🎯 Max Campaigns Not Pain

📈 Reddit overtakes TikTok in the UK

Reddit just overtook TikTok in the UK to become Britain's fourth most visited social media site.

The Ofcom data: 88% increase in UK reach over two years. Three in five Brits online now encounter the site, up from a third in 2023. Growth is fastest with younger users: more than 75% of 18-24 year olds now visit it. The UK is Reddit's second largest user base globally after the US.

What's happening here isn't about growth metrics.

Google's algorithm change last year prioritizing forum content opened the floodgates. Then the AI deals kicked in: both Google and OpenAI. Reddit is now the most-cited source in Google AI overviews. ChatGPT pulls from the same content pool.

Reddit isn't just getting traffic from search. It's becoming the source layer that both major AI systems cite and trust. Every other platform has one deal or neither. Reddit has both.

The demographic shift compounds this. Jen Wong, Reddit's COO, told The Guardian they're seeing massive growth from Gen Z women. UK data shows Reddit is now 50%+ women users, with 71% interested in beauty and cosmetics. Pregnancy and parenting subreddits doubled in the last year alone.

Why the UK is important?

This isn't a temporary spike from algorithm changes. When you combine Google's search prioritization with Reddit being the primary source for both major AI systems, you're looking at infrastructure dependency, not platform growth.

The UK is the first market where all three forces fired simultaneously: search algorithm changes, dual AI positioning, and demographic inversion. If this pattern holds, Reddit isn't just growing. It's becoming the foundational discovery layer across major markets.

I'm watching how fast other markets follow this trajectory.

🔍 This Week in 📰 Reddit

📊 HubSpot Publishes Reddit B2B Marketing Guide

New partnership guide focuses on how B2B buyers turn to Reddit's expert communities for research. Key stat: 60%+ of AI searches end without clicks, making Reddit presence critical for where AI models source information. Guide covers which communities drive most B2B interest and how to use Reddit ad tools effectively.

Social Media Today

🔍 Ahrefs Expands Brand Radar to Reddit

Monitoring platform now tracks Reddit visibility within Google Search results, plus YouTube and TikTok mentions. Built on infrastructure processing 239M+ AI prompts monthly. Available in beta for all paid customers—significant for brands monitoring cross-platform visibility.

MorningStar

Max Campaigns and the Black Box Promise

Every major platform now has an AI-powered ad product. This week, Reddit launched theirs.

Max Campaigns is Reddit's version of Meta's Performance Max or TikTok's Smart+—automating targeting, creative selection, placements, and budget allocation.

But Reddit's making a specific bet on differentiation.

Where most platforms treat AI campaigns as a black box, Reddit promises to "open the black box" with Top Audience Personas. The system clusters your campaign audience into personas (think "new parents" or "ambitious home cooks") using Reddit's 23+ billion posts and comments as training data. You can see which personas engage most and what they're interested in right now.

Reddit calls this "Reddit Community Intelligence": training AI on actual conversations rather than just behavior patterns.

The performance data from testing looks solid. Brooks Running saw 37% lower cost per click and 27% more clicks promoting their Ghost 17 running shoe over 21 days. Across split tests, early testers saw 17% lower CPA and 27% more conversions on average.

The question is whether those audience personas deliver actionable insights or just more dashboard noise.

Every platform claims their data is different. Reddit's conversation data could genuinely differentiate—or it could be marketing for "we're using our data too." The Brooks numbers suggest the ML pattern matching works. Whether the "Community Intelligence" personas help advertisers learn anything new is the real test.

I'm watching:

• Does "opening the black box" actually help advertisers learn, or is it transparency theater?

• How quickly does this roll out beyond the beta group?

• Will smaller advertisers get access or is this enterprise-only?

• Does this change organic community dynamics when Reddit gets better at identifying valuable audiences?

Max Campaigns are beta launching for traffic and conversion campaigns to select advertisers this week, with broader rollout over the next few months. Worth getting on the waitlist if you're advertising on Reddit.

🎮 Reddit Software & Tools

The Reddit ecosystem for tools, software, and related apps is particularly underdeveloped for the #3 platform in the world.

I’m tracking the new tools that pop on my radar here:

• GummySearch (my favoriate tool right now): The first dedicated Reddit intel suite I’ve seen, great for monitoring communities, tracking change detection (fast-growing communities at different tiers), tracking keywords, and doing more advanced keyword research.

• NotifyGPT: Not specifically a Reddit tool, but Reddit is one of it’s strongest use cases for social listening.

• KWatch.io: An all-source UGC social listening and monitoring platform, includes Reddit.

• RedditInsights.ai: Found this one, a good way to group and approximate topic interest from Reddit. A super scraper. '

• Pulse: This ones new this week and I haven’t tested it too much, but could be an interesting. More positioned to brands marketing on Reddit (connects via Reddit API).

• Subreddit Traffic Tracker: This is an interesting new find that helps optimize post and engagement timing based on when specific communities are most active on Reddit.

===

Need help engaging as a brand on Reddit?

===

That’s it for this week!