We’ve tried Reddit Ads for newsletter promotion and paid between $1.5 and $2 per subscriber

Published: July 27, 2025, 12:10 p.m.

Reddit Ads for Newsletter Growth: 2-Month Case Study

Recently, I started working with a client who wanted to test Reddit Ads to grow their newsletter audience. They’re happy with the results so far, so I wanted to share some tips in case you’re exploring similar growth strategies.

Background

Their previous benchmark was $2.5–$3 per confirmed subscriber using the Beehiiv referral network.
They had trouble scaling results — Beehiiv had already saturated their reach.
The funnel begins with a newsletter where users can listen to stories and subscribe to an app.

Results After 2 Months

Acquired 500+ users at less than $2 per subscriber (some creatives achieved $1.50).
Identified several new creative angles from Reddit comments — ready to scale.
Discovered effective AI prompts to generate ad creatives and copy — also ready to scale.

Challenges

Audience research takes time — Reddit is more complex than Facebook for targeting.
Ad Manager UI is less intuitive compared to Facebook’s.

Lessons Learned

Start narrow — don’t target massive subreddits at first. Expand gradually.
Avoid letting Reddit auto-expand your audience — it reduces precision.
Use dynamic UTMs to track individual creatives.
Test as many creative angles as possible — and track performance closely.
Invest in robust tracking/reporting — API-based reporting helped us a lot.
Study your target subreddits: top posts, tone, sentiment, and community language.
Expand GEO targeting when possible — it can reduce costs significantly.
Experiment with CPC caps — they have a major impact on performance.

While it’s still a work in progress, this approach is already outperforming both the referral program and Facebook Ads for this specific use case. We’re planning further testing and optimization.

If you’re working with newsletters, I definitely recommend giving Reddit Ads a try.