Reddit’s New Advertising Strategy-Good or Bad?

It is a dream of every web master to be on the front page of websites like Digg, Delicious, Mixx and Reddit. If you are on the front page, you are sure to get a flood of traffic with thousands of visits to your site per day. But it is not that easy, because social sites have tough voting algorithms. Also the big guys like New York Times and CNN.com always enjoy these plush positions. You need good viral content or you should be the first one to break the news, or you should have a good network of friends who can help you reach the top. So being on top of social media is definitely not a piece of cake.

How Reddit has come up with a new advertising strategy, called Reddit Self-Serve Advertising Program, where the home page will be open to anyone who is ready to pay. Advertisers have to bid for the space at the top of Reddit home page; these ads look the same like Regular Reddit listings but they are labeled as ‘sponsored links’ with a border and a blue background. Obviously, these ads have tons of visibility. Money talks, after all, and it is definitely a good monetizing strategy for Reddit.

The bidding process for the advertising space is actually quite interesting. Advertisers bid a particular amount per day, anywhere between $20 and $9,999.99. All of the money then goes into a big pool, and advertisers get a relative amount of exposure based on how much they bid compared to everyone else. For example, if you bid the daily minimum of $20 and there are 9 other advertisers, each one bidding $20 too, your ad will show up 10% of the time.

How will Reddit’s Self-Serve Advertising Program work for potential advertisers? Well, to know if you can get good bang for your buck, you need to consider the factors that are involved, like other advertisers and how much they are bidding. Since this is news, there are many advertisers who still do not know about this, so it makes sense to join soon to get low rates for bidding. Let us know what you think about