Earlier this year we outline 24 Marketing Musts for 2024, with a heavy emphasis on strategy and data--two of our favorite topics. But did you know there are also four new digital ad products out this year that could impact your results?
Here's a quick overview of these options and how they might plug into your existing marketing efforts.
Reddit Free-Form Ads
If you're not familiar with Reddit, it is a social network that places a premium on authentic conversations. At 70 million active daily users, the site has a much smaller reach than Facebook, but it's still the fifth-most visited website in the United States. The true power of Reddit is the ability to target and talk to highly engaged niche audiences, whether they're into cosmetics or home improvement.
Reddit's new free-form ads give platform advertisers the opportunity to create "Megathreads" that mimic user-generated content and provide actionable value, whether that's exploring a new product or offering up a helpful shopping guide.
Some cool examples:
• Food giant Kraft created a Megathread teaching gamers "how to keep melty cheese of your gaming keyboard" that attracted 1,400 comments from Redditors
• Women's clothing brand Athleta offered up a highly visual list of their top 10 holiday gifts
• Beauty retailer Ulta offered up helpful FAQ on how to use "the hottest new skincare ingredients," like hyaluronic acid and squalene
Benefits
• Higher click-through rates than previous Reddit ads
• Targets audiences by interest and location
• Greater freedom to educate audiences at the top of the marketing funnel
Drawbacks
• Demographic targeting is limited
• Users may feel deceived by ads that look like organic posts
Marketers can mix and match text, images, GIFs, video, and links to create a truly engaging experience for users. Reddit offers up a variety of templates you can follow or create the prefect structure for their brand needs. The final ad product can be placed in subreddits, on the home page, and on users' feeds.
Reddit Dynamic Ads
Machine learning and automation take center stage with Reddit's new Dynamic Product Ads.
This ad option is now in a public beta-testing phase, and available to advertisers as the platform continues to improve the product.
Digital marketers can now create single-image or carousel ads that automatically populate with the latest prices and pictures from an advertiser's website. It also allows for "simple, guess-free targeting," that spans retargeting and prospective modes.
When the product was released, Reddit noted that 40% of the platform's new conversations are related to purchase decisions. Reddit views Dynamic Product Ads as intrinsically tied to the organic uses of the platform.
According to the company, advertisers that participated in its Q1 2024 testing saw 1.9x greater Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), when compared to traditional conversion campaigns.
Benefits
• Instant campaign creation and updates through machine learning
• Select audiences through simple targeting or re-targeting
• Tap into the organic search market increasingly adding "reddit" to their queries
Drawbacks
• Hyper-personalization can decrease overall impressions
• Increased variables take longer to test and eliminate poor performers
Learn more: How to market on Reddit
Spotify Video Ads
Spotify has been the long-time leader in music and podcast streaming, both with subscribers and its 388 million free users. Free users who have the app in-view are now being targeted with video ads in addition to the audio-only and display ads. These video ads come in three forms.
Video Takeover: These audio-visual ads pop-up when a free user is scrolling through Spotify's vast catalog of music, podcasts and audiobooks.
Opt-In Video: Once a user has selected their content, these videos ads will periodically be shown in the "Now Playing View."
Sponsored Session: A free user can "earn" a 30-minute ad-free listening session after watching a 30-second ad. These placements are designed to win customer loyalty.
The benefit of these ad types is that they are only shown (and advertisers are only charged) when the user is focused on the screen. This is in contrast to audio-only ads, which may play when a listener has stepped away from the device, but left their music streaming in the background.
While Spotify remains primarily a home for audio, the company recently reported a 48% year-over-year increase in video content. If you’re considering Spotify video ads, it’s recommended to pair them with audio ads. Spotify claims a 2.2x increase in brand awareness when video ads run simultaneously with a complementary audio campaign.
Benefits:
• Reach a highly engaged audience with high loyalty to the Spotify app
• Sponsored Session ads can be seen as highly valuable for unlocking ad-free listening
Drawbacks
• Video ads only target users who have the app in-view, potentially missing those who primarily use Spotify for background listening
• Video Takeover and Opt-In Video ads can interrupt the user experience, leading to frustration
• Video ads are limited to 30 seconds or less
Meta Threads Ads
Meta’s new micro-blogging social platform behaves like a blend of X and Instagram, allowing users to post longer text, more images, and longer videos than on X. In fact, users create Threads accounts using their Instagram handles. Full details aren’t known yet about ads on Threads, but the option is expected to become available as early as the second half of 2024.
Digital media experts are making a few predictions and early observations about what this ad platform may look like. As Digiday notes, "it's safe to assume" that Threads ads will appear in Meta's Advantage+ automated ad platform; most expect initial ads placement to be in the app's main feed, rather than its trends and topics sections.
While some question the timing of the ad rollout, initially planned for when the platform reached 1 billion users, the staggering success of Meta's social platforms makes this an area that must be closely watched. Considering the continuing exodus of advertisers from X. Threads may represent an opportunity for marketers interested in the micro-blogging space.
Learn more: How do I use Threads for digital marketing?
Social platforms and content services offer an abundance of paid advertising opportunities, with the potential to reach different audiences.
Whether your audience is local or worldwide, broad or niche, the digital marketing experts at Informatics can help you pick from this wide range of options. Get started today!
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