Happy Thursday!

Almost every product search I run ends with "Reddit" at the end of it. I'm not alone. About 20% of Google results pull a Reddit thread, and every AI tool you use cites Reddit when you ask what to buy. So I sat down with Vinay Sridhar, who leads shopping and commerce at Reddit, to figure out exactly what's working for brands right now. I pulled the biggest takeaways below.

Reddit Is the Internet's Product Research Layer. Most Brands Still Haven't Caught On.

Here's the stat that should stop you cold: 9 in 10 Redditors verify product recommendations from AI on Reddit before they buy. Think about your own behavior. You search Google. You get a lay of the land. And then before you actually buy something, you type "[product name] Reddit" and enter the thread. That's the purchase journey right now. And most DTC brands are completely invisible in it.

The brands that figure out Reddit early have an enormous advantage. Because once your community builds, it compounds. Every new thread citing your brand becomes permanent SEO. Every upvoted review builds the pile. The brands that wait until it's saturated will be trying to claw back territory the early movers already own.

So, what should brands actually be doing?

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The Biggest Takeaways

• Community-vetted reviews are the new trust signal. Brand copy doesn't move people. A 300-word post from a real parent in a parenting subreddit does. Reddit's up/down vote system surfaces the most credible, most useful content. That's a moat brands can contribute to but can't manufacture.

• Middle funnel presence on Reddit is table stakes. You're spending to acquire. But if the validation layer has nothing — or has negative threads — your conversion rate on that acquired traffic suffers. Build the middle funnel. Reddit is a major piece of it.

• Reddit advertising has changed. It's not just forum banner ads. The ability to target by community and interest, especially for high-consideration purchases, is getting sharper. If you wrote it off two years ago, go look again.

• The best brand behavior on Reddit is genuine participation. Fake posts get annihilated. Authentic contribution builds equity. Have someone on your team who is actually part of the communities your customers live in. That's the playbook.

That's all for today

It's Thursday, and it's all downhill from here. Go search your brand name on Reddit right now and see what you find. That's exactly what your next customer is about to do.

Nik