A year since launching its own native video, "the front page of the internet" Reddit is seeing more than a billion video views per month on average.
The platform said that it experienced a 38 percent growth in native videos since the start of the year, with advertisers seeing higher conversion rates and more engagement with video ads.
"Reddit’s beta video advertisers are seeing significant increases in key metrics such as brand favorability and purchase intent when compared with non-video ads. In fact, a recent study by Milward Brown indicates that Reddit Video is performing considerably better than industry averages for digital video advertising," said Reddit’s senior communications manager, Christine Cassis.
According to Cassis, advertisers on Redditare seeing 2.3 times more conversions with video ads compared to static ads, with some campaigns earning 3.5 times higher engagement rates.
Reddit went as far as saying its video ad view rates are comparable to Facebook video views.
More on Reddit video:
- Reddit claims to serve more than 400,000 hours of natively hosted videos everyday, and 13 million hours of video watched monthly on the platform.
- Mobile video views on Reddit have doubled since August, with 70 percent of views happening on Reddit’s mobile apps.
- Reddit creators are posting 50 percent more video posts since the redesign, with a million videos posted by creators in August alone - representing a 31 percent increase year over year.
The company’s VP of product Alex Le said that the growth in Reddit's native video hasn’t been detrimental to videos hosted on other platforms like YouTube. "We are still seeing a lot of links being published," he said.
Professionally-produced content from media companies and online video creators is not something the company is actively courting, Le explained. But he also acknowledged that Reddit sees an opportunity in and plans to explore longer-form video, which is something that professional video makers are good at.
"What we wanted to do was set out on a path where video is another tool that our communities can use," Le continued. "That’s where we have seen the most uptake."
With this achievement, Reddit plans to make it even easier for its users to discover videos in a dedicated environment, and also to continue to watch videos around a subject. However, the company still wants to keep users engaged, and have them take part in the discussions on the service.
According to Le, "So much of what happens on Reddit is very lean-forward."
Reddit has made big changes in the past year, from a major overhaul of its website to the launch of native video ads optimized for the redesign. With news that it is now pulling more than a billion video views per month, Reddit is hoping to appeal more marketers as a platform that offers competitive reach and results.