What are the Reddit ad specs?
Article
Claron Kinny
|
Growth & Content
A product range might use the sequence to move through different SKUs. A considered purchase can compare features. A more instructional campaign can explain a short process. A collection launch might start with the range and let the following cards take shoppers deeper into individual products.
The first card still needs to work without a swipe. Every card after it should repay the interaction.
When six cards repeat the same lifestyle treatment with minor copy changes, the campaign creates more Production without adding much customer value. Creative intelligence matters before the sequence is built because the stronger question is what deserves another card, not what can fit into one.
Reddit Free-Form ads help when context affects the product decision
Reddit Free-Form ads combine rich text with images, GIFs, video, and links in a promoted post. Reddit’s current recommendations include headlines below 80 characters, square imagery around 1200 × 1200 px, and landscape imagery around 1440 × 1080 px or 1920 × 1080 px.
The format becomes useful when the customer genuinely needs more information before a standard click-through makes sense.
A technical product can need explanation. A premium product may need craftsmanship or provenance. A crowded category can benefit from comparison. A new product can require education before a shopper is ready to evaluate it.
The extra space only helps when there is something worth saying in it. A proposition that already works inside one image and headline does not become stronger merely because the format permits several paragraphs.
Canada Goose separates storytelling from product conversion
Canada Goose used Free-Form ads to explain the heritage and craftsmanship behind its Chilliwack Bomber, while Dynamic Product ads moved lower-funnel shoppers toward relevant products.
Reddit reports 2.58x return on ad spend (ROAS) for the broader campaign.
The structure is useful because one format is not being asked to solve the entire campaign. Free-Form handles product and brand context, while catalog-powered creative supports the shopping decision when the customer is ready.
Once the same campaign begins appearing inside active discussions, placement starts influencing the creative as much as format.
Reddit’s Conversation Placement needs to be planned around the discussion, not only the asset
Conversation Placement is better understood as where supported creative appears than as an entirely separate creative format.
Image, Video, and Carousel ads can appear inside Reddit conversation pages and comment threads, where someone has already chosen to spend more time reading about a topic.
The asset may be similar to the feed version, but the context around it is different.
A feed ad competes with other posts for attention. A conversation placement appears beside recommendations, questions, experiences, and disagreements that somebody deliberately opened.
That context should influence what Creative sees before the copy is finalized. A broad awareness headline may still work. In another community, a proof point, product detail, or different opening may make more sense because the reader is already deeper into consideration.
Paid Marketing should therefore share the intended Conversation Placement, communities, and keyword groups while the message is still being shaped. Creative Ops can then preview the asset in both feed and conversation environments and produce the 400 × 300 px thumbnail under 500 KB where required.
Levi’s reaches people while they are already evaluating style choices
Levi’s used Conversation Placement alongside community, interest, and keyword targeting for a UK campaign. Redditor Highlights also brought organic user sentiment into the advertising experience.
Reddit reports a 9% increase in add-to-carts and a 7% increase in page visits in the campaign’s Brand Lift results.
View the Levi’s Conversation Placement campaign
The useful point for a consumer brand is the role the placement played. The campaign reached people in an environment where style choices were already being researched and validated, so the creative could work differently from broad feed awareness.
Reddit Product ads bring product data into the creative workflow
Reddit Product ads and Dynamic Product ads add another source of creative input because some customer-facing information now comes directly from the product catalog.
With Product ads, the advertiser selects which products to promote. Dynamic Product ads use Reddit’s machine learning to choose products from the catalog for prospecting and retargeting. Reddit recommends catalog images of at least 500 × 500 px, with JPG or PNG image URLs.
For E-commerce and Creative Ops teams, QA now extends beyond the campaign master. The product image, title, description, current price, sale price, inventory, destination URL, and product ID mapping can all affect what the customer sees.
Dynamic Product ads also require a catalog and conversion signal such as the Reddit Pixel or Conversions API. Reddit recommends at least six products so the system has enough options to populate supported formats.
Consumer brands already managing product feeds across Amazon, Walmart, and other retailers will recognize the operational dependency. Producing the ad faster is not enough when the underlying product information is stale or inconsistent.
Our retail media creative workflow approaches the same problem by keeping structured product inputs and creative production connected instead of treating them as separate systems.
Ulta uses its catalog to push Reddit further down the funnel
Ulta Beauty used Dynamic Product ads during peak holiday shopping to promote products automatically from its catalog.
Reddit reports 66% higher ROAS year over year and a 9x ROAS spike on Thanksgiving for the DPA campaign.
View the Ulta Dynamic Product ads campaign
Product ads shorten the route from interest to product. AMA ads take a different route by making access and conversation part of the reason to engage.
Reddit AMA ads make the conversation part of the creative idea
Reddit AMA ads promote an Ask Me Anything where users can RSVP, submit questions, and receive reminder notifications before the event begins.
The ad is only one part of the work. The team also needs a topic people care about, a credible host, promotional imagery or video, supporting feed creative, reminder content, moderation, and somebody who owns the answers once the event begins.
For a brand, the host could be an athlete discussing a collaboration, a designer explaining a collection, a chef introducing a product, or a founder speaking directly about the category.
Access needs to be valuable enough to justify the additional coordination. If the audience would receive essentially the same information from another promoted post, the AMA adds work without giving people much more reason to participate.
Takeovers need to shape the master before production starts
Reddit Takeovers are premium packages rather than standard auction units. Current options include Reddit Takeover for prominent Home, Popular, and Trending exposure, First View for the first in-feed impression on Home and Popular, and Category Takeover for exposure across communities within a chosen category.
Some mobile treatments also support vertical video.
For Paid Marketing and Creative, the inventory decision needs to happen early because a high-visibility placement can deserve a different composition, video treatment, or message hierarchy from the standard feed set.
Adding the Takeover after the campaign master is signed off often creates another round of creative decisions rather than a straightforward Adaptation.
Adidas gives different Reddit formats different jobs
For its X Speedportal soccer-cleat launch, Adidas used category takeovers, promoted carousels, video, Conversation Placement, and Free-Form ads.
Reddit reports a 10-point lift in purchase intent and a 14-point lift in brand favorability for Conversation Placement compared with its benchmark.
View the Adidas Reddit campaign
The campaign architecture is more useful than any one spec. Several formats supported the same launch because each one had a different role.
Decide who owns the comments before people start using them
Several Reddit-promoted formats can allow comments, while Conversation Placement puts the brand beside active discussion.
Community management therefore belongs in campaign planning rather than becoming a decision made after the first reply appears.
Paid Media may own the budget and media setup, while Community, Social, Customer Support, Product, or Legal may be better placed to respond to what people ask.
The practical choice is not simply comments on or off. It is whether the campaign has a reason to invite conversation and whether somebody is ready to participate when it happens.
A straightforward reach campaign may gain little from maintaining an active thread. A product launch, AMA, or consideration-led campaign can benefit much more when customers have questions or want to compare experiences.
If comments remain open, the team should agree on who monitors the thread, how quickly the brand can reasonably respond, which questions can be answered directly, when another team needs to step in, and which comments should be left alone.
Let audience intelligence shape the Reddit message before production begins
Community targeting matters to the creative because Reddit audiences are often organized around a much more specific context than a broad platform interest segment.
Two communities discussing the same category can expect different levels of evidence, product detail, humor, or explanation.
A skincare community focused on ingredients may scrutinize formulation and claims. A broader beauty community may care more about shade, finish, or wear. The product does not change, but the part of its story worth leading with might.
That is why the creative brief needs more than demographics and an asset list.
At Rocketium, we use the ABCP framework — Audience, Brand, Competition, and Performance, to bring the inputs that should shape the creative together before production starts.
Audience: What is this community already discussing? What questions, objections, language, and product details matter to them?
Brand: Which propositions, claims, products, visual rules, and campaign priorities need to remain consistent?
Competition: What messages and creative patterns are already common in the category, and where is there room to say something more useful or distinctive?
Performance: Which hooks, benefits, formats, products, and creative treatments have already shown signs of working?
For Reddit, those four inputs also need to be read against the platform context: the communities being targeted, whether the ad appears in-feed or inside a conversation, and the format being used.
The point is not to produce another research deck before producing the ads. These inputs should change the brief itself: which message leads, what proof appears early, whether one Reddit community deserves a different treatment, and which hypotheses are worth turning into creative.
Once those decisions are made, production becomes the easier part. The approved direction can then move into the Reddit formats, ratios, placements, products, and localized versions the campaign actually requires.
For international programs, the same thinking can extend into creative localization once market and audience decisions are settled.
Turn the Reddit media plan into one creative and production matrix
“We need Reddit ads” does not tell Paid Marketing, Creative, or Creative Ops enough to plan the campaign.
A more useful asset plan looks like this:
Campaign need | What the team may need |
|---|---|
Broad feed awareness | Image ads in selected ratios |
Motion or demonstration | Video ads |
Several products or messages | Carousel ads |
Product or brand education | Free-Form ads |
Reach inside active discussions | Feed and Conversation Placement variants |
Product sales | Product ads or Dynamic Product ads |
Community event | AMA promotion |
Large launch | Takeover assets |
Community-specific testing | Distinct message or proof variants |
International campaign | Localized versions |
The matrix also makes an important distinction visible: some versions represent new creative thinking, while others are adaptation.
A headline built around a different customer tension may be a new creative hypothesis. A Reddit cut that uses another proof point because the community is already deep into comparison may deserve a separate treatment.
Moving the same approved design from 1:1 to 4:5, creating the Conversation Placement thumbnail, changing the product, or producing the approved idea in another language belongs to adaptation.
For Performance Marketing, that distinction gives a more honest picture of how many ideas are really being tested. Creative Ops gets a clearer view of how much actual production is entering the queue.
Our creative automation services guide covers the different operating models available for that repeatable work.
For production Instead of briefing “a Reddit campaign,” brief the actual workload: 3 creative directions × 2 community messages × 2 aspect ratios + 2 video cuts + 1 six-card Carousel + Feed and Conversation Placement variants + 1 catalog-powered product set. The brief now captures both the thinking and the asset volume. |
Reddit works better when creative intelligence and production stay connected
Reddit rarely creates the production problem by itself. The pressure builds when the same launch is already moving across Meta, TikTok, Amazon, retailer media, several products, and multiple markets, while Reddit introduces another set of audiences, formats, placements, and creative decisions.
Simply making more versions faster is useful, but it is no longer enough.
The team still needs to decide which message deserves investment, which product benefit belongs in the opening, whether the Reddit audience needs another proof point, what should be refreshed, and which creative direction is worth testing.
We built AI Studio around that full workflow.
Before Production, we can use audience context, brand inputs, competition, previous performance, and platform requirements to sharpen the brief and identify what is worth making. Human creative judgment then shapes the concept, copy, visual hierarchy, and exceptions.
Once those decisions are made, the same workflow can handle the production and adaptation required to get the campaign live across formats, products, languages, and placements. Brand and platform checks, review, feedback, versioning, and edits remain visible to the team throughout the process.
The value is not simply that Reddit assets move through the queue faster. Performance Marketing gets more useful creative to test, Creative Ops spends less time rebuilding predictable variants, and the next production cycle can start with more context from what has already performed.
Our case studies show how the same operating model works when creative volume extends well beyond one social channel.
Bring us a Reddit campaign you already plan to run. We can look at the audience, existing creative, platform context, and available performance signals before deciding what should stay, what deserves another treatment, and what can move directly into Adaptation. Then we can produce the set and get it ready to launch. |
Reddit ad specs are the production rules, not the creative strategy
The technical Reddit ad specs determine whether an asset can run. The campaign still needs to decide what is worth putting inside those files.
For Image ads, choose the ratio around the message and placement rather than convenience alone. For Video, decide what the audience needs to understand before choosing the cut. For Carousels, make each swipe move the idea forward. For Free-Form, use the additional space when context genuinely affects consideration. For Product ads, treat product data as part of creative quality. For Conversation Placement, judge the ad beside the discussion it will enter.
Once those decisions are made with enough context, production becomes much more predictable.
That is the useful role of the Reddit ad specs: they give the creative system its boundaries. They should not be the thing deciding what the brand makes.
Frequently asked questions
What are the Reddit ad specs?
Reddit ad specs depend on the format and placement. Image ads support 1:1, 4:5, 4:3, and 16:9 with a 3 MB maximum file size. Video ads accept MP4 or MOV files up to 1 GB and 15 minutes. Carousel ads support up to six cards, while Free-Form ads combine rich text with images, GIFs, video, and links.
What is the best image size for Reddit ads?
Reddit recommends 1080 × 1080 px for 1:1, 1080 × 1350 px for 4:5, 1440 × 1080 px for 4:3, and 1920 × 1080 px for 16:9. The best choice depends on the composition and placement rather than one universally preferred ratio.
What is the maximum file size for a Reddit Image Ad?
Use 3 MB as the working maximum based on Reddit’s current Image Ad specifications.
What thumbnail does Conversation Placement need?
For an Image Ad running in Conversation Placement, Reddit recommends a 400 × 300 px JPG or PNG thumbnail under 500 KB.
How long can Reddit ad headlines be?
Image Ad headlines can contain up to 300 characters, but Reddit recommends staying below 100 and putting the most important message within roughly the first 80 characters.
What are the Reddit Video Ad specs?
Reddit Video ads accept MP4 or MOV files up to 1 GB in 1:1, 4:5, or 16:9. Videos can run for up to 15 minutes, although Reddit recommends 60 seconds or less for most campaigns.
How many images can Reddit Carousel ads have?
Reddit Carousel ads support up to six cards using images or GIFs and can run across supported feed and Conversation Placement inventory.
What are Reddit Free-Form ads?
Free-Form ads combine rich text with images, GIFs, video, and links inside one promoted post. They work best when the customer needs product education, comparison, explanation, or another layer of context before leaving Reddit.
What are Reddit Conversation ads?
Conversation Placement puts supported Reddit ad formats inside conversation pages and comment threads. The underlying Image, Video, or Carousel requirements still apply, while the surrounding discussion changes the context in which the ad is read.
What are Reddit Product ads?
Product ads use catalog information to advertise selected products. Dynamic Product ads use Reddit’s machine learning to choose products from the catalog for prospecting and retargeting.
What size should product images be for Reddit Product ads?
Reddit recommends high-resolution catalog imagery of at least 500 × 500 px using JPG or PNG image URLs. Prices, inventory, product IDs, and destination URLs should remain current because those inputs can flow directly into the advertising experience.
