🌪️ The Anti-Ad That Went Viral

Reddit's New Interactive Ads vs. The Anti-Ad That Went Viral

While everyone's preparing to test Reddit's new Interactive Ads, a plain-text post just outperformed 90% of the platform.

A fitness app ad from Caliber Fitness has 15,000 upvotes, 5,000 comments, and more awards than most organic Reddit posts. Redditors are calling it "the best ad they've ever seen" and downloading the app in droves.

The format? Plain text. No graphics, no video, no interactive elements. Just the founder writing candidly about his product.

This matters because Reddit just launched Interactive Ads: the opposite approach. These are flashy, attention-grabbing units that invite users to play mini-games, take quizzes, or explore dynamic reveals directly in-stream. The Running Man movie promotion with an embedded game. Countdown timers and trivia users can engage with without leaving their feed.

Reddit calls them "Reddit-unique ad units that let brands build custom, interactive ad experiences directly for Reddit's 100,000+ communities." The format ranges from fully bespoke campaigns to repeatable templates, giving brands creative freedom to "go beyond static image or video ads."

Most brands will test Interactive Ads. They should. But Caliber's success reveals what actually moves the needle on Reddit.

The Three-Part Playbook

1. Don't Make It Look Like An Ad

Other than the light gray "Promoted" text, Caliber's ad looked like a regular plain-text post. They enabled comments: which most brands avoid out of fear. Comments made the ad blend in while showing transparency.

Creative formats that work on Instagram or TikTok look intrusive on Reddit. Redditors downvote them.

2. Don't Write Like An Ad

Caliber's founder Justin wrote like any other Redditor. He opened with context, admitted they weren't perfect, shared their journey, and asked for feedback. Plain English, no marketing jargon. A person, not a business.

Many users tried the app and came back with suggestions.

3. Adapt Your Conversion Goal

Instead of pushing for immediate downloads, Caliber asked readers to join their subreddit: a more natural next step with less friction.

The community now has 16,000 members (top 5% by size). This gives Caliber a focus group for feedback, an unbiased review site for future customers, and a group of brand evangelists. Interested users still downloaded through links in the ad or the pinned post.

Which Approach Works?

Interactive Ads will work for certain brands. High-energy consumer products, entertainment properties, and awareness campaigns could see strong engagement.

But here's what most brands miss: Reddit's community values authenticity over production value. A misaligned Interactive Ad gets downvoted just as fast as any other intrusive promotion.

Know your objective. Building long-term community presence and trust? Follow Caliber's playbook. Driving quick awareness for a product launch? Test Interactive Ads. But understand the community first.

Reddit just gave brands two paths. Most will take the flashy one. That's the opportunity.

🔍 This Week in 📰 Reddit

🤖 Reddit Closes In On Wikipedia in AI Citations

Reddit now accounts for 3.3% of all ChatGPT citations. Wikipedia leads at 3.9%: just a 0.6% gap. Six months ago, Wikipedia was at 11% and Reddit barely registered at 1%. The crossover happened in August when both sources hit 5.6%. Reddit's role as the "human layer" of AI search is now locked in: what people actually think about products: while brand sites provide specs and features. Josh Blyskal from Profound tracked this across 100M+ ChatGPT responses and concludes Reddit's visibility in AI search is permanent.

LinkedIn

🛒 WooCommerce Integration Goes Live

Reddit launched a WooCommerce integration enabling merchants to connect product listings to Reddit ads with automatic inventory sync and 1-click catalog integration. The timing is strategic for holiday shopping season as Reddit ranks as the #1 most trustworthy platform to inform purchase decisions. Once connected, merchants can create Dynamic Product Ads and Conversions campaigns directly from their WooCommerce catalog.

Social Media Today

🎯 Ford Demonstrates Hyper-Targeted Community Ads

Marketing strategist Ross Simmonds spotted Ford running ads in r/HVAC: 198,000 subscribers who work in or are interested in HVAC. The ability to reach exact niche audiences on Reddit still blows his mind, especially since most brands remain hesitant. At minimum, brands should run remarketing ads to capture Google traffic flowing to Reddit. Google is sending more people there than ever before.

LinkedIn

Reddit's telling publishers the same thing it's telling brands: just through different tools.

In September, Reddit launched Pro Tools for Publishers: RSS feed syncing, Reddit metrics tracking, and AI suggestions for which subreddit to post in. Currently available to a small group of US publishers, with a waitlist for broader access.

Gabriel Sands, Reddit's head of news partnerships, tells publishers to approach Reddit like "showing up at a cocktail party: take time to read the room, understand what conversations are happening, and think about how you can contribute without disrupting the vibe."

The same principle that made Caliber's ad work. The key isn't altering content or headlines: it's finding the right community fit. Reddit's AI tool cuts across 100,000+ communities to recommend where a story will resonate.

The Results

Publisher content posted through Pro Tools appears identical to user-posted content: ranked by upvotes like everything else. Many subreddits prohibit duplicate submissions, so publishers need to be strategic about where and when they post.

Reddit's referral traffic to newsbrands jumped 220%: from six million at the start of 2019 to 19.1 million in July 2025, according to Chartbeat. For context, Facebook referrals stood at 500 million clicks in July 2025 (down 50% in six years), while Twitter hit 31.8 million (also sharply down).

The Hill now gets most of its social referral traffic from Reddit. Pro Tools lets them "engage with our readers who previously weren't hearing from us directly," according to deputy managing editor Sarakshi Rai.

The Universal Principle

The 220% traffic growth proves the approach works. But publishers and brands keep making the same mistake: treating Reddit like owned media instead of a cocktail party. The ones who get it are already winning.

🎮 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.

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Need help engaging as a brand on Reddit?

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That’s it for this week!