Marketing companies advertise on Reddit, users feel manipulated
12 posts across 10 communities in the last 60 days; 17% from r/Entrepreneur.
“I hate people advertising on Reddit. This is a business community for real problems. Not to pitch your product. [re: I'm buying a business right now, and the buyer just admitted the business has major weaknesses. Would these scare you off?]”
“That's not actually true. If they force login, which they already do, they can customise feeds to embed targeted ads within the feed itself. They could even seed ads individually or within the text of the article. But, that'd mean they'd actually have to be competent at…”
“These covert Reddit ads usually follow this structure: innocent question, pose a problem, mention the solution, open it to the audience. The engagement pushes it up to the top in Google search results.”
Users express annoyance at marketing companies stealthily advertising their products or services within project management and personal finance subreddits. This tactic is perceived as intrusive and manipulative, leading some to unfollow accounts and blacklist companies.
SOURCES (17)
“I hate people advertising on Reddit. This is a business community for real problems. Not to pitch your product. [re: I'm buying a business right now, and the buyer just admitted the business has major weaknesses. Would these scare you off?]”
“That's not actually true. If they force login, which they already do, they can customise feeds to embed targeted ads within the feed itself. They could even seed ads individually or within the text of the article. But, that'd mean they'd actually have to be competent at delivering targeted personalised advertising off a consistent platform. Which they aren't. They want to be Facebook but don't have the programming chops to do what Meta does (and bear in mind I deeply hate Met”
“Yeah, this is pretty much where I land too. Years of sneaky promotion probably made people suspicious of any brand account, but I don’t think transparent participation should be treated the same as disguised advertising. Do you think brands can actually earn that trust back over time?”
“What is actually wrong with brands participating organically in discussions as long as they are transparent and not constantly promoting themselves? I’ve noticed that the moment an account is clearly associated with a brand, people often become suspicious even when the comment or post is not trying to sell anything. I completely understand why people dislike spam, fake reviews, hidden promotions, astroturfing, and brands pretending to be regular customers. That deserves criticism. But what about”
“It’s actually Instagram. I was just referring to the ancient marketing techniques”
“love how everyone is clamouring over themselves to say that Harvey and Legora are reinventing the wheel with their marketing - when in reality, every other company is just doing something comparatively terrible like this”
“These covert Reddit ads usually follow this structure: innocent question, pose a problem, mention the solution, open it to the audience. The engagement pushes it up to the top in Google search results.”
“Have you not seen the backlash that big brands have gotten? Coke took a ton of shit for their AI Christmas commercial last year”
“I've been noticing an increase in these types of weird non commercialized reddit ads. Anyone understand the logic to them? submitted by /u/marketingwithdean [link] [comments]”
Got it, just curious here what does the business camouflage indicate here
“Dang I tripped in that one with my eyes open - stealth marketing for that piece of software / dev company. Okay well thank you and I shall move on… ya’ll have a great weekend!”
“Was actually sitting in front of some marketing people on the train the other day and I heard them discussing reddit advertising strategies. Literally ruining the platform. There was 0 need to namedrop that company in this thread, any attempt at stealthy advertising makes me want to blacklist and never use that company. I've unfollowed quite a few SEO/marketing accounts on Instagram after they started preaching Reddit advertising.”