Reddit OWNS the Bottom of the Sales Funnel (And Businesses Fail to Do Anything about That)
Reddit is the major source of data for Google, AI Mode, ChatGPT - What to do???
Last week, a few new Reddit-related studies were published showing the incredible power of Reddit in influencing online buying journeys these days.
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In fact, both major intent-based platforms (Google and ChatGPT) are dominated by Reddit (not surprisingly, because they both have official agreements with Reddit), but there’s more:
Most of the businesses (73%) have Reddit threads ranking for their brand names in Google, and most of these threads have negative sentiment towards their brands (63%)
Reddit is the second top-cited source in ChatGPT (there are two concurrent studies, one from @ZipTie and the other one by @Profound). ChatGPT now uses Reddit content for product recommendations, branded research, and more.
Reddit is #6 top-ranking website in Google search WORLDWIDE (just behind Wikipedia, Google itself, and Google's YouTube)... Which leads to incredible visibility in AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Gemini, obviously.
Reddit ranks for 1.8 MILLION queries containing “reviews”, according to Semrush (most of these are branded) *directly influencing buying decisions at the very bottom of the funnel* (i.e. when people are typing a brand name, they are about to convert or simply trying to get to the site itself to buy)
AND YET, according to our research *almost 90% of businesses* are not doing anything on Reddit, citing a lack of understanding of the platform as the main reason (which is totally understandable! I am lucky to have a team that has been heavily into Reddit marketing for 12+ years.)
I have collected our own survey findings as well as other studies on this one page, which is being cited in AI Overviews and AI Mode already (Google is fast!)
It Can Escalate Quickly and Unexpectedly
When collecting data for my Reddit survey, I’ve come across businesses telling me scary stories.
One investment company that wasn’t even keeping an eye on their branded search lost two huge contracts the day a defamation Reddit thread started ranking #3 for their brand name. And it has been a nightmare, and more lost contracts ever since.
Another brand started an Instagram ad campaign, caught into attention of a previously unsatisfied customer, and he went to Reddit to create a branded subreddit to post all the complaints and encourage others to do so. That branded subreddit with all the angry posts is now ranking #2 for the [brand name] and #1 for [brand reviews].
A reputation crisis can happen on Reddit any minute, and you are actually risking your business's existence without being proactive about that.
Previous episodes on Reddit marketing:
So, Why Do Businesses Remain Inactive?
Reddit is the most challenging platform for marketing for many reasons, mainly:
It is not one platform; it consists of thousands of subreddits, which are all different in rules, accepted tone of communication, etc.
“Traditional” social media marketing tactics won’t work: Reddit doesn’t have “influencers,” the number of followers doesn’t matter much on Reddit. It is not about monetizing your presence there or personal branding. Redditors are genuinely there to talk to each other.
Consequently, Reddit marketing is:
Impossible to scale (needs a lot of creativity and authenticity)
Impossible to game (it’s manually moderated and it doesn’t forgive mistakes)
Intimidating (many businesses are simply afraid of touching it, not to make things worse)
Shortcuts don’t work on Reddit. And high-quality Reddit marketing agencies are incredibly hard to find.
Will Reddit Keep Its Marketing Dominance?
Nothing is forever but watching two major AI players (Google and ChatGPT) relying on Reddit so much for training data, it looks like there’s no quite an alternative for real, human-posted and moderated content.
Can businesses keep neglecting it?
There are businesses that survive without SEO or social media. It’s more about growing. If you want your business to grow, to be findable by search and AI, Reddit needs to be part of your marketing strategy because it obviously can break or make any business.
We have been doing Reddit marketing for more than 12 years (we started way before it became a thing), so I can help. But yet again, we don’t do shortcuts or spam. We focus on long-term, consistent growth.
