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Reddit Ads

Blair Matheson

Reddit Ads lets you reach Reddit users with ads in their feeds and in communities. Advertisers manage ads in Reddit Ads Manager, and can target a Customer List audience built from their own customer data.

The Optimove integration with Reddit Ads syncs a campaign's target group to a Customer List audience in your Reddit Ads account. When the campaign runs, Optimove adds the customers to the audience. When the campaign duration ends, Optimove removes them. You then use that audience to target customers in the ad campaigns you build in Reddit Ads Manager.

This guide will walk you through how to connect your Reddit Ads account to Optimove, create the Customer List audience, and run a campaign that fills it.

Please note: Optimove syncs the audience only. Optimove does not create campaigns or ads in Reddit, and campaign performance metrics are not pulled back into Optimove. You monitor performance in Reddit Ads Manager.

Before You Start

Make sure you have the following:

  • A Reddit Ads account: You need a Reddit Ads business account that can use Customer List audiences, access to Reddit Business Manager for that business, and a Reddit user with access to the ad account. This user approves Optimove's access once.
  • Customer email addresses in Optimove: Reddit matches customers by email address. If your batch data update does not include email addresses, add them first. Your Customer Success Manager (CSM) can help. Optimove sends a SHA-256 hash of the normalized email.
  • An approved ad account: Your Reddit Ads account and your ads are subject to Reddit's advertising policy. Gambling, lottery, sweepstakes, trading and crypto advertisers must be pre-approved by Reddit through a Reddit sales representative before they can run ads, and only in countries where Reddit allows it. Optimove syncs the audience. The approval sits with Reddit.
  • The Social Channels package: This integration is part of Optimove's Social Channels package. Ask your CSM if you are not sure your plan includes it.

How to Connect Reddit Ads to Optimove

Setup takes five steps. You do the first four. Optimove does the last one. Before you start, sign in at ads.reddit.com and open Reddit Business Manager with the user that has access to your ad account.

1. Find your Ad Account ID

  1. In Reddit Business Manager, navigate to Assets → Ad Accounts.
  2. Select the ad account you want to connect.
  3. Copy the ID shown under its name. It looks like a2_1b2c34d.

Reddit Business Manager, Ad Accounts page with the ad account ID under the account name

2. Create a Reddit App for Optimove

  1. In Reddit Business Manager, navigate to Developer Portal → Developer Applications.
  2. Click Add Apps and choose Create New App.
  3. Name the app Optimove and enter a redirect URI. The redirect URI can be any page you control, for example, your company home page.
  4. Click Create app.
  5. Open the app to see its client ID and secret. Copy both, and copy the redirect URI exactly as you entered it.

Reddit Business Manager, Developer Applications page with the Add Apps menu open

Reddit Business Manager, Create App form

3. Approve Optimove's Access (One Time)

  1. Copy the link below. Replace YOUR_CLIENT_ID and YOUR_REDIRECT_URI with the values from Step 2.

    https://www.reddit.com/api/v1/authorize?client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID&response_type=code&state=optimove&redirect_uri=YOUR_REDIRECT_URI&duration=permanent&scope=adsread%20adsedit
  2. Open the link in your browser. Reddit shows an access screen.
  3. Click Allow. Reddit sends your browser to your redirect URI with a code parameter in the address bar.
  4. Copy that code.
Please note: The redirect URI in the link must match the one you entered in Step 2 exactly.

4. Contact your Customer Success Manager

  1. Send your CSM the ad account ID, the app's client ID, secret, and redirect URI, and the code from Step 3.
  2. Your CSM passes them to the relevant team in Optimove.
Please note: Send the code as soon as you have it, because Reddit accepts it only once. If you connect more than one ad account, send each account with its own app details and tell your CSM which Optimove brand it belongs to.

5. Optimove Connects the Channel

The Optimove integrations team configures the Reddit Ads channel on your Optimove site. From then on, Optimove reads the Customer List audiences in your ad account every 30 minutes and lists them in Campaign Builder.

How to Run a Campaign with Reddit Ads

Create the Customer List Audience in Reddit Ads Manager

Reddit Ads Manager does not let you create an empty Customer List audience. The list must contain at least one customer when you create it, and Reddit only accepts customers from an uploaded file. So you create the audience once with placeholder email addresses. Optimove adds your real customers when the campaign runs.

  1. Prepare a CSV file with at least one placeholder email address that cannot belong to a real person, for example optimove-placeholder-0001@example.com. Start from Reddit's template, which you can download from the create audience screen, and keep its column headings unchanged.
  2. In Reddit Ads Manager, open Audience Manager, click New Audience, and choose Custom audience.
  3. Select the Customer list option.
  4. Give the audience a name you will recognize in Optimove, for example, Optimove - VIP reactivation.
  5. Upload the CSV file and save. Wait for the upload success message before you leave the page.

Create one audience for each Optimove campaign you plan to run. Only Customer List audiences appear in Optimove. Pixel and engagement audiences do not.

Reddit Ads Manager, Audience Manager listing Customer List audiences

Please note: The placeholder addresses never match a Reddit user, so they do not affect who sees your ads, and Optimove does not remove them. A new Customer List audience appears in Campaign Builder within 30 minutes. In Audience Manager, it shows as Invalid with size N/A until Reddit has matched enough customers.

Schedule your Campaign in Optimove

  1. In Campaign Builder, select the Reddit Ads channel.
  2. In the Audience field, pick the Customer List audience you want to fill from the list Optimove set up for you.

Campaign Builder with the Reddit Ads channel selected

Build your Ad Campaign in Reddit Ads Manager

  1. In Reddit Ads Manager, create or edit the ad group that should use this audience.
  2. Add the audience to the ad group's targeting.

How the Reddit Ads Audience Sync Works

When the Optimove campaign runs, Optimove takes the customers in the Target Group, hashes their email addresses, and adds them to the audience. When the campaign duration ends, Optimove removes those customers from the audience.

  • Removal timing: Removal runs once a day, so customers leave the audience one to two days after the campaign duration ends. For example, a non-recurring campaign with a duration of 1 day keeps the customers in the audience for 1 day.
  • Recurring campaigns: If you want the audience to always hold the most relevant customers, schedule a daily recurring campaign with a duration of 1 day. Each day, Optimove adds that day's customers and removes the ones who no longer qualify.
Protip: We recommend one audience per Optimove campaign, so you always know which campaign filled it. If two campaigns share an audience, a customer stays in it until the last campaign that added them ends.

Campaign Status

You can follow the campaign in Mission Control.

  • Completed: Reddit accepted the customers. Optimove marks the campaign as completed right after the upload. Reddit then matches the list in the background. In Reddit Ads Manager, the audience shows as Invalid until Reddit has matched at least 1,000 customers, then Valid.
  • Failed: Reddit rejected the upload, Optimove's access was revoked, the audience was deleted, or the audience is not a Customer List. If no customer in the Target Group had a valid email address, the campaign fails with the reason Not Enough Customers.

Key Elements to Keep In Mind

  • Minimum audience size: Reddit needs at least 1,000 matched users before a Customer List audience can be used for targeting. Matched means Reddit found a Reddit user for the email. Unmatched emails do not count, so the Target Group usually needs to be larger than 1,000. An audience below the minimum shows as Invalid or Not enough matches in Reddit Ads Manager.
  • Processing time: Reddit matches the list in the background. It can take up to 48 hours before the audience shows as Valid and is ready for targeting.
  • Valid email address required: Optimove adds only customers with a valid email address. A Target Group of 2,000 customers where 1,700 have a valid email adds 1,700 customers to the audience. Customers whose Customer ID contains a quotation mark or a backslash are also skipped.
  • No metrics in Optimove: Impressions, clicks, and conversions are available in Reddit Ads Manager only.
  • Several ad accounts: Each ad account needs its own app, approval, and audiences. Optimove maps each account to a brand on your Optimove site.
  • Revoking access: If you remove the app or revoke its access in Reddit, Optimove can no longer add or remove customers. Tell your CSM before you do this, so access can be set up again.

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