

Before writing a single headline, spend time reading the communities you plan to target. Look at:

What people ask, complain about and recommend
The words and jargon they use
Which brands they respect, and why
The objections they raise about products like yours
The community's rules and tone

If you can't find genuine interest in your category, that is a useful finding. It is cheaper to learn it by reading than by paying for impressions.

Step 5: Create Ads That Feel Native

Reddit's own creative guidance makes a point worth repeating: on Reddit, everyone knows you're an ad, so be clear about who you are, what you sell, what it costs and how to get it. It also recommends conversational headlines that sound like something a person would say, ideally under 150 characters, 4:5 images and videos for mobile, short videos, a visible logo, captions on video, and several different headlines rather than one repeated (Reddit for Business).

In practice, ads that work on Reddit tend to:

Lead with something specific and useful, such as a spec, a price, a comparison or a fair limitation
Show the product in real use rather than a studio mock-up
Speak to one community's concerns rather than everyone at once
Avoid buzzwords and exaggerated claims

Formats include image, video, carousel and free-form ads, which combine text with images or video. Our content production team can help with creative that suits Reddit's tone.

Step 6: Decide on Comments and Plan for Them

Reddit ads are posts, so they can carry a comment thread. Reddit says comments are off for every new ad unless you tick Allow comments on Reddit post when creating it (Reddit Ads Help).

Comments give people a place to ask questions and raise objections in public. That helps if you can answer them, and hurts if nobody does. Reddit's own advice on comment-enabled ads is useful:

Answer questions. Every answer is visible to everyone who sees the ad.
"Remember the human." Talk the way you would to a friend, and keep the buzzwords out.
Don't feed trolls. You don't need to reply to unmerited negativity.
Treat fair criticism as fair. Acknowledge it and respond as you would to a customer.

You can lock or unlock comments, remove or approve comments, mark spam and pin one of your own replies. Reddit also suggests turning on notifications in the Reddit app so you can reply promptly (Reddit Ads Help). Note that editing an ad's post creative resets its votes and comments, so launch a new ad rather than editing a live one.

Step 7: Budget and Bidding

Reddit runs an auction. You choose a daily or lifetime budget; Reddit recommends lifetime for smaller budgets, or daily to prevent under-delivery, and the budget type can't be changed after you save the ad group. Reddit also recommends automated bidding where possible. New ads are reviewed before they run, which Reddit says normally takes up to 48 business hours (Reddit Ads Help).

Reddit's getting-started guidance suggests daily budgets for each goal; check the current figure before you plan. For a first test, keep it controlled:

One objective and a small set of closely related communities
Separate ad groups for communities and keywords, so you can compare them
A campaign spend cap
A fixed test window that gives the campaign time to collect data before you judge it

Our guide to how much digital marketing costs explains how to work out what you can afford to pay for a customer.

Step 8: Track Results With the Reddit Pixel and Conversions API

Install the Reddit Pixel from the Events Manager, in the head of every page where you want to track events. Don't install it twice on the same page, because that duplicates tracking. The Conversions API sends events from your server; Reddit recommends using it with the Pixel, and requires event deduplication when you use both (Reddit Ads Help). Then check platform numbers against real sales; see which numbers actually matter.

Common Mistakes

Running ads you made for Instagram unchanged. Polished lifestyle creative often looks out of place.
Targeting communities you have never read.
Turning comments on and walking away.
Editing live ads and wiping their comment threads.
Choosing Traffic when you want sales.
Exaggerating. Reddit's policy covers deceptive and misleading advertising, and its users notice.

When to Hire Help

Bring in help when you need tracking set up properly, when the comments need a steady owner, or when Reddit is one of several channels and you need to know which is producing customers. Buzzcraft runs social media marketing and paid social for businesses in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan. If your audience is more professional or more visual, compare our guides on X Ads and Snapchat Ads.

How to Run Reddit Ads in 2026: A Step-by-Step Guide