Drive Product Demo Video Views with Reddit Ads (w/ Liam MacCormack & OpsLevel)
Learn how Liam MacCormack helped a B2B developer tool company gain fantastic traction with their ICP by leveraging relevant Reddit communities.
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Meet Liam MacCormack – growth consultant for early stage B2B SaaS startups.
In 2021, Liam was consulting with OpsLevel, a developer portal company. Liam was tasked with helping OpsLevel build solution awareness amongst their ICP (Ideal Customer Profiles) in order to drive pipeline growth.
After talking with the product marketing team and consulting with OpsLevel customers, Liam identified specific subreddits that their current customers (and therefore their ICP) were using to educate themselves about the problem OpsLevel was solving. He then decided to create a product demo video and get as many views from his ICP by using it as creative in Reddit Ads.
How OpsLevel Tested Reddit Ads
First, Liam and the team put together a quick 60-second subtitled product demo video, and added a "thumb-stopping" splash page at the start of the video that called out the problem OpsLevel solved. They optimized their campaigns for video views, taking aim at solution awareness as their primary goal.
After clicking on an ad, users were sent to OpsLevel’s homepage instead of a lead capture "Book a Demo" page. Liam wanted to make it easy for people to find the information they wanted rather than try to shoehorn them into a demo. He believed that people would book a demo if the product was right for them.
OpsLevel’s Reddit Ads Test Results
In the first 24 hours, they received 172 full video views on just $110 in spend, equating to $0.64 per full viewing and a $2.36 CPM - very strong performance for an extremely targeted audience.
They also had 3 ICP leads book demos on the website, who self-attributed to Reddit Ads. One even wrote "Reddit Ads. Good job marketing team."
Those 3 leads gave them a cost per lead of $36.67. Within 24 hours, Reddit Ads as a program moved from "Experimentation" phase to a "Drive Significant Pipeline" phase.
How OpsLevel Scaled Their Reddit Ads Channel
OpsLevel’s addressable market was not huge, so they had to be thoughtful about scaling. Simply putting more budget behind their test campaign wasn’t enough.
First, they began split testing between the original five subreddits their ICP spent time on, aiming to understand out which provided the best results. Once they had a handle on which performed best, they also started expanding testing to other subreddits they suspects might work as well.
Concurrently, creative testing began. To keep costs low, they edited clips from taped talks they were already doing with people their ICPs are likely to follow on Twitter, and tested this educational content against the more direct product demo content. They’re actually still testing these things today.
The success of this test actually led to a broader shift in strategy, too. They now plan on creating their own content & community engine to build off the momentum they’ve achieved piggy-backing off of Reddit.
How You Can Drive Video Views with Reddit Ads
Prioritize channel tests based on where your customers already are. Sounds obvious, right? Even so, far too many companies pick channel tests based on previous experience and industry standards. Product teams preach about being customer centric - growth teams should be, too.
Adapt creative for the channel. Ad creative must align with the expectations and habits of the people using the platform. It helps ads to not feel like ads. The more incongruent creative feels, the more users will see the hook for what it is.
Speak your customer’s language. Using the words your customers use quickly communicates that you understand them deeply. This means they’ll trust you when you pitch your solution.
Focusing on educating over converting can sometimes have the inverse effect. All companies want to convert viewers into leads. But pushing too hard for conversion can scare away more sophisticated users. Leaning into being helpful can sometimes indirectly lead to a better conversion rate.
Shift your mindset from “Scaling Campaigns” to “Building Growth Programs”. Paid media has diminishing returns, so you must find ways to use the traction it creates to launch other growth efforts you have more control over.
Liam is currently growth consultant for early stage B2B SaaS startups. Connect with him on his LinkedIn.