Reddit adds campaign forecasts and a score for ad recommendations

Reddit adds campaign forecasts and an optimization score to its advertising tools, giving media buyers a way to compare proposed plans and review campaign recommendations. The company announced the changes on October 20 and says both features are rolling out to all advertisers through October.

The update also extends campaign budget optimization across more objectives, allowing Reddit to distribute a campaign’s spending among its ad groups.

The planner compares budgets before a campaign starts

Reddit’s campaign planner projects reach, impressions and costs. Advertisers can compare versions with different budgets, audiences, objectives and placements. A plan can then become a draft campaign.

A useful comparison starts with a question narrow enough for the forecast to answer. Holding the audience and objective constant while changing the budget shows the estimated effect of that spending change. Changing the audience, budget and objective together produces a different media plan, but makes it harder to identify which setting explains a difference in projected costs.

Saving the version selected before launch would give a buyer a reference for later reporting. Actual delivery can then be compared with the original estimate, rather than a forecast recreated after the campaign has run.

The score offers recommendations during campaign setup

The campaign optimization score rates a setup from zero to 100% and supplies recommendations during campaign creation and editing.

Reddit says advertisers with scores of at least 80% had a 19.6% lower blended cost per acquisition than lower-scoring advertisers in its internal July to September data. It provides no sample size or detailed adjustment method alongside that comparison, and labels the results not typical. Reddit describes the figures as historical averages that vary by campaign.

The comparison groups advertisers by score, so differences in their audiences, offers and conversion definitions can also affect acquisition costs. An advertiser evaluating a recommendation would need the result for its own conversion goal, with the change and measurement period recorded, to judge how that recommendation performed.

Budget automation changes how ad groups compete for spend

Campaign budget optimization is available for Awareness and consideration and Traffic objectives. Sales, Lead generation and App promotion remain in beta. Advertisers set their budgets and bids at campaign level while Reddit shifts spending between ad groups.

That gives buyers two different comparisons to make. The planner compares possible campaigns before spending begins, while campaign budget optimization allocates money inside the campaign that actually runs. A forecast for one proposed audience does not specify how much each ad group will receive once automated allocation is active.

For a lead generation campaign, the final allocation is worth reading alongside the lead records. If an ad group receives more spending, the relevant follow-up is whether the additional leads meet the business’s qualification criteria. Tracking that result separately from the platform’s acquisition count keeps the advertiser’s sales outcome visible when reviewing the allocation.

Source: Reddit