Reddit Campaign Structure: Cold, Remarketing and the 80/20 Budget Split
A good Reddit campaign structure has two layers: a cold audience that introduces you, and a remarketing audience that reminds people you exist. Give each its own ad group, put about 80% of your budget on cold and about 20% on remarketing, and test 4 to 6 ads in each ad group. Cold audiences usually take most of the budget for fewer sales, and remarketing is where a lot of the sales and leads happen.
Why do cold-only Reddit campaigns fail?
Do you buy the first time you see an ad? Hopefully not. So why would your customers? A common mistake is launching only cold campaigns, judging the results too early, and concluding that Reddit doesn't convert. Most people need to see you more than once before they trust you enough to buy, sign up or take you seriously.
What's the best Reddit campaign structure?
Layer | Audience | Job |
|---|---|---|
Cold | Community targeting (or keywords) with people who don't know you | Introduce you |
Warm | People who visited your site, or saw or clicked your ads | Remind them you exist |
Hot | People who added to cart or started a form | Close the sale |
Each layer is a smaller audience than the one before, and each gets its own ad group. For targeting choices in the cold layer, see Reddit ads targeting explained.
How should you split the budget between cold and remarketing?
A rule of thumb we use is 80/20. Say you have $5,000: about $4,000 goes to a cold audience, and about $1,000 to remarketing. In our experience, the $4,000 gets the fewest sales, and the $1,000 gets the most and the cheapest. You could run only remarketing, but sooner or later the audience dwindles, so you need the cold layer feeding it.
How do you set up remarketing?
Keep the audience simple. For websites, use website visitors only. Don't mix them with community, interest or keyword targeting, or you turn remarketing back into a cold campaign.
Pick the right audience type. Reddit offers customer lists, website retargeting (from the Reddit Pixel and Conversions API), lookalikes and Reddit engagement retargeting (people who saw or clicked your ads). If people land on a page you don't own, like Steam, engagement retargeting is the one to use. See how to track Reddit ads without the pixel.
Budget: usually 10 to 20% of your total is enough. With a small budget, even $5 per day is a start. The goal is to stay visible, not to spam people.
Watch frequency: around 8 to 10 over 30 days is a good level. Much lower, and people aren't seeing you enough. Much higher, and you're annoying them and wasting money.
Exclude buyers: unless you want to sell them something else, stop paying to reach people who already converted.
How should you structure your ad groups?
The rule of thumb: each ad group needs its own audience. One ad group for community targeting, one for keywords, one for interests if you test them, and one for remarketing. This targets people at different stages and gives you baseline results while you test creatives. If budget allows, run at least 2 ad groups, and preferably 3 or 4.
How many ads should each ad group have?
Start with 4 to 6 ads in a single ad group.
After 7 to 14 days, pause the weakest ones. By week 2, keep up to 3 core performers that get most of the budget, and leave them alone.
Run any other test in a different ad group with its own budget.
To start, make 2 completely different creatives and 2 completely different headlines. That gives you 4 unique ad combinations.
How often should you change your campaigns?
Less often than you think. Every big change can trigger Reddit's learning phase. For one DTC tech brand, profit dropped about 4x for 3 to 4 days every time we significantly changed the campaigns. We now prefer one or two significant changes a month over small tweaks every 3 days. Give each test 14 days if you can. You'll get an impression in 4 to 5 days, but 14 days is safer.
Reddit ads campaign structure: FAQ
What's the best Reddit ads campaign structure?
A cold ad group with community targeting, a remarketing ad group with its own audience, and 4 to 6 ads in each. Keep one audience per ad group.
How much budget should go to remarketing on Reddit?
Usually 10 to 20% of your total budget. We use about 80% cold and 20% remarketing.
What frequency should you aim for in Reddit remarketing?
Around 8 to 10 over 30 days. Lower means people aren't seeing you enough, and higher means you may be annoying them.
How many ad groups do you need?
At least 2, and preferably 3 or 4 if your budget allows.
How long should you test Reddit ads?
Give each test 7 to 14 days. You'll get an impression in 4 to 5 days, but 14 days is safer.
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This post comes from my free eBook, How Reddit Ads Actually Works. It also covers targeting, creative, comments and measurement. Get it free, by email.
About the author
Written by Dāvis Lejnieks, CEO of Undecided Agency and a Redditor for 15+ years. He plans and runs Reddit ad campaigns for DTC, gaming and app brands, and shares what the data shows here.
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