Is Reddit Affiliate Marketing Even Possible?
Depending on how you look at it, Reddit is either the biggest community on the planet or the tiniest. Comprised of countless niche-based neighborhoods on everything from car maintenance to images of bread stapled to trees, Reddit is among the most special websites online. This quirkiness is precisely what makes Reddit so unique, however its size is what makes it so enticing as an affiliate marketer. If you can tap into these communities and promote your brand effectively, it might be a cash cow for traffic and profits.
But is
Reddit affiliate marketing even possible? More than one affiliate marketer has actually tried, however the majority of have
been not able to mine its vast internet resources. What is Reddit? Started in 2005 by University of Virginia students Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, Reddit was meant from the starting to be a virtual bulletin board system for various groups. It quickly morphed into the “front page of the internet,” delivering breaking news and on-topic conversations for a range of various problems.
Every community is technically called a “sub-reddit,” and is represented by the r/ tag. A subreddit on alternate history, for instance, is called r/alternatehistory. There might be smaller sized subreddits comparable to that, such as r/alternateww2history, but each neighborhood stands alone. They have their own guidelines, discussions, and moderators.
Some of the most active neighborhoods are really broad in nature, like r/funny and r/books. However a lot of them are likewise discussion-based, like r/askreddit or r/explainlikeimfive. Individuals can publish concerns or discussion subjects for other “redditors” to engage with.
If you ever want to arrange by the top
ranked posts in a group or by ones that are gaining popularity, you can click one of the buttons at the top. Reddit permits you to sort by best, hot, brand-new, or trending. One thing everybody realizes within a few minutes of checking out Reddit for the very first time is that there’s a language all its own. In between terms like AMA(Ask Me Anything)and TL; DR(Too Long; Didn’t Read), very first time visitors are sure to reach for Rosetta Stone to analyze what’s really going on.
The charm of Reddit is that most people are extremely friendly and welcoming to newbies. If you get attacked for any reason, there’ll normally be somebody that concerns your rescue, so feel free to ask as lots of questions as required till you master it.
Who Uses Reddit?
With such an active online neighborhood, it’s little surprise that the vast majority of are young. 22% of all web users in between 18-29 are active on Reddit, while 14% of the 30-49 age bracket are Redditors, too. There’s obviously some flux either way, but Reddit is greatly controlled by Millennials and Gen Z.
What’s more distinct is the geographical makeup of Reddit users. There are almost thirteen times the amount of Redditors from the U.S. as there are from any other country (221.98 million active users out of overall population of 332 million individuals). Australia is available in 2nd with 17.5 million active users, and India is third with 13.5 million.
That geographic difference likewise matters for gender, as well. Reddit boasts an almost 50/50 split between males and ladies throughout all users, in the US, 2/3 of Redditors are male. (For context, that ratio is reversed for Instagram: 2/3 of Instagram users are female).
Suffice it to say that Reddit is a definitely huge neighborhood if you’re able to use it. With numerous specific niches including so many devoted fans, discovering your audience is actually the easy part. Getting them to choose in to your affiliate provides, on the other hand, could show to be a challenge.
Can You Do Affiliate Marketing on Reddit?
The lifeline of affiliate marketing is traffic. With numerous affiliate uses that function extremely competitive rates, matching audience to offer is key. On Reddit, you’ve got the audience (over 1.7 billion check outs in June 2021 alone), and presuming you’ve got the right affiliate offers, it can be basically like printing cash.
Regrettably, Reddit themselves knows this potential and has taken steps to secure down on anyone that wants to unjustly monetize their platform. For Reddit– both the business and their users– community pureness is spiritual. Defile it at your own risk.
Reddit’s Official Policy
There is absolutely no question where Reddit stands on affiliate marketing and spammy posts– they are 1000% against it. Their official anti-spam policy is ironclad and guards against other community-tainting practices such as vote manipulation and referral link masking.
In their own words, they have a variety of various techniques of actually implementing this policy, beginning with “asking you perfectly to knock it off.” From there, they’ll ban you from specific subreddits, eliminate the material you’ve currently posted, and eventually prohibit you from the site itself.
If you’re stressed over whether or not your activity constitutes you as a spammer, Reddit has a page that lays out nefarious activities they will penalize. Usually speaking, it includes black hat strategies like link farming and bots that auto-post content. Here’s the complete list from their own site, however Reddit motivates you to call them with anymore concerns:
Sending big quantities of personal messages to users who are not anticipating them
Repeatedly posting the comparable or same comments in a thread, subreddit or across subreddits
Repeatedly publishing unrelated/off-topic/link-farmed material
Publishing content that includes link reroutes as a method to circumvent a current domain block and/or to disguise a link’s source (leaving out subreddit sidebars)
Linking to harmful third-party material, such as malware, phishing, deceptive pop-ups, etc.
Setting bots that harm/break Reddit, consisting of bots planned to promote content/products/services
While Reddit can and will ban users from their platform, the real power lies with the mediators of the individual neighborhoods.
They are the gatekeepers of their specific subreddits and wield the sword with absolute authority. Many subreddits have their own anti-spam policies laid out in plain sight, pinned to the side of the page for simple gain access to. Here’s one example from r/femalefashionadvice If you get caught using affiliate links, that clearly mentions your Reddit account will be completely prohibited. They even encourage their own members to rat you out, so good luck trying to slip your affiliate link into a comment.
A restriction for life suggests your content likewise gets removed, which will lead to your affiliate promo getting zero traction. Redditors are extremely proficient at identifying these kinds of affiliate posts anyhow, so it’s not likely to work regardless. They’ll report you to a moderator and your post will be removed, in some cases within minutes.
What’s worse is you might suffer from a tarnished brand if Redditors determine your business as using spammy techniques, meaning you’ll never get to promote … ever. Redditors have very long memories. They rarely forget (or forgive) people who attempt to make the most of their neighborhoods for their own financial gain.
Is Reddit Affiliate Marketing Impossible?
Due to the above info, it may appear that doing any sort of Reddit marketing at all– much less affiliate marketing– is beside impossible. Considering that Redditors fiercely secure their communities from any type of commercialization, it’s seen by numerous entrepreneurs as a black hole for their organization. Reddit is a good place to do marketing research, gain company suggestions, and potentially even discover freelancers, however that’s basically it.
Au contrarire, my buddy.
Don’t let Reddit’s community policies and anti-spam policy turn you far from what might potentially be one of the most powerful marketing channels for your organization. The distinction is, rather of simply controling the platform to drive clicks on a deal, you need to engage in more reliable and traditional affiliate approaches.
You understand, develop an audience, cultivate that audience, offer to that audience, and cultivate some more. The method affiliate marketing must work, anyways.
Reddit affiliate marketing should always have to do with building a long-term, holistic method that you can reach into in time. If you build it properly, it could reap the rewards for several years to come.
Develop a Branded Community
As I’m sure you’ve found out by now, Reddit is all about neighborhood– small, micro-niches (or macro!) that address a single need or interest. As affiliate online marketers, that need to be music to your ears. What more could you want than a group of ready-made consumers committed to you and your brand?
In order to develop that group however, you’ll require to create a community that is foremost and first about the subject at hand, not your items.
If you’re a BBQ company, for example, consider starting a branded group that focuses on finest BBQ practices. Coordinate with complementary services to highlight area events. Sponsor an AMA with a top-flight BBQ pit manager that will feed the neighborhood important tips and insights into the world of competitive BBQ competitors.
By doing this, you’ll build up a group that is definitely enthusiastic about what your product or service can deliver. When the time comes, struck them with an item offer or announcement. Remember not to force your products on the community but simply use it as discreetly as you can. As soon as you build up the authority in your specific niche, the community will trust you and will react better to whatever it is you’re offering.
Above all else, remember to be sincere with your community. Tell them that though this is a company-sponsored community, this is not a group that will sell to them 24/7. And if individuals do attempt to offer them without your authorization, as the mediator, bring the restriction hammer down on them without hesitation. Do whatever it requires to safeguard your people from spammers and bad stars.
If you do not want to go through the difficulty of building and moderating your own Reddit neighborhood– and it is a full-time task, to be sure– attempt ending up being a specialist in an already-existing group. You can develop your own authority by offering valuable resources and tips and responding to questions. Then, ask the moderators for the opportunity to share your affiliate item with the group.
This will not be an overnight job. Many community experts have invested months or even years developing their trust inside the group, attaining “karma points” that reflect their neighborhood standing.
But no matter how reliable you think you might be, nobody is generally allowed to publish direct affiliate links without moderator approval. Even then, they might not permit it if it’s an affiliate offer. Make certain you are totally transparent with the moderators prior to trying to make a sponsored post.
Why? Not just because your post will not last long if you try to spam the group, however since the mediators can defend your actions. If someone accuses you of attempting to profit from the community, a mediator can jump to your defense. They might even remove the accuser. In the fierce world of Reddit, having a mediator on your side is a great thing.
Drive Organic Traffic Via Viral Posts
As anybody who has actually been on the internet knows, trying to forecast virality is a fool’s video game. Nobody understands for particular what kind of posts remove and how effective they ultimately might be. Trying to engineer web appeal is essentially difficult (unless you’re already an influencer).
What you can do though, is gain enough credibility within communities that your stability isn’t up for debate. Then, drop an exceptionally value-rich post that blows individuals away. Redditors LOVE data posts, emotional stories, or anything that they know took a while to create. Provide one of those to your community, and you should have people eating out of your hand.
While these posts can be considerable on their own, if you choose to drop a link to your own item in the post itself, clear it with the moderator. It needs to be natural, and it requires to be transparent. Offer the link, then instantly mention what it is. By doing this, it does not come across like you’re trying to manipulate the group.
Unless the moderators explicitly approve it– and you believe the neighborhood will allow it– never ever utilize an affiliate link inside a post like this. Drive that organic traffic to a landing page first, then get the clicks from there. Though the audience may recognize an affiliate offer when they see it, if you’re transparent about the process, they’re more ready to forgive it for the time being.
Utilize a Reddit Ad
Because Reddit has such a non-commercialization stance, Reddit paid advertisements are infamously hard to make successful. People normally skip right over these posts without a thought, leaving your affiliate commission low and your CPC high.
In order for Reddit ads to be effective, you need 2 things: the ideal specific niche, and an ad that appears like a post. Ensure that your ad matches the right subreddit. Mask your copy to make it appear like related posts on that group (even though it’ll have the word “SPONSORED” best next to it).
Make the copy appealing– a lot so that people can’t help but react or even argue.
Similar to most other kinds of business advertisements, discounts work excellent too. Think about utilizing a discount coupon or totally free trial to get people to act from your landing page.
Conclusion
Contrary to popular opinion, Reddit affiliate marketing isn’t impossible, and it does not even always need to be hard. It does require to be thoughtful, long-term, and as white hat as possible. The more you think of Redditors as actual humans that are waving the banner for their selected interest and less as an “audience” to sell to, the more effective you’ll be.
But isn’t that the case with the majority of marketing?
