Dive Brief:
- Horizon Media, PMG, and Wpromote have signed on as official independent agency partners with Reddit, according to the company. Tinuiti, which has been a part of the platform’s Independent Agency Program since 2022, has renewed its partnership.
- Participating agencies have access to features that are typically reserved for clients at the holding company level, such as new advertiser incentives, enhanced measurement tools, bespoke insights and early access to new ad product tests.
- The independents will also receive support from Reddit’s in-house creative agency KarmaLab and a roster of dedicated internal consultants who have experience working with disruptor and challenger brands.
Dive Insight:
Adding three new shops, and renewing the agreement with the first partner for its Independent Agency Program, helps Reddit establish its bonafides as it attempts to capture the attention and dollars of smaller brands. These moves come as Reddit looks to develop its global advertising business.
With more than 100,000 communities covering a wide range of topics on Reddit, the platform can be a particularly intimidating one for smaller brands, who often don’t have the resources, knowledge or scale of the larger agencies, to manage all the options available in digital media. These dynamics can leave many small-to-medium-sized clients at a disadvantage, as their larger competitors, who have contracted with holding companies, can use their clout to gain access to new initiatives and bespoke company experts.
Working with a wider array of independent agencies can help address this issue as the client rosters of independent agencies tend to be dominated by small-to-medium-sized businesses, in addition to representing enterprise and challenger brands.
“Independent agencies are an extremely valuable and influential part of the wider agency mix, representing clients of all kinds and sizes which is increasingly important for Reddit as we continue to scale our advertising business, particularly our mid-market and small business segments,” said Harold Klaje, Reddit’s chief revenue officer, in a statement.
The expansion of the Independent Agency Program takes place alongside Reddit’s ongoing relationships with agency holding companies. Last December, Reddit announced an enterprise partnership with Omnicom Media Group in Canada, following a similar March 2021 partnership with OMG’s U.S. operations. In March 2022, Reddit launched a consultative partnership with WPP to develop the platform’s commerce strategy.
Reddit continues to add new features to its Ads Manager, including new campaign creation tools, multi-currency support, improved search and improvements to bulk editing.
