MarketingBeginnerPreview
Reddit Marketing
A practical, beginner-friendly path to marketing on Reddit without getting downvoted, shadowbanned, or banned. Learn how the platform actually rewards contribution, how to research and pick subreddits, how to post and host AMAs that build a brand, and how to run Reddit Ads campaigns that respect community norms while delivering measurable results.
Founders, marketers, and small-business owners who want to reach Reddit's engaged communities organically and through ads without violating community norms.
Course content
Workbook & downloads
Put the course into practice — a printable workbook plus editable templates you can fill in and reuse.
Preview the workbook
This workbook turns the course into a real Reddit presence. Work through each section as you do the work: build a credible account, research and score subreddits, plan value-first posts and an AMA, and launch a measurable, compliant Reddit Ads campaign. Fill the worksheets and templates with your own communities and numbers — and leave every total, score sum, and cost-per-result cell blank until you calculate it yourself.
How Reddit Actually Works
Get the mindset and the credible account in place before you ever try to market, so the community takes you seriously.
Exercise: Audit how your brand would land on Reddit today
Be honest about whether your current approach and account would be welcomed or removed. Answer each prompt in writing.
- If you posted a link to your product on a brand-new account right now, what would likely happen, and why?
- What is the 9:1 self-promotion ratio, and how many genuinely helpful contributions would you owe before one promotional post?
- Name three behaviours from the course that get brands removed or banned, and confirm you will avoid each
- Will you market from a personal account, a brand account, or both — and why is that the right choice for you?
Worksheet: Credible account build plan
Plan the account you will actually use, including how you will build karma and history before promoting. Fill in each field.
- Username (and whether it is personal or brand)
- Profile completed (avatar / bio / banner) — Y/N
- Subreddits joined (count, target 10-20)
- Current comment karma
- Current post karma
- Account age (days)
- Date you will be eligible to make a first careful promotional post
Checklist: Foundations before you market
- I can explain how upvotes, downvotes, Hot, and Rising decide what gets seen
- My account has a complete profile and is at least a few weeks old
- I have built meaningful comment karma through genuinely helpful comments
- I understand and accept the 9:1 self-promotion discipline
- I will always disclose my affiliation when I mention my product
Finding and Choosing the Right Subreddits
Turn Reddit's 100,000-plus communities into a focused, scored shortlist of where your audience actually is.
Exercise: Seed your subreddit research
Generate the search terms that will lead you to the right communities by starting from your customer, not your brand.
- List 5 problems your product solves, phrased the way a customer would describe them
- List 5 hobbies, identities, or interests your ideal customer has
- List your top 3 competitors and the category names your customer uses
- Turn the above into 10 search terms you will use in Reddit's Communities search and on Google with site:reddit.com
Worksheet: Subreddit scoring sheet
Score each candidate community 1-5 on relevance, activity, and permissiveness, then add them up to rank into tiers. Leave the total blank until you add the three scores yourself.
- Subreddit (r/...)
- Subscribers
- Users online (from sidebar)
- Relevance score (1-5)
- Activity score (1-5)
- Permissiveness score (1-5)
- Total score (sum the three — leave blank to calculate)
- Tier (1 / 2 / 3)
Worksheet: Tier-1 rules and norms summary
For each of your top three to five communities, record the rules and norms you must respect before posting. One row per Tier-1 subreddit.
- Subreddit (r/...)
- Self-promotion policy (banned / weekly-thread / ratio / allowed-with-disclosure)
- Required flair or title format
- Minimum account age or karma to post
- What the Top-of-month posts have in common (format and tone)
- Recurring question you could answer helpfully
Checklist: Research and listening complete
- I built a long list of 30+ candidate subreddits before filtering
- I checked the members-to-online ratio and post recency for each finalist
- I scored every candidate on relevance, activity, and permissiveness
- I read the full rules of every Tier-1 community
- I did a Top-of-month and Top-of-year listening pass on my Tier-1 communities
Organic Strategy: Posting, Commenting, and AMAs
Build trust through value-first contribution and plan an AMA that turns a community into advocates.
Worksheet: Value-first post planner
Plan one genuinely useful post using the course structure so it stands on its own even if no one clicks through. Fill in each field.
- Target subreddit (and confirmed it allows this post type)
- Honest, specific title (no clickbait)
- Context line (credibility + affiliation disclosure)
- Core value of the body (steps / lessons / data / story)
- Soft close (only if rules allow) — exact wording
- Best time to post for this community
- Plan to reply to early comments — Y/N
Exercise: Set up listening and a comment routine
Design the ongoing commenting habit that builds your reputation, plus the alerts that surface the right moments to help.
- Which keywords (brand, competitors, problems) will you set alerts for, and with which tool (e.g. F5Bot)?
- How many helpful comments per day will you commit to in your Tier-1 communities?
- Write a balanced, disclosed example answer to a 'what should I use for X?' question that names competitors and your product
- How will you respond, calmly and helpfully, the next time someone criticises your product in public?
Worksheet: AMA run sheet
Plan an AMA you have genuinely earned, end to end. Fill in each field before you announce anything.
- Host (who is answering) and why they are worth asking
- Target subreddit (or r/IAmA / r/AMA / niche community)
- Moderator permission secured — Y/N and date
- Verification/proof prepared — Y/N
- Intro post draft (who / what / why / time window)
- Date and time window (1-3 hours live)
- Hard questions you expect and your honest answers
- Post-AMA follow-through (profile ready, destination ready, late-question plan)
Checklist: Organic contribution standards
- Most of my activity is helpful comments, not promotion
- Every post stands on its own as useful even with no click-through
- I disclose affiliation every time I mention my product
- I have keyword alerts running for brand, competitors, and key problems
- Any AMA has mod permission, verification, and an honest plan for hard questions
Reddit Ads: Paid Campaigns the Community Way
Launch a compliant, native-feeling Reddit Ads campaign and measure it by community so you scale only what converts.
Worksheet: Campaign brief and structure
Define one campaign before opening Reddit Ads Manager so it is never judged on the wrong metric. Fill in each field.
- Campaign objective (Awareness / Traffic / Video Views / App Installs / Conversions)
- Single success metric for this objective
- Ad format (image / video / carousel Promoted Post)
- Ad group A — community targeting (which subreddits)
- Ad group B — interest or keyword targeting
- Bid strategy (automatic / manual)
- Daily budget (USD)
- Reddit Pixel installed — Y/N
Exercise: Write native, honest ad creative
Draft creative that reads like a knowledgeable community member, not a billboard, and plan to staff the comments.
- Write a conversational, honest headline (no ad-speak or exaggerated claims)
- Describe the authentic image or video you will use instead of glossy stock
- Write the value proposition the way a helpful Reddit user would phrase it
- Write the first helpful reply you will post in your own ad's comment section
Worksheet: Results by community
Track performance broken down by community so you can move budget to the subreddits that convert. Leave every cost-per-result cell blank until you calculate it. One row per ad group or community.
- Ad group / community
- Spend (USD)
- Impressions
- Clicks
- CTR (leave blank to calculate)
- Conversions
- Cost per result (leave blank to calculate)
- Keep / pause / scale decision
Checklist: Pre-launch and weekly loop
- Campaign has one objective and is judged on that objective's metric only
- Reddit Pixel is installed and a test conversion has fired
- Creative reads as native and honest and passed ad policy review
- I have a plan and a person to monitor and reply to the ad's comments
- Each week I review cost per result by community, prune, reallocate, and refresh creative
Your Action Plan
- Build a credible personal account: complete the profile, join 10-20 relevant subreddits, and grow comment karma for two to four weeks
- Research 30+ candidate subreddits from customer problems, interests, and competitors using Reddit search, sidebars, and discovery tools
- Score every candidate on relevance, activity, and permissiveness, then commit to three to five Tier-1 communities
- Read the full rules of each Tier-1 community and do a Top-of-month listening pass to learn what wins
- Set keyword alerts (e.g. F5Bot) for your brand, competitors, and key problems, and start a daily helpful-comment habit
- Publish one value-first post that stands on its own, posted at peak time, and reply to every early comment
- Earn and plan an AMA: secure mod permission and verification, write an honest intro, and prepare answers to the hard questions
- Install the Reddit Pixel and build one Reddit Ads campaign with a clear objective, community-targeted and interest-targeted ad groups, and a modest daily budget
- Write native, honest creative, pass policy review, and staff the comment section with helpful replies
- Run a weekly measure-prune-reallocate-refresh loop, breaking results down by community, and re-justify the channel monthly against blended cost per acquisition
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