Exclusive: Reddit releases new "Community Intelligence" ad tools
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Reddit's new ad tools are powered by insights drawn from its more than 22 billion posts and comments. Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
Reddit has launched two new ad tools that help brands understand and showcase conversations happening on the platform, the company exclusively tells Axios.
Why it matters: As AI-generated content floods the internet, Reddit is leaning into its 20-year history as a place for human conversation with real-time commentary and community.
- "Reddit responds so quickly to new products and what's happening in the world," COO Jen Wong said. "That's why it's so credible and valuable to businesses trying to make decisions in everything — how to market, how to find their customers, how they're doing in customer service."
Driving the news: The products, announced Monday on the first day of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, are powered by what Reddit calls "community intelligence" — insights drawn from its more than 22 billion posts and comments.
- Reddit Insights is a social listening tool for marketers to see information about topics and brands with conversation summaries, links to specific posts and top subreddits.
- Conversation Summary Add-on is a new ad product that lets brands showcase positive user posts or sentiment summaries below their ad creative.
Between the lines: Wong said she's wanted to build these tools since joining Reddit seven years ago, but the company first prioritized the fundamentals of its ad business.
- Before, Reddit manually provided insights to advertisers. Now, it's formalized in a scalable, self-serve tool.
- Publicis served as the exclusive alpha tester for Reddit Insights, helping clients like The Hershey Company and Comcast identify new audiences and brand sentiment along with opportunities for engagement.
- Jackbox Games and Lucid Motors were early testers for the Conversation Summary Add-on product.
The big picture: Reddit is betting on community marketing, where brands tap into the influence and insights of groups versus individuals, and the ability of AI to surface information as it grows its ad business.
- Reddit, which went public last year, reported $358.6 million in Q1 ad revenue, a 61% year-over-year increase. It cited growth in impressions, pricing and advertiser diversification.
- The company is using generative AI for these new products along with a new search tool called Reddit Answers, which lets users ask questions and receive AI-generated summaries. The differentiator to other AI platforms, Wong said, is it links back to conversations on Reddit.
- "The AI layer is a light layer to make it navigable, but it always reveals a path to go deeper, a path to go into the community, a path to go into the actual post," Wong said.
What's next: Wong said Reddit's Community Intelligence will power more products to come.
