15 minute read
Marketing on Reddit
Marketing on the internet’s front page
Chris Wallace talks to Reddit’s Harold Klaje, to get a survival guide to an often misunderstood marketing channel
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Reddit, the self-proclaimed ‘front page of the internet,’ can be an incredibly attractive opportunity to market your game. With builtin communities of players to address and respond to directly, the benefits for Reddit marketing is obvious. With many Reddit users coming together in their shared interest in a particular topic, many find the platform incredibly useful for discovering new games.
However, despite the benefits, the platform can often be intimidating at first. Many believe that Reddit users are hostile to companies coming into their space, and the staple of the Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything, where an individual or company can directly answer the community’s questions), while often useful for marketing, can backfire if it is approached unprepared.
So to get the expert opinion on how best to approach Reddit for your game’s marketing, we spoke with Reddit EVP and president, global advertising, Harold Klaje.
How has Reddit changed over the years, as a potential platform for advertisers and community managers?
Reddit celebrated its 15th year in 2020 and has seen exponential growth over those years. Late last year we reported 52 million daily active users and 100,000+ communities, and are excited to now have an official presence in the UK, with big plans for further international expansion to come.
The last five years in particular have seen accelerated growth of our ads business with more and more brands turning to our platform to engage with the internet’s most passionate audiences, and with great success. Today, Reddit delivers advertising results across all industries and sizes. From Fortune 500 brands to scrappy start-ups, we believe that if your product aligns with a passion, your brand should be on Reddit.
What are, in your view, the main opportunities available when marketing directly to consumers on Reddit?
Reddit is different from other platforms because it’s made up of all these communities of people who don’t necessarily know each other, but are connecting around the things that matter most to them, their passions. Remember, the number one reason people come to Reddit is to be informed and this has a direct impact on their purchase potential. For example, 73 per cent of Reddit users find out about new games on Reddit and 53 per cent look for posts on Reddit to decide whether or not they’ll play a new game.
Another key opportunity for marketing on Reddit is the fact that our users are truly unduplicated and can’t be found anywhere else online. In the UK, 15 per cent of Reddit users are not on Facebook, 38 per cent are not on Instagram and 37 per cent are not on Twitter, so in this sense, Reddit represents the untapped internet.
Reddit is also unmatched in terms of the insights that can be gleaned by community conversations and user behaviour. We know, for example, that 45 per cent of UK Reddit users are console gamers and that 43 per cent purchased a gaming console in the last six months – these kinds of information nuggets are just the beginning and go a really long way in informing campaign strategy.
All of this, the actively engaged, leaned in and unduplicated audience brings a very real opportunity for marketers. What we see on Reddit, which really stands out in the consideration phase of a purchase path, is that products and brands that are present in trusted and influential communities can increase customer spend, satisfaction, loyalty and NPS. We recently partnered with Verto Analytics to prove out Reddit’s role in the path to purchase journey compared to other social and digital platforms, which confirmed what we’ve long known to be true: consumers that use Reddit are more informed, make faster, higher-value purchases, and become stronger brand advocates. When it comes to games, we’re really proud to say that 95 per cent of subscribers to a game’s community will go on to purchase the game.
What ad formats are most popular with advertisers on Reddit?
Depending on the campaign objective, there are many different options for brands looking to advertise on Reddit and engage with our communities. Category – like gaming category – takeovers are always a great option for those looking for mass awareness and efficiency. For our DR clients, however, we see great success in additional community targeting beyond the specific interest group. For example, in addition to our gaming communities, targeting those focussed on entertainment, technology and even family and relationships can go a long way to reaching net new unique users.
Promoted posts or videos can also be really strong tools to drive awareness and, for example, pre-orders for a new title about to launch. In the past year, we have also released a number of new features to better service our performance advertisers, such as Postbacks for app installs and additional functionality for the Reddit Pixel including retargeting. Similarly, we have introduced a number of targeting optimizations, including auto-optimization toward installs, to better meet the needs of our mobile gaming clients.
Do you have any measurable examples/testimonials, which you can share, where Reddit marketing and community management made a big impact to a game’s success?
Our partners at Zynga recently leveraged Reddit to reach gamers and encourage downloads ahead of their CSR2 racing game launch. They leveraged the depth and breadth of Reddit communities by targeting not just gamers, but racing enthusiasts and worked closely with our team on an evolving strategy – with continuous testing of interest group targeting and ad format variations – to help achieve high customer lifetime value. Ultimately, Reddit successfully drove 1.5x higher LTVs compared with other emerging social channels, with retention rates 16 per cent better than other channels and organic installs.
The Reddit community is often regarded as hostile, particularly to businesses. Do you agree with this assessment, and how best should businesses approach the platform?
It’s a great misconception that Reddit users are not welcoming of brands because the reality is just the opposite. We know that Reddit users welcome brands to engage with them on the platform, with around 69 per cent respecting when brands make an effort to participate. What’s more, around 60 per cent say they’re more likely to trust a brand that participates on Reddit, and 66 per cent of our users say brands can have conversations with them on Reddit that they can’t have anywhere else.
Moreover, 82 per cent of online community site users say they would be receptive to brand participation in their communities. It is one of the few places consumers look forward to brands being functioning members, contributing and providing value. Engaging in online communities drives brand love, trust and action.
Reddit’s mission is to help everyone in the world find community and belonging online and this means building communities that reflect our values and respect civil discourse and human dignity. Hate, harassment, and calls for violence are simply not allowed on Reddit. Platform and brand safety is built into our platform structure and is something we’ve always put a lot of thought into. It is reflected in our unique, multi-layered approach to moderation, which includes tools, systems and teams to ensure the safety of our users, moderators, and advertisers.
In terms of community management, do you have any advice for maintaining a healthy and positive community on Reddit?
Community moderators are the heart of Reddit and we feel really fortunate to foster a platform of such passionate moderators who are so dedicated to keeping their communities safe and healthy.
As for brands engaging on Reddit, regardless of the industry, we encourage all advertisers to lead with authenticity. We often tell brands to think about advertising on Reddit like they would their own dinner party entrance. You wouldn’t walk into a crowded room and start yelling. Instead, you listen to the conversation and get to know your audience; learn about their interests to find a way to appropriately and impactfully engage; jump into the conversation in a relevant, authentic way and, most importantly, make sure you stick around for the back-and-forth!
Answers in Reddit AMAs can often make headlines in the gaming press – for good and bad reasons. What are the pitfalls to be avoided when running an AMA?
As with all brand engagement on Reddit, we encourage authenticity and transparency. AMA’s are such a fun format for brands to connect directly with their audience, and add real value to a community. They allow brands to showcase their personality, bring a human element to their marketing and give their audience often unprecedented access to the people behind the scenes.
A Swift Spotlight: Deep Silver Dambuster Studios
The name might have changed over the years, but Deep Silver Dambuster Studios is a staple of the British game development scene, demystifying the industry and improving employment opportunities
The studio’s original moniker of Free Radical Design brings a cult level of brand equity from devotees of the TimeSplitters franchise, so too with its Crytek UK past and subsequent involvement in the popular Crysis series. Since becoming Dambuster Studios back in 2014, when it was acquired by Deep Silver, the studio has continued to deliver quality, high budget, and narrativedriven experiences to the gaming masses, making its hometown of Nottingham, and the game development community within the midlands, proud. James Bowers of Aardvark Swift speaks with studio community manager, Toby Gallagher, about the studio’s culture, how it’s ensuring the next generation can transition to success within games, as well as how the team has found working remotely.
“I’d actually only been in the studio for about two weeks before we moved to remote working,” says Toby. “It was lovely to see everyone rallying together. The IT team, HR, and the production team did really well to get us all set up from home. Rob, our studio development director, and several other members of the production team, were driving to people’s houses, dropping off computers, and making sure everyone had what they needed. We’re still working at full capacity, which is great.”
As a relatively new addition to the Dambuster family, Toby saw his role as a natural progression to his previous marketing experience. It has allowed him to continue to be creative, and he’s been impressed by the internal culture and dedication on display from the rest of the team.
“Having worked in other content roles, I’ve had to literally chase people around the office, with the people I need information from actively avoiding me,” Toby says with a smile. “At Dambuster, people come to me with ideas. I know passion is a word that gets thrown around, but I think they’re that passionate and proud about what they are doing, that any avenue to talk about it they want to jump on.”
The supportive undertones of the studio struck Toby as early as his first interview. “They offered to pay for my travel and board the night before my interview, as they knew I was travelling in from Manchester; I’d never heard of anyone doing that before. Once I got the job, they offered me so much help and assistance with relocating locally. They helped with my bond and put me up in the studio apartment for two weeks, which they retain for new starters to make relocation easier.”
It’s not just financial support that Deep Silver Dambuster Studios is willing to provide to their team, it’s also the willingness to allow time for personal development. “Every other Wednesday afternoon our engineering team has a learning development window where they are given free rein to explore new things that they might be able to transfer over to work one day. It is completely free form and not something strictly on their task list.”
In the 2020/21 academic year, Deep Silver Dambuster Studios are also assisting the next generation, working hard to ensure the transition from education to employment is as painless as possible. “We might not always have a specific job vacancy, but the content pieces we’ve published about how to get specific jobs in the industry, and the work we’ve been doing with both Grads in Games and Into Games, is something we’ve really enjoyed. Having partnered with Grads in Games, a number of our team members have been involved in their webinars to students up and down the country.”
As well as growing their sphere of influence in employability and industry accessibility, Deep Silver Dambuster Studios is also actively expanding. “We’ve got quite a lot of vacancies in the studio at the minute, across the whole spectrum of disciplines,” adds Toby.
The studio is hard at work developing the next instalment in the Dead Island franchise, but for now, they don’t have any further details to share.
You’ll be able to listen to the full conversation with Toby Gallagher in an upcoming episode of the Aardvark Swift Podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, third party apps, and the aswift.com website. Above: Toby Gallagher, Studio Community Manager
Prepare for 2021 with new gaming audience insights
By Stephen Gray, Vertical Research Manager at Facebook
With more people staying home due to shelter-in-place and social distancing measures, 2020 brought disruption to many industries. And despite a surge in new and lapsed players, gaming was no exception. More people were playing, watching and streaming than ever before. This growing demand for gaming has meant finding fresh ways of connecting with new players, bringing in new gamers as well as reengaging lapsed ones. To understand the behavior of these new mobile gamers and the evolving game motivations of existing gamers, we surveyed consumers in nine countries to look at consumer behavior after March 2020. This article delves into data from four of those key strategic markets for many developers: US, UK, Germany, and South Korea. This research forms the basis for a new report, Games Marketing Insights for 2021, which is available to download for free today.
IN 2020, WE WELCOMED MILLIONS OF NEW PLAYERS
Shelter-in-place and social distancing measures have led to this surge of new gamers as people look for new forms of entertainment. To understand the impact, it’s important to look at how many more people have been playing games since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic.
Since March 2020, mobile gaming audiences have grown in every market we examined, with 25% more gamers in Germany, +28% in the US, +34% in South Korea and +50% in the UK. This means over 50 million more people in these markets alone are now turning to mobile gaming as a major source of entertainment and social connection.
These new gamers weren’t just a temporary spike; these consumers were still gaming in July 2020, several months after the initial peak of the outbreak. More than half indicated that they plan to continue mobile gaming as the world begins to recover from the outbreak.
Source: Games Marketing Insights for 2021, Facebook, 2020
A LOOK AT THESE NEW MOBILE GAMERS
As the report shows, in all markets except South Korea, new mobile gamers skewed significantly more towards core gaming behaviors than their existing gamer counterparts. New gamers, in aggregate, were younger than existing gamers. They were also more likely to own a gaming console and to play game genres more aligned with core behaviors (such as shooters). They also reported playing more hours per week.
HOW AND WHY GAMERS SPEND
New gamers were significantly more likely than existing ones to report spending money on mobile games since the start of the pandemic in all markets. They also reported spending more money per month on mobile games.
When it comes to the reasons why people spend money, there was more variety across markets than between the cohorts, some of which was tied to genre. In the US and UK, people were particularly motivated to pay to remove ads. In South Korea and Germany, people said they pay to avoid waiting or to skip difficult points (more typical of puzzle games). Previous research has shown that people are open to seeing ads in games. In our survey, mobile gamers across all markets said they prefer free-to-play, ad-supported games. In the US, UK, and Germany, the preference for ad-supported models was stronger in existing players. New players, on the other hand, were more open to alternative monetization models such as in-app purchases.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR GAME DEVELOPERS AND MARKETERS
1. Tailor your advertising campaigns to reach new gamers:
There are millions of new mobile gamers across the globe; be sure to broaden the reach of your advertising campaigns to make sure that you’re speaking to these new gamers with messaging that appeals towards their motivations for playing.
2. Understand the long-term value of new gamers:
New gamers exhibit stronger alignment with behaviors and attitudes consistent with core gamers—more so than established gamers. Consider the long-term impact new players will have in the mobile gaming space such as more core gaming behaviors and motivators for playing and purchasing.
3. Use a monetization model that resonates with new gamers:
Adopt mixed monetization models that take account of the increased time new gamers are spending in your games and their openness to in-app purchases.
GET YOUR FREE COPY OF THE REPORT
To learn more about this growing audience and help you prepare for the 2021 gaming landscape, download the report from: facebook.com/ fbgaminghome/blog for free today.
