Beauty brands have been present on Reddit for the last decade, but in many ways, they’re just getting started.
The latest brand to dive into Reddit advertising is the K-beauty brand Laneige. In March, as part of the brand’s full-funnel multi-platform campaign for its Water Bank collection, Laneige tapped into Reddit’s promoted posts and video ad feature. Laneige used promoted posts and videos across multiple Subreddits including r/skincareaddiction, which has 2.2. million members, and r/AsianBeauty, with 1.9 million members. Laneige was not able to set targeting parameters like age or gender. But Laneige was interested in promoting brand awareness, purchase consideration and intent. The results showed that Laneige succeeded, with a 50% higher click-through rate than Reddit’s beauty vertical benchmark and a 42% higher video completion rate than Reddit’s beauty vertical benchmark for six-second videos.
“We knew the beauty communities on Reddit are so strong, and that they have a strong affinity toward beauty and skin care,” said Shrija Pandya, senior manager of growth and performance marketing at Laneige. “From a media perspective, we were trying to understand what we could do that was new and innovative and how we could build upon the channels where we have untapped new audiences.”
Though Reddit itself was viewed as an upper-funnel marketing tactic, Laneige did see that it could drive people further down the funnel, said Pandya. That included sending significant traffic to the brand’s website, she said, though she declined to share how much. Pandya described Laneige’s advertising messaging as fun and approachable, with an “in case you missed it” tone of voice. Laneige’s CPM for the campaign was 22% more efficient than Reddit’s beauty vertical benchmark.
“There’s space for Reddit to be an always-on strategy for us going forward,” said Pandya.
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According to Reddit, citing consumer insights platform GWI’s fourth-quarter 2022 data, 78% of female U.S. Redditors use makeup and cosmetic beauty products daily. Furthermore, according to Reddit data, the top Subreddit community for Reddit beauty conversation is r/skincareaddiction, with 14.3 million monthly screen views. This is followed by pimple-focused r/popping, at 13.1 million monthly views, and then r/makeupaddiction, at 8 million views.
“Reddit [users] tend to be really ahead of trends; they’re early adopters,” said Paulita David, senior managing director for large customer sales at Reddit. “Beauty brands are among our most innovative ad clients. They’re typically some of our first alpha testers [for ad products], and often use solutions and products across the entire Reddit ad suite to reach consumers across the funnel.”
Reddit is actively courting advertisers through a newer Client Council program for large beauty players including Target and Walgreens. Client Council is an invite-only, in-person executive networking and advertising event hosted by Reddit. The first was held in Manhattan during the summer. This is similar to pre-existing advertiser events from TikTok, Amazon and Pinterest. Reddit plans to host these events quarterly.
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In the future, Pandya sees greater potential to activate keyword targeting and a takeover on certain Subreddit channels. Laneige is also considering having a brand executive host an “Ask Me Anything,” where people could directly engage with the brand.
The three big takeaways for Laneige are that Reddit is a viable way to tap into beauty conversations already taking place and to expand on them while gaining more brand fans. According to Brandwatch Global, there was a 161% year-over-year increase in product recommendations-focused conversations in skin-care communities on Reddit between Jan. and Dec. 2022. In addition, Pandya said, Reddit has a halo effect beyond the brand’s initial KPIs, and ultimately, it’s a platform Laneige will become more involved in.
