The Complete Reddit Ads Retargeting Guide
When you’re looking for honest product reviews, where do you go? For a lot of people, the answer is Reddit.
In fact, 74% of Reddit users say they rely on the platform to guide their purchasing decisions, which makes it one of the most effective channels for reaching high-intent audiences.
The challenge is that Reddit users are notoriously ad-averse. If you’re not targeting the right audiences, your ads are likely to be ignored or, worse, called out. One of the most reliable ways to generate results on Reddit is through retargeting.
In this complete Reddit Ads retargeting guide, we break down the strategies we use at InterTeam to re-engage high-intent visitors, filter out low-quality traffic, and convert users based on real engagement with your brand.
Is Reddit Retargeting Effective?
Reddit retargeting campaigns can be extremely effective, but only if you create your retargeting audiences based on clear intent signals.
This is because Reddit is often used as an important research channel for users in the consideration stage of their buying journey. Users often find a brand through a Google search, but rely on Reddit for honest reviews and discussions.
For this reason, Reddit works really well as part of an omnichannel advertising strategy, where you create a first touch through a search campaign, from which you can build retargeting audiences to reengage users on Reddit.
Another reason Reddit is so effective for retargeting is its affordable costs. CPCs average under $5 for retargeting campaigns on Reddit, which is much more affordable than Google or LinkedIn, which often exceed $40 per click.
At the same time, Reddit users are much more engaged than those on other platforms. The average session on Reddit lasts about 18 minutes, and post detail pages make up 52% of the total time spent on the platform. This means users are actively participating in conversation threads, where they are seeking honest feedback on a product or service.
By appearing in these locations to users who have already shown past engagement through your website, you are able to reaffirm your brand’s position as an authority in their market, leading to improved conversion rates at lower total costs than you would experience with cold audiences.
Types of Reddit Retargeting Audiences
Reddit lets you build retargeting audiences around three types of sources: customer lists, engagement audiences, and website retargeting.
At InterTeam, we prioritize website retargeting because it lets you build audiences based on signals you can measure yourself. Still, each type of audience has its benefits.
Here are the three types of Reddit retargeting audiences you can build.
Customer List Retargeting
Customer list retargeting lets you upload first-party data to build audiences around email lists you already have. These can come from direct CSV uploads, the custom audience API, or partner integrations.
Because email addresses are required to match users, customer lists are most effective for building exclusion audiences.
At InterTeam, we use customer list retargeting to exclude:
- Existing customers
- Current employees
- Competitor employees
While customer lists are most commonly used for exclusions, they can also be effective for upselling or cross-selling when retargeting existing customers with higher-tier offers.
Reddit Engagement Retargeting
Reddit engagement audiences are built from users who have interacted with your ads or content directly on the platform.
These audiences can include:
- People who have engaged with your ads
- People who have seen your ads
- People who have clicked your ads
- People who have watched your videos
At InterTeam, we typically only recommend adding engagement audiences if your audience size is already limited based on website interactions. This is because site-based events usually outperform native Reddit engagement audiences.
Website Retargeting
Website retargeting is the most reliable way to build retargeting audiences on Reddit because it allows you to target users based on real interactions with your site.
Before you can start retargeting website visitors on the platform, you need to set up the Reddit Pixel using Google Tag Manager or by adding the code directly to your site.
This step is critical, as the Reddit Pixel captures on-site activity, allowing you to track important actions on your website that can be used to build retargeting audiences.
The Reddit Pixel supports eight different standard event types:
- Page Visit – A person lands on a page. It lets you know they visited the page’s URL, but doesn’t tell you what they did or saw.
- View Content – A person lands on a specific webpage, such as a product page, or views a particular piece of content.
- Search – A person submits a search query on your website.
- Add to Cart – A person adds an item to their shopping cart.
- Add to Wishlist – A person adds an item to their wish list.
- Purchase – A person completes a purchase.
- Lead – A person submits information expressing interest in an advertised product or offer.
- Sign Up – A person submits a form, such as a subscription, registration, or sign-up form.
These standard events support basic tracking, but for the best results, you should also set up custom events.
At InterTeam, we like to use custom event triggers for unique actions, like specific form fills on the site and for tracking high-intent page visits, time on site, and scroll depth. This helps us filter out users who land on the site and bounce quickly, so we can focus exclusively on high-intent audiences.
Note: You can create retargeting audiences based on custom events, but you cannot use them as a conversion goal. You can only use the standard Reddit event types as conversion goals for your ad groups.
Creating High-Intent Retargeting Audiences
With the Reddit Pixel set up, you can start building retargeting audiences. The good news is that you don’t need a ton of data to get started. Reddit retargeting can be highly effective with smaller audiences built around high-intent signals.
Below are the steps we use at InterTeam to build high-intent retargeting audiences that drive conversions and scale performance for our clients.
Step 1: Select the Type of Audience You Want to Retarget
To start retargeting on Reddit, you need to select the type of engagement you want to build your retargeting audiences around.
Reddit allows you to create six types of retargeting audiences:
- People who visited your website
- People who performed a specific event on your website
- People who engaged with your ads
- People who clicked your ads
- People who saw your ads
- People who watched your videos
At InterTeam, we prioritize engagement signals that you can measure yourself.
Site-based events typically outperform native Reddit post engagement audiences for lead generation, since accidental or bot clicks don’t always result in a page view.
This allows you to exclude a large portion of low-quality traffic by retargeting website visitor audiences instead of post engagement audiences.
Step 2: Add Your Audiences to an Ad Set
Once your retargeting audiences are created, the next step is applying them at the ad set level.
One of the main benefits of building retargeting audiences from website visitors is that you can set custom event triggers around high-intent signals.
At InterTeam, we create events for:
- High-intent page visits, such as pricing, demo, integrations, case studies, and comparison pages
- At least 50% scroll depth
- At least 30 seconds or more time on the site
By creating these filters, we ensure our retargeting lists are built around users who have shown clear engagement with our website, while removing bounced sessions and bot traffic.
When it comes to retargeting, intent matters more than audience size. Smaller retargeting lists built around high-intent audiences often outperform larger “all visitor” pools. By focusing your campaigns on your highest-intent users, you can drive more leads while reducing wasted ad spend.
Step 3: Apply Exclusion Audiences
Another way we reduce low-quality leads from our retargeting campaigns is by layering in exclusion audiences. These include obviously low-intent users.
Common exclusion audiences we use include:
- Bots
- Visitors who bounce immediately
- Job seekers
- Current customers
- Employees
- Competitor employees
- Students
By combining high-intent segmentation with strong exclusion audiences, we are able to create retargeting lists built exclusively around high-intent leads, while reducing the number of low-intent audiences that enter our sales funnel.
Step 4: Segment by Lookback Window
Next, you want to refine your list further by segmenting by lookback window. Reddit has different maximum windows for each type of retargeting. Website visitors have a max lookback window of 90 days, while engagement audiences have a max window of 180 days.
These windows matter because purchase intent can decay quickly, especially among high-intent audiences. However, you still want to focus your efforts on users who show clear purchase intent.
That’s why you typically want to use longer lookback windows on higher-intent audiences and shorter lookback windows on lower-intent behavior. This helps ensure your budget isn’t wasted showing ads to lower-intent users who never progress further down the funnel.
For best results, you should test multiple recency windows to see what performs best for your sales cycle. Just be sure to exclude shorter recency window audiences from longer window campaigns to avoid double-serving ads.
Step 5: Use Retargeting Audiences to Create Lookalike Audiences
As your retargeting lists grow, you can start expanding your reach using Reddit’s lookalike audiences. These require a seed list of at least 10,000 website retargeting users and allow the platform to expand your audience by targeting users that resemble your highest-intent leads.
While lookalike audiences are not as effective as retargeting lists built from first-party data, they can still be useful for scaling reach once your core retargeting campaigns are performing well.
Reddit Ads Retargeting Best Practices
Once your retargeting audiences are set up correctly, performance on Reddit comes down to execution. Audience size matters far less than how well your creative, targeting, and placements are aligned to user intent.
The best practices below are based on what we’ve seen work consistently across active Reddit Ads campaigns.
Test Ad Formats to Find What Works
Reddit offers several ad formats, and retargeting performance depends on matching the format to the offer and stage of the sales cycle. This requires testing.
In our experience, carousel ads tend to perform best for retargeting, especially when paired with multi-feature, multi-use-case, or comparison-driven messaging.
Video ads can also work well when promoting demos or products that require explanation, but they should be tested carefully. Reddit is a text-first platform, and video ads often underperform when handled incorrectly.
A good place to start is by importing top-performing creatives from other channels and adapting them for Reddit.
If you want a deeper breakdown of Reddit ad formats, including when to use each one and how they perform across different funnel stages, check out our Reddit Ad Types Guide.
Test Feed vs Conversation Ad Placements
Reddit ads can be displayed in either feed or conversation placements. Feed placements tend to perform best for educational and awareness-based campaigns, while conversation placements often drive higher conversion rates for high-intent users.
One reason for this is that conversation threads generate the highest levels of engagement on the platform. They also tend to attract higher volumes of organic and AI referral traffic, which are often among the highest-intent audiences on Reddit.
For this reason, conversation placements are often a strong starting point for retargeting campaigns. But, if your retargeting audience is large enough, it’s worth testing both placements to see what performs best for your specific sales cycle.
Test Layering in High-Intent Community Targeting to Reach Higher-Intent Users
Layering community targeting on top of retargeting audiences can help refine your targeting and improve the relevance of your ads, but only if your retargeting audience is large enough to support it.
By targeting high-intent communities, you gain more control over who your retargeting campaigns reach. The challenge is identifying which communities to include.
At InterTeam, we use three methods to identify high-intent communities:
- Check the Ad Group interface for suggested related communities during setup
- Search Google for “[your keyword] + reddit” to see which subreddits appear in real discussions
- Target communities that have already performed well within your retargeting campaigns
In general, smaller and more relevant subreddits tend to outperform larger, more generalized communities. That said, the communities you target still need to be large enough to be effective when layered on top of your retargeting list. It’s a balance between relevance, volume, and intent.
You can check out our Guide to Reddit Ads Targeting for more helpful tips for reaching high intent audiences.
Match Creative to Funnel Stage
Retargeting creative should always reflect where the user is in your sales funnel. Warm audiences tend to respond better to messaging that focuses on clarity and education, rather than aggressive calls to action.
As intent increases, creative can become more direct. High-intent audiences are more receptive to clear offers and defined next steps, especially when the messaging assumes familiarity with your brand instead of reintroducing it. The goal at this stage is to remove friction from the decision-making process, not restart the conversation.
Direct calls to action, such as demos or promotions, should be reserved for lower-funnel retargeting and tested first in higher-intent environments like desktop and conversation placements.
Integrate CRM Data to Optimize for Lead Quality
The Reddit Pixel provides enough data to build effective retargeting audiences. However, for the best results, CRM integration allows campaigns to optimize toward down-funnel actions that have a more direct impact on pipeline, not just raw form fills.
By syncing lead status signals such as MQLs, SQLs, or opportunities back into Reddit, you can inform bidding and delivery toward higher-quality outcomes over time. These lifecycle stage conversions can be used as conversion actions, helping improve bidding and delivery for leads that actually progress through the funnel.
These higher-quality conversion signals can also be used to build lookalike audiences, exclusion lists, and more refined retargeting audiences.
Real Results From Reddit Retargeting
Retargeting plays an important role across all of our Reddit Ads campaigns, helping drive conversions while keeping cost per lead low. Below are a few examples of real results we’ve generated for clients using Reddit retargeting as part of their paid media strategy:
- Multi-Channel Performance Marketing Case Study - 3.5x increase in monthly leads and a 50% reduction in CPL, driven in part by Reddit retargeting
- SaaS PPC Case Study - 23x more sign-ups and a $676 lower CPL using Google Ads supported by Reddit retargeting
- Reddit Advertising Case Study - 6x ROAS and a 77% lower CPL through Reddit Ads
Work With A Reddit Retargeting Expert
To run an effective retargeting campaign on Reddit, you need a partner who knows how to build and target audiences based on high-intent engagement signals.
As a leading Reddit Ads Agency, we’ve run dozens of Reddit campaigns that rely on seamless data integration to identify high-intent audiences and turn them into high-converting retargeting campaigns that generate real, scalable pipeline for our clients.
Click here to request a custom ad strategy call with our founder.
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