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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.

BeatTakeshi ,
@BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world avatar

I like how they try to sell the idea that tricking users is in fact a nice and innovative way to advertise

DaddleDew ,

And that the "increased community engagement" isn't mainly comments of people complaining about being tricked into clicking on an ad.

Dkarma ,

Apparently click fraud is fine on reddit 🤷‍♂️

gregorum ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

“It’s monetizable!”

EddieTee77 ,

Whatever it takes before their IPO. It's disgusting

jaybone ,

Have they still not done their IPO yet??

Shit or get off the pot.

Gestrid ,

They're in the middle of trying to get their users to create accounts with E-Trade, their Directed Share Program (DSP) administrator. They'll start selling shares to their users as part of their DSP late next week. After that is the IPO.

JohnEdwa ,
@JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz avatar

The moderation effort required to clean up these ads must be massive.

BeatTakeshi ,
@BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world avatar

I am sure that in the first iteration they did not remove the "Report" function, but those suckers learn fast

ilinamorato ,

"we could just lie to people" is an advertising tactic somebody always comes up with. It's a Rubicon that absolutely shreds customer goodwill, though.

Assuming, of course, it isn't already shredded.

NateNate60 ,

If it's not already the law, it needs to be. It should be required that paid advertising be disclosed in all contexts.

halcyoncmdr ,
@halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

Paid ads should not only need to be marked, but noticeably different in a timeline. Something obvious like a different post color.

Twitter fits ads in the middle of content and just puts a little tiny "Ad" in the upper corner (on mobile at least) and at a glance scrolling through you can't tell it's an ad, other than all of their ads now being for some shady mobile game that lies about how it looks or crypto in various forms. Those should be required to have a different color background than actual user posts, not just a size 8 font "Ad" in the corner of the post on a 3.5" screen.

In fact, let's make it impossible to implement well, let's take a page out of the NHTSA handbook and require the "Ad" text to be a specific real world size like they do with the car warning lights. Make them figure out what size it needs to be for various screen sizes and display DPI if they want to shove ads in the middle of content like it was user posts.

NateNate60 ,

I think what YouTube does would be sufficient. There's a noticeably different video progress bar colour (yellow instead of red) and a large "Skip Ad in __" in the corner, plus the advertiser information on the side.

Reddit could do this by putting a "Paid advertisement" watermark in the corner or putting "Advert" where the upvote/downvote buttons are and colouring it some noticeable colour, like yellow, and I would be satisfied with that.

jol ,

Pretty sure this is not legal in many countries. Adverts must be at the very least labeled as such, like Google does with a tiny almost unnoticeable label.

Damage ,

In my country TV ads are explicitly marked with text in one corner

topinambour_rex ,
@topinambour_rex@lemmy.world avatar

In my country, paper press as to identify when something looks like an article, but it's an ad.

Gestrid ,

In the US, most TV commercials are so obviously TV commercials that they don't label them. Some TV stations do have bumpers they air when the TV show goes to break and comes back from break.

anonymouse ,

I stopped watching local news when they started having the anchors pitch to ads like they were just another news item.

baru ,

That's already the case in at least the Netherlands.

Pra ,

In another article they post a photo of an example from reddit and it does say promoted next to the post title. So there's something there because there is an FTC law saying ads must be disclosed. Obviously they want to obfuscate that it's an ad as much as possible though so who knows how that'll change.

samus12345 , (edited )
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

Like so:

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/EOCzjSDTPBvgdkAo0lPBkg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTY0MDtoPTEzODY-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/techcrunch_350/aa5ff9510bf1b80f634fe31a06d71ef6

Annoying and all that, but something pretty common in most social media sites I see nowadays. I quickly learn to filter anything with that label out as junk.

Gonkulator ,
@Gonkulator@lemm.ee avatar

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

    •
    Alexstarfire ,

    That's not a nice thing to say about Trump.

    Shimitar ,
    @Shimitar@feddit.it avatar

    Its a law where I live...

    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?

    WhatsHerBucket ,
    @WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world avatar

    Who didn’t see that coming?

    Obligatory fuck spez

    RagnarokOnline ,

    Fuck spez

    WhiteHotaru ,

    Fuck spez!

    LunchEnjoyer ,

    Fuck spez!!

    callmepk ,
    @callmepk@lemmy.world avatar

    Fuck spez!!!

    letsgo ,

    Fuck spez!! !!

    merc ,

    Fuck using his Reddit username and letting him hide behind it.

    Lucidlethargy ,
    @Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Fuck Spez, AKA Steve Huffman.

    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..."

    Mereo ,
    @Mereo@lemmy.ca avatar

    "Just like the megathread," an announcement reads, "free-form ads encourage multiple users to come together, get the information they need, and deep dive into the topic at hand."
    Reddit explained that the open-ended nature of these ads will give advertisers more freedom to explore creativity and, hopefully, to start conversations with users.

    Enshittification to the extreme....

    MisterMoo ,

    Hahaha, what’s your problem, come on, let’s just dive into the topic of how delicious Snickers™ bars are and what a great value they are too!

    Kbobabob ,

    I hear Snickers is making smaller candies at the normal price.

    samus12345 ,
    @samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

    But still packed with peanuts! Snickers™ really satisfies!

    TexasDrunk ,

    Hey, you seem like you're having a hard time. You're not you when you're hungry. Have a Snickers.

    kjaeselrek ,

    I’m just here to talk about rampart

    samus12345 ,
    @samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

    to start conversations with users.

    Sounds like great fun for trolls.

    jaybone ,

    Years ago you used to be able to comment in ad threads. And most people were just calling the ad out on its bullshit. So they stopped allowing comment replies in those threads.

    This will somehow be different?

    merc ,

    Yeah, I remember those fun times. See an ad post, look up their scandals on Wikipedia, post about those scandals in the comments...

    There's no way this will work unless they lock down those posts. If they want something that looks like organic engagement with comments that don't ruin the brand, it can't work anything like the rest of Reddit. They'll have to have corporate moderators who remove any post that is even slightly challenging to the brand, because otherwise those will be the ones getting upvotes.

    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.

    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!

    notapantsday ,

    This feels like something that would be illegal in the EU. I have no idea if it actually is.

    Ephera ,

    It's illegal here in Germany. Ads need to be clearly recognizable as such.

    Yamayo ,

    It's an European law, thankfully.

    Madeyro ,

    So they will serve different frontend for different people based on location?

    Ephera ,

    Honestly, I expect them to just remain in violation, unless they get sued or reprimanded by one of our user protection organisations.

    But yeah, they can serve different frontends or just with different configuration for different user groups. They probably do that already, e.g. to display a cookie banner for users in the EU.

    Miaou ,

    Yup. Just moving between German and French websites can be a pain in the ass. Default filters in shops, prices with or without taxes displayed first for professional things, different menus etc. They can be different in the most subtle ways, which is way worse imo.

    Don't get me started on websites who think they know better than you which website you'd like to visit. Stop redirecting me based on my IP or language settings! OK now I'm just venting sorry

    ilinamorato ,

    Sounds like you need EXPRESS® VPN™! Use code LEMMY at checkout for 10% off!

    (/s, but I hope that was obvious)

    MyFairJulia ,
    @MyFairJulia@lemmy.world avatar

    Oh, would you look at the time! It's the year of the fediverse!

    elucubra ,

    On a Linux desktop, obviously.

    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.

    seSvxR3ull7LHaEZFIjM ,

    Early results suggest the effort is working. 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.

    Yeah, because users get tricked into clicking and then immediately leave.

    gregorum ,
    @gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

    But not before commenting, “fuck spez!”

    TexasDrunk ,

    Which counts as engagement.

    merc ,

    And doesn't bother Steve Huffman because you're using his Reddit username, and by doing that you're talking about Reddit, effectively promoting it. Stop using "spez" and start making it so Steve Huffman has trouble giving his real name to a real hotel, restaurant, etc. because they say "oh, that asshole?".

    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

    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.

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