There’s something going on with Reddit, which has seen a big surge in traffic of late.
But does that make it a more viable avenue for advertising, or is its newfound audience reach, largely facilitated by Google referrals, more transient, and thus, less conducive to ad exposure than other social apps?
As reported by The Information, Reddit usage has been on a major upswing over the past year, with the platform rising from 66 million daily active users last October, to 97 million, as reported last week.
That’s a 46% increase in daily actives over the past year, which eclipses every other social app’s growth, by a significant margin.
That helped Reddit boost its stock price, and improve its market standing, making it the hot social media sector buy of the moment.
But as I noted in my review of Reddit’s Q3 data, one of the most interesting aspects of Reddit’s current usage is this:
“Reddit also says that its Weekly Active Unique user count (WAUq) averaged 365.4 million in the third quarter, an increase of 53% year-over-year. The amount of daily to weekly usage here is unusual for social apps, which usually see about 2.3x usage between daily and monthly actives. Reddit seemingly sees a lot more than this, which could point to the less consistent way in which visitors use the app.”
The Information noted the same, pointing to Reddit’s data sharing deal with Google as a key element helping to drive this growth, and noting that:
“Reddit’s content is now 4x more visible in Google’s search results than it was in July 2023.”
Indeed, part of Reddit’s deal with Google is that Google can now display Reddit insights in Search, while also using Reddit’s trove of product-related discussion to help power its AI responses via its Gemini tools. That’s seen Reddit get a lot more exposure in Google’s products, and is also why Reddit’s weekly and monthly traffic is so out of synch with every other social app.
Indeed, as noted above, while most social apps have around 2.3x the rate of monthly versus daily users, Reddit’s is 3.77x variable.
That suggests that while Reddit is getting a lot more people to the app, most of them are likely coming across from a Google Search, checking the response to their query, then moving on from the app.
Over time, Reddit is seemingly converting more of these visitors into active users, which bodes well for its future prospects. But right now, Reddit’s 97 million daily actives is significantly lower than the other major social apps. As such, that could mean that Reddit provides less opportunity for ad exposure, and thus, a more confined pathway to audience reach.
Does that make such exposure less valuable?
Well, theoretically, the more transient Reddit traffic that’s coming from Google is also looking for more specific product insight, and as such, getting your promotions onto those screens could also prove valuable, despite lower overall usage. So there may well be opportunity there, and 97 million daily users is also still a significant amount of users who are visiting very specific, focused subreddit groups.
I do think that there is value there for the right brands, and it’s worth exploring the broader Reddit discussion around your business niche to understand the potential. But it is also worth noting that a lot of the current interest in Reddit is being driven by traffic from Google, which is not as sticky, and not as accessible via Reddit promotions.
Yet.
Again, the app is also growing its returning user base at a solid rate, and over time, it is worth monitoring that growth, and considering how those users are engaging with Reddit content. But there are variances in usage, which are worth considering.
