Reddit Hires Former Meta Exec as It Continues to Woo Marketers

Reddit has hired former Meta exec Jim Squires in a newly created role of evp of business marketing and growth, the latest move in the platform’s charm offensive toward the marketing community, Adweek can exclusively report.

With the appointment of Squires, Reddit will be uniting the product marketing team, responsible for listening to marketer needs and working with the engineers to create new ad products, and the business marketing team, which handles outbound efforts, previously two separate departments.

Squires, who worked at Meta for 13 years and helped bring advertising to Facebook’s newsfeed and Instagram, will be charged with expanding Reddit’s work with small businesses and with growing Reddit’s international footprint.

The hire is Reddit’s latest move to woo advertisers as it prepares for a long-awaited IPO.

In the past year, Reddit has released a bevy of new ad products, including updates to its self-serve ad manager tool, a simple creative tool to help make ad campaigns, over 1,000 new communities for advertisers to target and a tool that makes these communities easier to search.

The platform has also offered increased support for marketers hoping to design campaigns bespoke to the platform, sources tell Adweek, and has offered discounts to agencies. Reddit told Canvas Worldwide that it would waive the 15% media fee typically associated with using third-party data, said Raul Tafur, vp of paid social. Reddit did not comment on offering agency discounts.

Some of the efforts appear to be paying off. Since the beginning of the year, Reddit has signed up thousands of new advertisers to the platform and doubled the number of advertisers activating campaigns, the company said. Reddit’s U.S. advertiser revenues are anticipated to increase by 15% to $443.9 million this year, according to Insider Intelligence.

Yet, Reddit is still an underdog among social platforms. By comparison, Insider Intelligence pegs TikTok’s 2023 revenue at $8.75 billion. Ad buyers told Adweek that they are finding more success with Reddit campaigns than previously, but it still has work to do to become a serious performance player or mainstay of the media budget.

Marketers, meet Reddit

Reddit has not always been known as a place for advertising, with brands fearing previous brand safety scandals and tight-knit communities that are wary of intrusion.

“Some [clients] are a little bit more cautious about going into Reddit for the reason of the Reddit backlash,” said Tom Olivieri, group director of creative services at performance agency Within. “They feel they can do more harm than good to their brand.”

Olivieri said that recently, Reddit has climbed to take up around 5% of budgets, driven by the platform’s agency outreach and new tools, marketers wanting to diversify away from Twitter, TikTok and brands wanting to connect with Reddit’s niche communities.

Reddit is this community of communities focused around interest and having anonymity.

Jim Squires, evp of business marketing and growth, Reddit

Within’s clients have found success testing messaging within Reddit’s communities before rolling out the messages wider.

“The Redditters … let you know if this feels wrong,” said Olivieri.

Breanne Morrison, vp of paid social and search engine marketing at Publicis Canada, expects clients’ investment to increase between 70% and 80% year over year, which she attributed to the platform’s growth in Canada and improved performance.

Riches in niches

Marketers have struggled to find a place for Reddit on the media plan, given its text-based, anonymous nature is different than most other social platforms. Squires is positioning this difference as an asset.

“Reddit is this community of communities focused around interest and having anonymity,” Squires told Adweek. “It’s not focused around the individual. It’s not focused around the me; it’s focused around the we.”  

This resonates with some marketers.

“With paid social and influencer marketing being such a cluttered space, Reddit stands out for being the anti-influencer platform,” said Phil Lewicki, associate media director at agency Dagger.

Reddit is a place where people go because they’re genuinely interested in learning about a topic rather than becoming famous. That helps brands who want to drive discoverability and clicks to their site, said Natasha Blumenkron, senior director of paid social at Tinuiti.

Indeed, a viral blog post last year noting the flaws in Google started with the claim that Reddit is the most popular search engine.

“If I’m looking for a new pair of shoes or boots, I can talk to people on the subreddit,” Blumenkron said. “If I see a brand with very unique messaging, they’re right where I am in my journey.”  

Still, several marketers said Reddit does not serve as a true performance platform that can drive sales. Tafur’s clients still have been reluctant to test Reddit, even with discounts and new tools.

“There needs to be a re-education for the clients,” Tafur said. “Reditters can go really dark and can go really wholesome, and the fear of being in that mix can stop clients from activating.”