Calling them “free-form ads,” Reddit said the new advertisements are its most native format ever, designed to look and feel like community content shared by real people.
The ads, meant to mimic the site’s megathreads, will enable advertisers to utilize a variety of formats in one post, including images, videos, and text.
According to numbers from Reddit, free-form ads got 28% more clicks than all other types of ads on the site and saw a jump in community engagement.
The next time you see an interesting post in your Reddit feed, take a closer look - because it might just be a paid advertisement.
First time I accidentally click on one of these I’m going to shit thst post up so hard.
Just ditch Reddit. Seriously. Why bother?
Some nice communities are locked in that deepest level of hell & despair …
Gotta try to drag a few good people back from Tartarus…
You could also just not do that
Yeah, I figure it does two ways
They get called out quickly and result in a bunch of shitposts or actively blasting the product
They block posting which makes it obvious they’re ads and get little too no engagement anyhow
Reddit will program new mod bots to deal with organic responses the advertiser doesn’t consider constructive. That opens another revenue stream: charging advertisers for sub-specific bot tweaks.
The interesting question to me is, when does normie realize his sub has been co-opted to function as a focus group, and decide to look for a new forum.
Oh, they’ll try, but that just means trolling needs to get more creative, like certain Amazon reviews