How to Reach High-Intent Shoppers With Reddit Ads

Reddit isn’t just another paid channel to plug into your media mix. It’s a massive, community-led platform where users don’t just scroll, they research. They ask questions. They compare brands. And they trust each other most. But that doesn’t mean brands can’t earn their attention, it just means you have to do it on their terms.

That makes it one of the most overlooked opportunities for reaching high-intent shoppers: people deep in the buying process, looking for real answers and trusted recommendations.

But here’s the catch: get the tone wrong, and Redditors will let you know, or tune you out completely. This guide breaks down exactly how to show up the right way with the right targeting, creative, and strategy so you can turn Reddit into a profitable, sustainable performance channel.

Understanding Reddit’s Ecosystem and Buyer Mindset

Reddit isn’t like other social platforms, and that’s exactly why it works so well for intent-based marketing. 

Instead of one endless feed or algorithmically curated content, Reddit is made up of thousands of individual communities called subreddits, each focused on a specific topic, lifestyle, product category, or shared challenge. These communities are where users post questions, give feedback, share recommendations, and compare notes with others who care about the same things.

This structure creates a unique environment: one where authenticity matters, self-policing is the norm, and people aren’t afraid to speak their minds. It’s not about chasing trends or likes; it’s about getting useful information from people you trust. 

That culture of honesty and curiosity means when Redditors are talking about products, they’re usually serious. They’re doing research. They’re comparing options. They’re ready to buy, but they just want a little validation first.

And this is where the real opportunity lies. While other platforms are designed to create awareness or entertain, Reddit catches people mid-decision. You’ll find users asking questions like: “Is this air purifier worth it?”, “Anyone tried these running shoes?”, or “What’s the best alternative to Brand X?”, often inside niche communities that align directly with your product category.

That’s not vague targeting. That’s high-intent demand, already organized and searchable. The brands that win on Reddit are the ones that recognize this and show up not just with ads, but with relevance.

Reddit Ad Formats: What You Can Actually Run

Reddit offers a suite of ad formats that blend seamlessly into the platform’s experience while giving consumer brands multiple paths to drive awareness, engagement, and conversions.

Here’s what you can actually run and when to use each format strategically.

Core Ad Types for Consumer Brands

Promoted Posts (Text, Image, Video, Carousel)

These are native-style ads that show up in Reddit feeds and subreddit threads. They look like regular user posts, which makes them ideal for blending into the conversation. Carousel formats are great for showcasing multiple products or storytelling in a scrollable format.

Conversation Ads

These appear embedded directly above the comment section in active Reddit threads, making them perfect for brands looking to insert themselves into ongoing conversations or spark new ones. This is where you meet users in decision mode, while they’re reading reviews or comparing options.

Dynamic Product Ads (Beta)

Reddit’s newest shopping format, DPAs, automatically pull products from your catalog and show relevant SKUs based on a user’s behavior or interests. 

With both prospecting and retargeting options, DPAs are built for scale and efficiency, particularly for brands with large product catalogs.

Lead Gen Ads

Designed to capture emails or signups directly within Reddit, these ad units eliminate the need for a landing page. Ideal for early-stage offers, gated content, or pre-sale waitlists.

AMA (Ask Me Anything) Format

Sponsored AMAs give brands a platform to host live Q&As within relevant communities. When done right, it’s a high-trust format that can introduce your brand through thought leadership or direct interaction.

High-Impact Ads (Takeovers)

These include Front Page Takeovers, Category Takeovers, and First View ads. They guarantee visibility across Reddit’s highest-traffic real estate but are typically reserved for big campaign moments and larger budgets.

Where Reddit Ads Can Appear

Reddit offers a variety of ad placements designed to meet users where they are in their browsing and buying journeys. Each placement has unique advantages depending on your campaign goals:

Home and Popular Feeds

These are the most visited areas of Reddit, acting as the digital equivalent of a front page. 

Ads here reach a broad, often curious audience and are ideal for building awareness at scale. These placements are especially valuable when running high-impact campaigns like brand launches or seasonal promotions.

Within Targeted Subreddits

This is where the real power of Reddit advertising lives. Ads placed directly inside relevant subreddits put your brand in front of highly contextual, self-selected audiences. 

Whether it’s r/Sneakers, r/MealPrepSunday, or r/EDC, you’re inserting your message into communities already discussing products like yours.

Most ad types support multiple placements, which allows you to guide users through their buyer journey without leaving the platform.

How to Set Up Reddit Ads to Capture Purchase Intent

Reaching high-intent shoppers on Reddit starts with aligning your campaign setup to the way people use the platform: actively, purposefully, and often in the middle of a buying decision. 

Here’s how to structure your ads to tap into that intent and drive real results.

Choose the Right Campaign Objective

Reddit offers several campaign objectives, but not all are designed for performance-driven outcomes. If your goal is to drive sales, email signups, or product exploration, then focus on bottom-of-funnel objectives:

• Conversions: Optimize toward specific actions on your site (e.g., purchases, signups).
• Traffic: Ideal for sending users to product pages, landing pages, or category collections.
• Catalog Sales: For brands using Dynamic Product Ads, this format automatically serves relevant SKUs to shoppers based on behavior and intent signals.

Avoid defaulting to brand awareness unless you’re launching a new product or investing in a long-term Reddit presence. 

Even then, awareness should be part of a broader performance funnel, not the end goal.

Targeting: From Broad to Precise

Reddit offers three main ways to reach users. While each has a role, success for consumer brands typically lies in going deep, not wide.

Community Targeting

This is Reddit’s most powerful feature for consumer brands. You can place ads inside specific subreddits where users are already asking questions, comparing products, or sharing reviews. 

Think r/BuyItForLife for durable goods, r/SuggestALaptop for electronics, or r/SkincareAddiction for beauty. The intent is already there; you’re just inserting your brand at the moment of consideration.

Interest Targeting

If your ideal subreddits have limited reach or volume, interest-based targeting helps scale.

These are broad behavioral categories (e.g., “Fashion,” “Home & Garden,” “Fitness”) based on users’ recent engagement. It’s less precise than subreddit targeting, but can be useful for discovery, especially when combined with compelling creative.

Custom Audiences & Retargeting

Reddit supports first-party data strategies, too. Upload customer lists (emails or phone numbers) to create custom audiences or use the Reddit Pixel to build retargeting pools based on site visits or actions. This allows you to:

• Re-engage high-intent users who didn’t convert
• Exclude past customers from acquisition campaigns
• Create lookalike audiences from your most valuable buyers

Together, these targeting tools let you move from discovery to decision with precision, while respecting the nuance of how Reddit users behave across the funnel.

Creative That Converts Without Feeling Like an Ad

Reddit isn’t the place for polished product shots, heavy branding, or catchy taglines that sound like they came from a Super Bowl commercial. It’s a platform built around trust, curiosity, and real conversation, and your creative needs to match that tone if you want it to be successful.

Speak Their Language: Writing Creative That Belongs on Reddit

Reddit users don’t want to be sold to, they want useful information, shared experiences, and authenticity. That means your ad shouldn’t feel like an ad. It should feel like it belongs, like something helpful, honest, or entertaining that a fellow Redditor might share.

Some brands have figured this out exceptionally well. Tushy, the modern bidet company, has consistently embraced Reddit’s culture to turn curiosity into conversions. 

In one campaign, instead of pushing a discount or a promo, they hosted an AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) where the founder answered real user questions, everything from “Do bidets really save money?” to “What’s the splash factor?” 

This wasn’t just clever content; it was community-minded problem solving. It met people where they were in the buyer journey: hesitant, curious, maybe a little skeptical, and turned those questions into a public, honest dialogue.

But Tushy didn’t stop at utility. They also leaned into Reddit’s irreverent tone with a now-famous campaign that challenged users to give an ad 10,000 upvotes, promising to temporarily rename their “Bum Wash” product to “A** Blast.”

The post hit its goal, the name changed, and the result was a 4.5x return on ad spend, all because the brand didn’t just market on Reddit, it spoke Reddit. 

That’s the creative sweet spot: solve a real user problem, and do it in a way that feels like it belongs in the thread, not the boardroom. Brands that strike that balance don’t just earn clicks, they earn trust.

Make It Interactive, Not Interruptive

Reddit’s best-performing creatives don’t just inform; they invite. Whether it’s a text post that mirrors a community’s tone or a carousel ad that walks users through options, the goal is always to spark curiosity and conversation, not just push for clicks.

Conversation ads are particularly powerful here. They appear at the top of comment threads and can turn an ad into an active discussion. It’s a format built for brands willing to listen, respond, and genuinely engage.

Chubbies, the men’s apparel brand, leaned into this by running Reddit Dynamic Product Ads during the holiday season. 

But what made them stand out wasn’t just the targeting; it was how they embraced Reddit’s culture. 

Their creatives leaned into humor and community voice, with headlines like “Side effects of new Chubbies may include: perpetual smiling, increased high fives, and that Friday 5pm feeling.” This kind of light, tongue-in-cheek copy mirrored the casual tone Reddit users love, making the ads feel less like pitches and more like inside jokes shared in a thread.

The result? A 122% increase in return on ad spend.

Even standard formats like text or carousel posts can create that same energy. Try Reddit-native CTAs like:

• “What’s your go-to?”
• “Worth the hype?”
• “Anyone else tried this?”

These low-friction prompts feel like they belong on Reddit…because they do. And when your ad blends in naturally, it doesn’t get skipped. It gets upvoted.

Optimize Like a Redditor: Tracking and Iteration

Reddit rewards marketers who don’t just launch campaigns, but treat them like conversations to refine. Success on the platform doesn’t come from a one-and-done push. It comes from testing, observing, and evolving based on real user behavior.

Know What to Measure

Yes, you’ll still want to track the usual suspects:

• Click-through rate (CTR) to understand ad appeal
• Conversion rate to evaluate landing page or product offer effectiveness
• Return on ad spend (ROAS) to gauge bottom-line impact

But Reddit adds an extra layer: community feedback.

• Comment sentiment: Are users responding positively? Are they tagging friends, asking questions, or challenging your claims? These are signals you can’t get on most ad platforms.
• Engagement quality: Are people not just clicking, but actually participating in the conversation? A post that sparks 20 thoughtful comments may be more valuable than one with a slightly higher CTR.

Don’t Skip UTM Parameters

Reddit’s native attribution tools are limited. If you want a clear picture of downstream performance, you need UTM tracking. 

Set up UTM parameters for each ad set so you can properly analyze performance in GA4, Triple Whale, or your preferred analytics stack.

Reddit might bring the conversation, but your data infrastructure ties it back to revenue.

Test Smart

Reddit offers unique flexibility with creative and placement, but don’t fall into the trap of testing everything at once. Instead:

• Isolate variables: If you’re testing a new headline, keep the image and targeting constant. If you’re trying carousel vs. video, run them with identical copy.
• Split by subreddit: Run similar creatives across different communities to see which ones convert. r/Fragrance and r/BuyItForLife might both be great, but they engage differently.
• Start broad, then narrow: Launch with Run of Site + Community Targeting to gather directional data. Once patterns emerge, double down on high-intent placements.

Treat Comments Like Market Research

Redditors won’t hold back. If your creative is confusing, off-brand, or just doesn’t land, they’ll say so. On the flip side, if users are praising a specific feature or asking follow-up questions, that’s signal gold.

Use this feedback to:

• Rewrite ad copy using real user language
• Adjust product positioning
• Even inform future product development

Reddit’s value isn’t just in traffic, it’s in the feedback loop. You’re not just buying impressions; you’re joining a conversation that can sharpen your entire funnel.

Make Reddit a Core Channel, Not a Side Experiment

Reddit isn’t just another ad platform. It’s where consumers go to think before they buy. 

It’s where they compare products, ask for recommendations, and make decisions based on peer input. In other words, it’s a goldmine for consumer brands targeting high-intent shoppers if you show up the right way.

The takeaway is simple but powerful: respect the platform, speak like a real person, and test like a strategist.

Reddit is a place to engage, not broadcast. For brands willing to play by those rules, it can become a sustainable, high-ROI channel in your marketing strategy.

About the Author: As the Director, Marketing at adQuadrant, Nick Grant leverages more than 20 years of experience working across a variety of tech verticals. Nick grew up in California and earned his BS in Business with a concentration in Entrepreneurship. After college, he relocated to Seattle to pursue his passion for startups, where he worked at various dot-coms before co-founding a successful visual strategy agency in 2010. Now back in California, Nick spends his time hiking around San Luis Obispo County with his wife and son, honing his talent as a concert photographer, and perfecting his handstand skills.