Reddit ads targeting: communities, keywords and interests

This guide is built from Reddit Ads Help: About Audience Targeting, Reddit Audiences, Custom Audiences, Demographics and Automated Targeting. Setting up an account, campaigns and ad formats is in our Reddit ads for small businesses guide, and website tracking in our Reddit Pixel guide.

The four kinds of targeting

Reddit groups targeting into four types:

• Reddit audiences: interests, communities and keywords.
• Custom audiences: lists you build, such as website visitors, customer lists, lookalikes and people who engaged with your ads.
• Demographics: location, gender and language.
• Device and carrier: specific devices and mobile service providers.

All of these are set per ad group. Reddit's advice when starting out is to begin with interest targeting to broaden your audience, and if you use community targeting, "try to include at least 15 communities per ad group for best results".

Community targeting

Community targeting reaches people in specific subreddits: those who subscribed to, viewed or visited them in the last 28 days. The ad follows the person, not the subreddit. Reddit says these ads "may be shown anytime they're browsing on Reddit and aren't limited to being shown in the subreddits selected."

Not every community can serve ads. If a subreddit doesn't appear as you type, Reddit suggests checking the spelling first; if it still doesn't show, it probably isn't approved for ads.

Keyword targeting

Keyword targeting places your ad next to content that contains keywords you define. Reddit says it "takes a list of keywords, understands their context, and places your ad where it's most relevant", and it also reaches people whose past and current behaviour shows an interest in what you promote. Reddit says it is optimised for clicks and conversions and drives better lower-funnel performance than the other Reddit audience options.

• It is supported in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch, including accents and other language-specific characters.
• Reddit keeps a keyword blocklist for brand safety. Blocklisted words can't be targeted and are removed automatically when you add them.
• Negative keywords can't be single stop words (common words such as "for" or "the"), but stop words can sit inside a phrase such as "boots for hiking".

Interest targeting

Interests are topics people recently interacted with, based on the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standard and on the communities people subscribe to or visit. They come in groups with subgroups, from Animals & Pets and Business & Finance to Technology & Computing and Travel & Geography.

Custom audiences and lookalikes

Custom audiences are built in the Audience Manager and can be used to include or exclude people:

• Website retargeting: visitors tracked by the Reddit Pixel or Conversions API. You pick the events and a lookback window of 1 to 90 days (90 by default). Reddit recommends starting with at least 30 days.
• Customer lists: emails or mobile advertising IDs, uploaded as a CSV of at least 1,000 rows (up to 500 MB), pasted in, sent through the API or pushed from a partner such as LiveRamp. Processing can take up to 24 hours.
• Lookalikes: people similar to a website retargeting audience of at least 10,000 users or a customer list of at least 1,000 matched users. They can't be used for housing, employment, credit or political ads, and Reddit says automated targeting is required for all lookalike campaigns from March 2026.
• Engagement retargeting: people who saw, clicked, engaged with or watched your Reddit ads over the past six months. It needs no Pixel or upload, and new people are added automatically.

Custom audiences created in Ads Manager must have between 1,000 (25 for LiveRamp) and 1 million matches; larger audiences go through the API. A common use is exclusion: upload your buyers and exclude them, so ads reach people who haven't bought yet. Similar audiences on other platforms are covered in our guides to remarketing audiences and Meta lookalike audiences.

Location, gender, language and device

• Location: based on the person's IP address when the ad is served. Ads serve globally by default, so set locations yourself. You can include and exclude countries, regions, designated market areas (US only) and postal codes, up to 20,000 postal codes per ad group. Postal code targeting isn't available to housing, employment and credit advertisers, and Reddit notes that "Complete geolocation accuracy isn't guaranteed."
• Gender: in beta, based on the gender set in the user's profile. Reddit says it works best for awareness and isn't recommended for lower-funnel goals like purchases.
• Language: based on device and app settings, interactions and other signals, across 21 languages. Reddit advises using it only with a creative in a language that isn't the main one where you target, so not "English" for the US.
• Device and carrier: specific devices, wearables and mobile carriers, plus minimum and maximum OS version for app promotion. The device audience can't be edited after the ad group is created; you need a new ad group to change it.

How targeting combines

Reddit strongly recommends separating targeting types into different ad groups, but you can combine them. The rules matter, because they decide whether you widen or narrow the audience:

• Interests, communities and keywords are OR with each other: adding more widens the audience.
• Custom audiences are OR with each other, but AND with Reddit audiences: a customer list plus a set of communities reaches only listed people active in those communities.
• Location, language, gender, device and carrier are always AND: they narrow everything else.

With automated targeting on for custom audiences, the relationship changes: Reddit audiences and custom audiences become OR with each other, so people outside your list can see the ad.

Automated targeting

Automated targeting is on by default. It uses machine learning on your targeting, campaign settings, landing page and on-Reddit engagement to find people beyond your selection. When it is on, Reddit splits your inputs into two kinds:

• Audience suggestions: signals such as your interests, communities and keywords, which guide delivery but don't limit who sees the ad.
• Audience controls: device, carrier, location and language, which are always respected.

It does not override your community and keyword exclusions or brand safety settings. Reddit advises using it from the start and waiting at least two weeks before judging performance. One reporting trap: if a community appears in your report, "it doesn't mean your ad ran there". It means people associated with that community were in your audience. If you want to test one exact set of communities, turn automated targeting off in the ad group.

Excluding communities and keywords

Brand safety exclusions are managed at ad account level:

• Communities: up to 1,000 excluded communities. Reddit notes that subscribers of those communities may still see your ads in their home feed.
• Keywords: your ad isn't placed where the post above or below has the keyword in its headline. Use an asterisk for prefixes and suffixes ("bad*" also blocks "badmouth"), or two- and three-word phrases. Each word counts towards a 2,000-keyword limit. This applies to text only, not images, videos or takeover campaigns.

Audience estimates

The estimates tool forecasts audience size, reach, impressions and clicks for an ad group. Reddit says audience size estimates "are directional only", use a 30-day window, include logged-in and logged-out users, and are not a guarantee of delivery or a measure of Reddit's active users. After launch, View insights in the dashboard shows performance by interest, community, keyword and gender.

What you can't target

Reddit's targeting guidelines apply to including and excluding alike. Advertisers may not use Reddit's tools to discriminate, and Reddit prohibits targeting by sensitive categories, including health data, political beliefs, religious beliefs, race or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, immigration status, veteran status and users under 18. Housing, employment and credit advertisers also lose some options, such as postal codes, gender and lookalikes.

How we set up targeting

This is our own practice, not Reddit's guidance:

• We build one ad group per targeting type (communities, keywords, interests, retargeting) so results show which one works.
• We set location on every ad group, because ads serve globally by default.
• We upload customer lists as exclusions in prospecting ad groups.
• We leave automated targeting on, give it two weeks, and read community reports as audience signals, not placements.

If you want help with Reddit or other paid social campaigns, see our services.

Frequently asked questions

Can I target specific subreddits with Reddit ads?

Yes. Community targeting reaches people who subscribed to, viewed or visited the subreddits you choose in the last 28 days. The ad can show anywhere they browse on Reddit, not only in those subreddits.

How many communities should I target?

Reddit suggests at least 15 communities per ad group for best results.

Which languages does keyword targeting support?

English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch.

How big must a Reddit custom audience be?

Between 1,000 (25 for LiveRamp) and 1 million matches in Ads Manager. A lookalike needs a seed of at least 10,000 website visitors or 1,000 matched customers.

Does automated targeting ignore my exclusions?

No. Reddit says automated targeting respects community and keyword exclusions and brand safety settings, and always respects location, language, device and carrier controls.

For targeting on other platforms, see our guides to Snapchat ads targeting, LinkedIn ads targeting, TikTok ads targeting and Pinterest ads targeting.