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Reddit's new paid ads look exactly like user posts

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.

kromem ,

One of the smarter ad analysts I knew likened ad spaces to ecosystems, where a bunch of companies come in with crap ads that aren't related to what people are actually in market for or are misleading, and act as polluters which turn people off from green pastures.

As an example, when mobile browsing was first getting off the ground CTR for mobile banner ads was 15%.

Reddit's metrics are about to go to shit.

CitizenKong ,

15 percent for banner ads is actually pretty good.

laughterlaughter ,

Yeah. That's why OP mentioned it.

But his point is that that number has gone down to shit because later the banner ads became shit.

T156 ,

If the ads weren't terrible, people would not have invented and popularised the ad-blocker.

laughterlaughter ,

We're not disagreeing here.

llama ,
@llama@midwest.social avatar

So now they're just charging people for what they were already doing anyway.

PoliticalAgitator ,

Yep. Reddit puts very little effort into preventing vote manipulation and astroturfing because it all looks like user engagement but they almost certainly know how common it is.

This is just them monetizing the astroturfing as they try and wring every cent from people ahead of their IPO.

Sizzler ,

You're just splurging lies at this point, reddit has always put plenty of effort towards vote manipulation. I dislike reddit but stop making stuff up just for votes.

Morefan ,

You're both right.
They are FINE with manipulation if it's something they want to promote.
But if it's not allowed in their dogma then it's banned.

Sizzler ,

I'll agree with that.

PoliticalAgitator ,

People are welcome to try for themselves, which is how I originally learned they do fuck all. They didn't even clear the lowest bar of "20 upvotes from 20 accounts, on the same IP with no other activity, just switching with RES".

Maybe that's changed in the decade since, but the search results for "buy reddit upvotes" don't bode well.

Sizzler , (edited )

It has changed since, in fact for me the watershed moment of change came when RES stopped being able to calculate upvotes/dv's because there was no longer clear feedback that your vote counted.

PoliticalAgitator ,

Does that mean they fixed the problem or did they simply make it impossible for people outside of reddit to see the extent of it?

Sizzler ,

At that moment they made clear upvoting hazy for people outside of reddit, I doubt it fixed it there but I have seen their anti-vote manipulation system in action since then that does impact "lazy" coders

waterSticksToMyBalls ,

My first subreddit to get banned was one dedicated to pointing out obvious ad campaigns.

Agent641 ,

"How do you do, fellow redditors? Pray tell, of all the Dodge Ram variants, which one is your favorite, and what make it your choice as a discerning American patriot?"

humbletightband ,

And I bet it was banned before the infamous subreddit about underaged girls or even before bans of incel network

waterSticksToMyBalls ,

If was that post jail bait but pre incel ban wave if I recall correctly. They said it was targeted harassment/brigandine bc all the posts specifically named the accounts pushing each campaign.

Sterile_Technique ,
@Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world avatar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

AnarchistArtificer ,

I honestly find it impressive how Reddit continues to find new ways to enshittify the platform

Qwaffle_waffle ,

It's like they're racing to the bottom with Twitter

AbidanYre ,

Steve does love Elon. It makes sense for Reddit to follow Twitter's lead.

jivandabeast ,

I honestly find it impressive how quickly the word "enshittification" is brought up in Lemmy comments

(/s, but we do talk about it a lot here)

Cold_Brew_Enema ,

You mean like Linux?

I use Ubuntu, btw

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Is it really enshittification if you can just turn it off if you don't like it? Adding useless features alone doesn't seem to be enshittification to me- it's when those useless features become inescapable where the problem lies.

Sterile_Technique ,
@Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world avatar

I mean, I'm here specifically because of enshittification. Had reddit actually gotten better over time, I'd still be there; but every year came with another handful and anti-user bullshit. Finally threw my hands up, said fuck it, deleted my account, and started scouring the internet for an alternative. Eventually stumbled into Lemmy and haven't had a reason to look back.

......I don't think my story here is especially unique, either. Seems just about everyone here is a pissed off ex-redditer, so enshittification is hot on all of our brains.

lolcatnip ,

People who don't care about enshittification, or who don't think about it specifically in connection to Reddit, aren't here because they're using Reddit instead.

moon ,

Why does that dude have his own Wikipedia page lol, and why is it so long

AbidanYre ,

Because he's been a well known author for two decades?

Ohi ,

You plant shit seeds, you get shit weeds.

If it's one thing I learned from the last BS they pulled during the protests last year, it's that their actions will have little impact on reddit user behavior. People will complain and express outrage, but the vast majority of users will just sit back and take it like good little AI trainers.

I for one will not be one of them. When they removed mods from communities that were in protest, that's enough for me to stay clear going forward. As much as I miss the content, it warms my soul every time I think about the ad revenue they're missing out on by my own personal decisions to not consume it.

Zedstrian ,

Entirely agreed, though I wish there were more of a joint effort between Lemmy and Kbin communities to find novel ways of getting more redditors to switch over to the Fediverse. Wishful thinking perhaps, though it'd be nice to have more active communities around here.

madcaesar ,

The biggest problem with lemmy is that we don't have a good way to search for info.

Usually I do shit like "reddit monitor recommandation", and I'll get some thread where I can read opinions.

We can't do they with lemmy 😐

Omniraptor ,

I disagree, Lemmy's built in search function is much better than reddit's because it lets you search for comments on any instance that you federate with.

Reddit afaik still has no comment search

ilinamorato ,

A while back somebody posted info on how to make a custom DDG search that would search the most common Lemmy instances with one keyword. If you're interested I can go digging for it.

Wiz ,

I'm not the OP, but I would love to know!

ilinamorato ,

Sure thing! The OP is here: https://mander.xyz/post/7198692

Wiz ,

That makes total sense. Thanks!

ilinamorato ,

You're welcome!

madcaesar ,

Honestly your mental health has almost certainly improved since leaving that place.

Their algorithms are designed to pump engagement and outrage. They want you either scared or angry and it sucks.

Lemmy has less content, but is also less addictive and less toxic. Yes it's still social media, it still has shit bags but the numbers are far better.

T156 ,

Lemmy has less content, but is also less addictive and less toxic. Yes it’s still social media, it still has shit bags but the numbers are far better.

Although part of that could also just be due to the size of the place. Lemmy's still absolutely tiny compared to Reddit, and like a lot of social media's early days, it'll likely only get worse as more people move in.

Early Reddit would have been pretty cosy and non-toxic, that would only come in later.

laughterlaughter ,

I never went back to /r/programming after they forced it open with new mods.

I checked reddit every now and then after that, until I read a piece of tragic news that really shocked me and left me sad for days. Then I realized that reddit just stopped being a fun place - the whole point I started visiting it in the first place. Never went back, never looked back.

klef25 ,

Any ad that starts with TIL or DAE gets an immediate down vote, a cringe, and no further reading

Stoneykins ,
@Stoneykins@mander.xyz avatar

Solution is simple, community should turn any suspiciously product focused thread into an advertisers nightmare of filth

Then the ads will just be the ones with the comment sections turned off

The_Tired_Horizon ,
@The_Tired_Horizon@lemmy.world avatar

Those types of ads have been there since near the start. Its been confusing people for years. All that will happen is the popular non-ad posts will get accused of being paid for.

watersnipje ,

Yeah I remember a few years ago when there was suddenly some sort of hype around Nutella and Nutella-based memes. Which just so happened to coincide with a major Nutella advertising campaign on other platforms.
People were eating it up and generating content, essentially doing an advertiser’s work for free 🤷‍♀️

The_Tired_Horizon ,
@The_Tired_Horizon@lemmy.world avatar

Didnt work out for Cinnamon 😂

watersnipje ,

What are you referring to?

The_Tired_Horizon ,
@The_Tired_Horizon@lemmy.world avatar

The Cinnamon challenge.

watersnipje ,

Was that related to a company campaign?

The_Tired_Horizon ,
@The_Tired_Horizon@lemmy.world avatar

Well the nutella one wasnt originally...

watersnipje ,

How do you know?

Test_Tickles ,

They are getting more subtle. Ever notice how actors suddenly rise to the top? Posts about how awesome they are, or how great things they have done are? Right before I left Reddit it was awash with Pedro Pascal and how amazing and humble and down to earth he was, then the new mandalorian came out and after a few weeks, no one gave a fuck about our new god.
I remember I first noticed it years ago when there was this sudden craze for Bradley Cooper, and how he spoke French (really broken, highschool level French). And everyone was amazed at it like speaking a second language made him amazing. It felt really weird and condescending how much praise he was getting for being willing to not only speak to these "lowly foreigners" in "their crazy language", but also to bother to learn it in the first place. And all I could think was "you're talking about French right? An optional language that's taught and the vast majority of high schools across the US?" I mean good on him and great job, but wtf? And then suddenly silence... Bradley who?

AtmaJnana ,

Yeah, let's turn our space into a cesspool! We'll show those darned invaders!

businessfish ,
@businessfish@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

i don't think many people would consider posts that are literally paid advertisements part of "our space"

denast ,

Recently went on Reddit and laughed hysterically at the amount of religious propaganda I saw in this format. Example:

1000009776

MaxPow3r11 ,

-religious propaganda
-gambling bullshit (including crypto/crypto adjacent bullshit)
-military brainwashing/propaganda
-alcohol ads

Just the worst fucking garbage bullshit.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

r/Atheism held the line for decades, and y'all cyberbullied them for it.

andros_rex ,

IMHO, it was an elevator ride that killed r/atheism…

raynethackery ,

OOTL. Can you explain further?

andros_rex ,

Rebecca Watson had some guy proposition in her in an elevator at a conference, felt uncomfortable and talked about it during the conference. This blew up the internet atheist/skeptic community around 2011 or so, led to a big split. “Elevatorgate”

JonVoightKampff ,

I always thought it was the "faces of atheism" thread.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MuseumOfReddit/comments/38i8se/the_faces_of_atheism/?rdt=63339

andros_rex ,

That was a killing blow + “the professional quote maker.”

But it was a good place for some decent discussion back in the day. I learned enough biology from arguing with creationists there + youtube to test out of college biology….

dumpsterlid , (edited )

/r/atheism often got cyberbullied for being a bunch of insufferable jerks.

I don’t believe in god but you would never find me any closer to hanging out in /r/atheism than any other actually religious subreddit.

I mean, I guess I don’t want to judge that much because of how a subreddit like that can be a place for people living in extremely oppressive/conservative christian communities to express their anger at being in such a suffocating environment, but it often seemed like the criticisms of religion from the sub were more of the “but akshually this part of believing in god is dumb” instead of more along the lines of “who cares if god exists, y’all are incredibly hateful”.

AbidanYre ,

-military brainwashing

Yvan eht nioj

HiddenLayer5 ,
@HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml avatar

Ok if your ad uses TL;DR or any other internet speak, you deserve to go bankrupt. I'm so fucking sick of corporations trying to cash in on meme culture and trends and ruining it every single time.

TurtleJoe ,
@TurtleJoe@lemmy.world avatar

Recuperation has been around for a lot longer than the Internet.

andros_rex ,

The best thing about those ads is that they’re mostly “AI” generated. You know none of the people making those ads would actually wash the feet of a queer person.

TurtleJoe ,
@TurtleJoe@lemmy.world avatar

He Gets Us’ Ad Sponsors Don’t Believe in the Jesus They’re Sellin

DingoBilly ,

Welcome to 5 years ago? This has been around for years...

soggy_kitty ,

OP lives under a rock

Cyclist ,

This is what killed Digg in 2010.

w2tpmf ,

So they seriously not remember what thousands of people left Digg and moved to their platform for???

Reddit had a fraction of the users Digg had at one point. Then Digg changed to a new UI no one liked and started putting adds that looked like posts into the main feed.

Asafum ,

I literally would look for reddit posts about suggestions for various things specifically because they weren't ads.

Thanks spez for fucking killing one of the few resources I had that wasn't just paid bullshit lying about what products are worth a shit...

WhatAmLemmy ,

Let's be honest here. Reddit had been astroturfed for over a decade, and a majority of posts that spoke favourably of products were ads.

The only value Reddit had in that regard is through Google surfacing the valuable discussions and content (e.g. the ones that weren't the ads).

andros_rex ,

Reddit from the beginning had bot accounts to artificially inflate its number of users.

Hammerheart ,

That was before learned helplessness became a staple of the internet experience, i think a lot fewer reddit users will be motivated to leave compared to the people who left digg for reddit.

Happy to be proven wrong, though.

londos , (edited )

I was curious about the "Philly cream cheese" campaign example they mentioned. I assume it's this post.

The top reply is trolling them, which is awesome. So much for increased engagement.

But even funnier is the next top reply, which seems sincere. But when you look at the user profile, almost all of u/sunshinedogger's comments in the last year are on sponsored posts. So even the positive engagement is manufactured?

reflectedodds ,

Dang good catch on the second user, I wouldn't have noticed since I usually don't look at people's profiles.

It's kind of funny that reddit will become this chamber of advertisers making posts and fake users "engaging" while the real people all migrate to lemmy.

londos ,

I'm also curious if the fake users are part of the campaign or if reddit is scamming the advertisers too.

laughterlaughter ,

Why not both?

slaacaa ,

Absolutely, you cannot trust reddit content anymore. If anybody wants to still visit the site, I recommend you buy and AdBlock Gold subscription, which you can get at half the price now. Link and discount code in my profile

Wiz ,

Ublok Origin on Firefox works great, and is free.

Discount code available for half the price of free!

Gestrid ,

Weren't they also caught using AI bots to drive up engagement in some subreddits, too? (I think it was supposed to be some of their subreddits in foreign languages or something.)

laughterlaughter ,

Did you really think all those positive comments were genuine? I almost puked reading the first few.

ilinamorato ,

I live in the Midwest, and I've actually seen a few of those on plates at potlucks. It is indeed disgusting.

LiveLM ,

Man, reading this post nearly gave me a headache. I hate it when brands try to act all 'hip and cool'.

Help us fill this thread with ways you use PHILLY Cream Cheese that shouldn’t be delicious✨ but are ✨

Yes, something about cream cheese freshly squeezed straight from the brick really does hit different.
Why let a little packaging get between you and your PHILLY, am I right?

Shut up brand. Shut the fuck up brand. Jesus Christ

ilinamorato ,

When it's a social media manager acting like an actual human, it's one thing (like when the person running the Moon Pie account roasted the guy for telling them they were wasting their life), and the non-profits are almost always awesome at this (follow libraries, seriously). But if you're trying to write something relatable and your brand guidelines won't let you write about it in the way a normal human would (all-caps "PHILLY," writing "searching with Google" instead of "googling," ©®™ spam, etc) you've already lost.

laughterlaughter ,

Of course it's manufactured! And I'll bet you a blowjob from my cousin Chester that it's all AI-generated.

swab148 ,
@swab148@startrek.website avatar

furiously googles how to prove that a post is made with AI

gardylou ,
@gardylou@lemmy.world avatar

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    Wiz ,

    "As an AI language model..."

    ILikeBoobies ,

    This isn’t new, a few years ago I was looking at their ad program and they had inline post ads that you were taught to post like a user

    AdolfSchmitler ,

    "28% more clicks"
    Yeah cuz ppl thought they were actual posts not ads lol

    kenopsik ,

    Yep, advertiser don't care how they got those clicks. They just want the numbers to go up so they feel like their "investment" is doing something. Tricking people into thinking it's user content, showing half naked girls for a dumb mobile gambling game, showing fake products... they don't care. Advertisers only have one thought: "Hurr Durr Numbers Go Brr"

    Retrograde ,
    @Retrograde@lemmy.world avatar

    You made me look up Bill Hicks' marketing bit

    I miss him

    Wiz ,

    Do you know what's also getting more clicks than last year at this time and the year before? Lemmy!

    rottingleaf ,

    Reddit's new paid ads look exactly like user posts

    So what's new?

    Blackmist ,

    I'll tell you what's new, pal. The McRib Megaburger, at McDonalds. It's nutritious and delicious at just $7.99 or $9.99 with fries and a drink of your choice as long as you don't want a milkshake or anything with actual sugar in it.

    ezures ,

    mcrib

    kattenluik ,

    Broodje Mexicano superiority, or even just the Kwik Trip equivalent.

    droans ,

    Wow. Everyone, ignore this guy, he's also an ad.

    Instead, you should hop on over to your local Chevy Dealership and ask about test driving the all new 2025 Tahoe. Drive one home today for less than $2,000 down!

    NutWrench ,
    @NutWrench@lemmy.world avatar

    Whenever I'm stressed out about too many ads, I take Fark-It-All. Ask your doctor if Fark-It-All is right for YOU.

    Gloomy ,

    This.

    I tried Fark-It-All and it legit helped me reduce my stress level a lot. After Amazon drove up its Ads I felt I realy couldn't take it any more. And since there is literally nothing you can do about ads, neither on reddit nor on Amazon, I looked for other options. And what can I say? Taking some Fark-It-All brings the fun back into funding, hypercapitalist corpations trough engaging with Ads. I highly recommend Fark-It-All, even if you just feel like you could potentialy be stressed out a bit by Ads. I've heard a lot of realy positive feedback on taking it preventative.

    No /s, it realy is the shit. Just try it out and see for yourself.

    RememberTheApollo_ ,

    Right? Been that way for quite a while. One of the main reasons I refused to use the app.

    TheRealKuni ,

    It happens here, too. Like this shill post about the Scrub Daddy, where the comments are highly suspicious.

    rottingleaf ,

    It even happens in RL conversations, say, with people who bought stock of a big company subtly (or they think it looks so) recommending it.

    andros_rex ,

    Why has that sponge been shilled so heavily? I see it being marketed on TikTok of all places…

    TheRealKuni ,

    Because they have a creative marketing department who knows the cheapest ways to market things are to make it look like it isn’t marketing.

    Savas ,

    Ads are not the only reason, but if you're still on reddit, you clearly missed the point why reddit became popular.

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