The Rise of Reddit in Search Marketing

Optimising Reddit: Why the Platform is Becoming Central to Brand Growth

In the ever-shifting digital landscape, Reddit has emerged as an unexpected but powerful player in brand growth. Once considered a niche community forum, it has become a vital space for search behaviour, audience insights, and even content creation—making it a valuable tool for marketers and SEO teams.

Founded in 2005, Reddit has steadily built an engaged user base. Recent partnerships—such as content licensing with Google and integrations with ChatGPT—have amplified its relevance. According to SimilarWeb, it is now the seventh most visited website globally, placing it firmly on marketers’ radar.

Consumers are no longer relying solely on Google for answers. Instead, they are diversifying their search habits, often turning to Reddit for authentic, human-driven perspectives. In fact, it is currently the sixth most searched term on Google, and studies show that nearly two-thirds of Americans use Reddit as a search engine weekly. Even more striking, 41% of Reddit users believe it outperforms Google as a source of answers.

This behaviour shift matters for brands. Google itself now integrates Reddit posts into search results, while AI-driven tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT rely heavily on Reddit content, sourcing up to 46% of their information from the platform.

Who Uses Reddit—and Why it Matters

Reddit’s reach is strongest in English-speaking countries, with steady growth across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Around 21% of Americans and 14% of Brits use Reddit weekly, and usage has increased every year since 2020.

The platform skews young and male, with nearly 60% of UK users aged 16–34. Unlike TikTok or Instagram, Reddit is less about passive scrolling and more about active participation. Features such as upvotes, downvotes, and threaded comments encourage meaningful interaction. With more than 138,000 active subreddits, there is a space for nearly every interest—making it a goldmine for understanding customer needs, frustrations, and preferences.

Why Brands Can’t Ignore Reddit

Even if only part of your audience actively uses Reddit, its influence extends far beyond the platform itself. Conversations on Reddit shape Google search results, impact AI-generated answers, and fuel broader cultural trends. For brands, this means visibility and sentiment on Reddit have downstream effects on wider search performance.

Rather than viewing Reddit purely as an ad platform, marketers should approach it as both an SEO resource and an insight engine. By analysing conversations, brands can uncover long-tail keywords, track sentiment, and identify emerging themes to inform content strategies. This creates opportunities to develop audience-centric messaging across websites, blogs, and social channels.

Best Practices for Brands

Success on Reddit requires subtlety. The platform thrives on authenticity and minimal brand interference, so heavy-handed campaigns risk alienating users. Instead, brands should:

• Use social listening to track mentions, sentiment, and competitor activity.

• Mine conversations for keyword research and content ideas.

• Consider establishing subreddits or AMAs to build trust—but always align with community culture.

• Measure success not only in clicks but also in engagement, sentiment, and conversation quality.

Brands that get Reddit right will gain an edge in the new search + AI era.

Reddit has transformed into more than a discussion forum—it’s now a cornerstone of search, AI training, and consumer insight. For brands, the opportunity lies not in dominating the space with overt advertising, but in listening, learning, and carefully participating. Done well, Reddit can fuel marketing strategies, inspire relevant content, and deepen audience understanding—without undermining the authenticity that makes the platform so valuable.