How to structure a Reddit campaign: campaign, ad group and ad

Three levels, three jobs

The campaign holds the objective, the schedule and, in budget-optimized campaigns, the budget and bid strategy. The objective and the campaign type are set when you create it and cannot be changed later, so decide them first. Create the campaign paused, so that nothing spends until the ads are reviewed and you are ready.

The ad group is where targeting lives: communities, interests, keywords, locations, devices, languages, gender and age, custom audiences and a delivery schedule. In a campaign with ad group budgets, each ad group also carries its own daily budget, bid strategy and bid. This is the level to split by audience. One ad group per distinct audience, for example one for a cluster of closely related communities and one for a keyword list, lets reports show which audience works.

The ad holds the creative: a post with a headline, an image or video (or a carousel or text post) and a destination link. Several ads in one ad group let delivery compare messages. Keep them to a real difference, such as an offer versus a question, so the comparison tells you something.

Reddit offers Standard campaigns, where you choose targeting, budgets and bidding yourself, and Max campaigns, an automated type that builds ads from the headlines and media you supply. Standard gives control and clearer reading by community; Max trades control for automation. A small business that wants to learn which communities respond usually starts with Standard.

What a clean structure buys

A report you can read: each ad group answers one question about audience, each ad one about message.
Safer launches: a paused campaign with reviewed ads spends nothing until you decide.
Easier hand-offs: a name pattern and a structure another person can understand in a minute.

Plan the structure before you publish

Write the objective and the one result you will judge it by. Choose Standard unless you are deliberately handing control to automation.
Decide how budget will be controlled: one budget at campaign level, or a daily budget on each ad group. Make this choice before publishing, because the budget mode cannot be changed afterwards.
Create one ad group per audience hypothesis and name it for that hypothesis, such as communities-trucking or keywords-cdl.
Put two or three ads in each ad group that differ in one thing: the hook, the offer or the image.
Preview, publish and wait for the review. Record the structure in a short note so later changes can be compared with it.
After the first full week, remove or pause what is clearly not working and only then add new ad groups.

Rules to remember

Budget optimization at the campaign level is not offered for every objective, and its rules differ between Standard and Max campaigns. Check the account before planning around it.
Fewer, bigger ad groups learn faster on a small budget. Do not split a modest budget into many tiny groups.
In AdAce Ads you can read the structure of Reddit campaigns and, in early access, create a paused campaign with one ad group and one ad. Each later change is proposed and waits for your approval with a two-factor code.

Sources and further reading

Try it on your own accounts

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