S01 | E2 –The rise of Reddit with Nick Andrews

Jerrid Grimm (00:14.516)

Nick, welcome to the show.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (00:16.002)

Hey, what’s going on? I’m psyched to be here. Talk about Reddit. Reddit’s hot lately, so this is gonna be fun.

 

Jerrid Grimm (00:20.512)

Yeah.

 

It’s super hot lately. I want to get into your background, but before that, the reason that we’re doing an episode solely focused on Reddit. So I’ll admit I’m not a Reddit user, but even me who’s not a Reddit user has come across Reddit more and more. I mean, there was the, I’m a bit of like a stock nerd. And so when the whole meme stock thing came along, that, was a big exposure for, for what Reddit is, but more than that lately, anytime I search anything on Google.

 

I see Reddit like throughout the results. see like these sections dedicated to Reddit. So even though I don’t ever type in like reddit .com, I end up on these threads all the time. So yeah, it’s definitely had this rise to prominence, especially over the last while. So what I wanted to do is get someone who knows what’s going on on Reddit and maybe explain it to our audience. And, and that’s how I came across you. So Nick, maybe if you wouldn’t mind giving the audience a little bit of your backgrounds, you know what you

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (01:12.216)

Sure, man.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (01:21.102)

Yeah, man, gosh, summing up like 20 years of digital marketing. mean, long story short, I was early on Reddit, very, very early. I know Alexis and I got in, I don’t know, 15 years ago, something like that, and just started posting on there, building up usernames, sharing stuff and found it to be a very effective tool to get promotions to go viral for my clients. And I was kind

 

Way ahead of the time because we didn’t have any of the cool tools we have now with the promo code tracking and stuff like that. back then it was a bit of the Wild West and I was just cranking stuff out on there and I ended up founding Revatrage just out of this. Like I was just trying to get free diapers for my daughter. Diapers .com had a referral program that was coupon code based and I was blasting that stuff out everywhere. Reddit, you name it.

 

Paid for my daughter for a couple of years off of diapers .com credits and then they got bought by Amazon. I’m like, all right, I’m gonna do this for some other companies. And I did. And a few of them were like, do you wanna make money instead of like credits for diapers and stuff like that? Like, what a great idea. And that’s how I got introduced to affiliate marketing. And then I started really ramping things up. I’d say at the peak, I was probably working with half of the internet top 1000 just.

 

Pushing promotions out. wasn’t just Reddit, to be fair. was, you know, slick deals, fat wallet at the time, Twitter back when it was good. But Reddit’s always stuck there. And I think it’s because I was just early and I respected it. Yeah, it’s been fun.

 

Jerrid Grimm (03:00.736)

Yeah. And what’s so D so did you first get on Reddit and think, Reddit’s going to be huge or was it just, Hey, I really like this thing. I think it’s got some potential or was it just, Hey, I just need diapers for my daughter. And this one seems like promo codes are hitting or I’m getting some, some commissions or free product.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (03:14.798)

Hahaha

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (03:20.814)

So I feel like I’m an early adopter. So I was an actual early Reddit user, which obviously helps. And my Spidey sense is usually pretty good. And I looked at this thing, I’m like, this is discussion board 2 .0 all day long. Like discussion boards are pretty much dead, but look at this thing. It can long tail anything. You got a subreddit about owls that’s got like 30 ,000 people in it or skincare that’s got a million.

 

Nobody was doing anything that didn’t even have ads at the time. And I just thought it was a really productive place to push things out. But again, it was the other light bulb moment I had was that not using an affiliate tracking link at the time, I could go very far and Reddit was a perfect example. Even now, you can’t post redirects on there and things like that. So it was a great channel to just post like, hey, JellyBelly .com save 10 % off with promo code XYZ.

 

And then that promo code is the tracking mechanism. It’s like a billboard. It’s like the next generation of a billboard and they don’t even have to click really. The information’s right there. So I thought it was a great channel for that. And then I just saw the power of it. I think now it’s number seven site in the US. And don’t kid yourself, if you’re not on Reddit, you have consumed Reddit content because Reddit is the origin of almost all memes, almost all witty Twitter posts. They all come from Reddit.

 

And I tell people, you don’t believe it, just go on the Reddit shower thoughts. That subreddit is amazing. You’ll have something like, the first person to have twins was probably really confused. Or, giraffes must get really bad heartburn. Just stuff like that. But again, that’s the source, right? Now people make memes from it and you see them in your scrolls and your feeds.

 

Jerrid Grimm (04:49.356)

Okay.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (05:08.054)

So it’s a really powerful site and I was just early onto it in the right place at the right time. And now my karma score is so high, I can kind of dominate different subreddits if I need

 

Jerrid Grimm (05:17.644)

Yeah. Overnight success, like 15 years in the making type thing, right? Well, so for people like me and for people that aren’t as familiar with Reddit as you are, how would you explain what Reddit is to, you know, to your sibling or, you know, your parent or daughter?

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (05:20.854)

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (05:37.902)

I would say the more complex way to say it is it’s the long tail of the internet. The way I’d explain it to a five -year -old is it’s a place to ask questions or find information from a lot of different people very quickly. I think that’s the simplest way to put it. you could Google something like best shampoo for over 40 male, or you could Google best shampoo for over 40 male Reddit.

 

If you do the former, you’re going to get a lot of ads and review sites and you’re going to really have to scroll through Google to get something good. If you add Reddit to it, you’re going to go to a post and be like, guys, I messed up my hair. You know, what, what’s the deal with the shampoo, any other recommendations and it’s ranked. So that means it has a lot of interaction on Reddit and a lot of views. And to be honest, nine times out of 10, you’re going to get better information. It’s almost like going direct to YouTube for a video instructional

 

How to fix a sink or how to fix a stove or whatever. I think Reddit is the text -based version of that, where you can just search up something but get a lot of opinions on it very quickly. And they’re valid opinions, they’re not bots, and they’re not ads, and they’re not affiliate review sites and stuff like that. Yeah, just people.

 

Jerrid Grimm (06:53.406)

Yeah, yeah. It’s just people, just people giving information. And what’s the structure like? So you come on like Reddit’s known as the homepage of the internet, right? So you, how is Reddit structured? I think we’ve heard of, you know, subreddits and this, but how would you explain the actual structure? So if I’m a user and I’m coming on, like what’s going on in there, how do I navigate through the

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (07:14.604)

Yeah, so there’s a couple ways they got an app. They’ve got a desktop and they’ve got a mobile. I’d probably say a lot around desktop because they’re kind of doing it at work like on the side, but obviously a lot around mobile like everything else, you know, the app and everything. But you have to think of Reddit as a bunch of little kingdoms, not even kingdoms is actually loose. I would say dictatorships. So I don’t know how many subreddits there are. There’s a good jillion of them.

 

Every one of them has their own rules. They have their own mods. They’re self -policed. They were created by someone. You could go on right now and create a subreddit for anything, you know, your podcast or for your company or for a topic that just isn’t covered yet. And they’ll have zero followers and zero comments. it’s, that’s kind of how it’s structured and organized. There is this like central command of Reddit, obviously.

 

But they can’t really control. It’s like the warden out of prison. If the prison’s gonna riot, the warden’s just gonna run. You know what I mean? So it’s kind of like that. And I think in terms of consuming it, you’ll get a search query in Reddit, but to be honest, Google’s probably better. So I would do something along the lines of, like if you’re interested in the Boston Celtics, you just Google Boston Celtics subreddit, it will take you to the most popular one.

 

Jerrid Grimm (08:14.944)

Right.

 

Jerrid Grimm (08:18.688)

Yeah.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (08:40.236)

And then you hit follow. And then that becomes part of your feed, which is based on an algorithm, just like all the feeds we have from the Instagrams to the Facebooks to everything. And as you follow subreddits and as you comment and start to use, it gets smarter and it just starts to serve up what you like. And that’s really how you do it. And then you can search for subreddits within Reddit as well. I find that Google’s actually better, which is interesting.

 

Jerrid Grimm (09:05.356)

Great. And so these mods, maybe you can explain what a mod is and like what the role of a mod can

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (09:10.018)

Yeah, sure.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (09:13.706)

I joke about this. I’ve got a nine year old son that’s big into Oculus and VR and stuff. There is an owner of a massive software company. My son is the mod for one of his games. He has no idea it’s a nine year old kid. So the reason I say that is the mods could be anybody. It could be anybody. It’s just somebody that’s passionate about the subreddit. This is not a paid position or anything like that. They just care about policing comments and policing.

 

People that are in there. And some of the bigger ones could have 20 mods. Some of the smaller ones could have one or two. And it’s a great hack. know, these mods have kind of a thankless job. So if you want to do something on a subreddit and you don’t have a lot of karma or something like that, just DM the mods and be like, Hey, I’ll run this contest or I want to post this. Am I allowed to do it pretty please? Like, will you let me do it? And they’re just kind of like I said, they were dictatorships.

 

The MoS are that inner circle of the dictatorship. Think of it that

 

Jerrid Grimm (10:16.268)

How do become a mod? Is the person that sets up the subreddit automatically the first mod and then they can add other ones? Or how does that system

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (10:24.33)

Exactly. So the first person who creates it has admin privileges, as you can imagine, like discord and stuff like that. And that admin can then designate a mod position. They could designate themselves or others, and then they just accept it and then their mods and they have more visibility. Obviously it’s kind of like another level of visibility into the action.

 

Jerrid Grimm (10:42.794)

Yeah. And you mentioned something else, which is karma. So karma is, this unique thing that happens on Reddit that is super important. It sounds like to you as a user, right? So you’ve, you’ve mentioned, you’ve built up your karma over the years. So what is karma and then how does that have an effect on, you as a

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (10:45.462)

Yeah, karma.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (11:02.978)

This is what changed the game for Reddit. So having a Karma score is what allowed them to get good comments, good insights and good subreddits to the top. It’s almost like a meritocracy, right? So often, popular subreddits won’t even let you comment unless you have a minimum Karma score. So you might need a thousand just to even comment in a

 

You might be able to respond to a comment without it, but there’s two types of karma There’s post karma and comment karma. So you’re posting good stuff They voted up and that’s one karma point up and then the same thing as with the comment and over time You know, you see some people with tens of thousands of karma points like my my accounts I kind of stop at like 30 or 40 at that point. It’s diminishing returns once you’ve hit 30 or 40 ,000 You’re good. You’re kind of a made man the mods trust you but some people have millions

 

There’s rewards you can get. There’s like little tokens you can dish out to people if you hit certain Karma score targets. But in the end, it’s really just a voting system and it’s a voting system to help quality rise.

 

Jerrid Grimm (12:11.636)

Yeah. So you have these, these mods that have some sort of, I’m always interested in like power dynamics in different areas. And this site has like mods have a certain amount of power that they can control what goes on in a discussion forum. You have this karma points, which is like a trust factor basically that, that not only decides in some cases whether or not you can post in a sub Reddit, but also must just be this huge trust factor as far as like, okay, whatever this person posts is likely.

 

Is there a way to lose karma points?

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (12:42.624)

Yeah, they just woke you down.

 

Jerrid Grimm (12:44.448)

So anytime you get voted down, your karma points, right? So it’s like self policing this, this combination of like mods that don’t work for Reddit for the most part. I know they do have admins, have a Reddit admins, but mods are a different thing. They’re user control. And then you have these karma points that go up and down is that those are two of the mechanisms that I guess keep this from just going crazier than it already might

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (12:48.366)

Correct.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (13:06.67)

Hey wire. Well, it keeps it as the next generation of discussion boards. What went wrong with discussion board 1 .0 is the spam, the bots, the promotional posts, and no way, you think if you go on a discussion board right now about, I don’t know, you like BMWs, so you wanna go on a cars discussion board, it’s junk.

 

And there’s no way for the good stuff to rise to the top. It’s only ordered by date, right? It’s kind of like the internet pre -Google, where you just get served up a bunch of stuff on Lycos or some of the older browsers, Alta Vista, people don’t remember. And then Google came along and found a way to serve you, you know, internet sites that were kind of voted up in quotes that had a quality score to them based on how much time they spend on them or, you know, just a lot of different factors in linking. I mean,

 

I’m sure somebody can write a book on this. then Reddit is the same way where it’s just, makes the cream rise to the

 

Jerrid Grimm (14:05.654)

Yeah. Okay. So you’ve got this, you know, this site that has subcategories called subreddits that are managed and moderated by mods and where people can post. And sometimes that depends on their karma or not. Now let’s, let’s talk about like how this would work in the affiliate world. So affiliate is primarily, Hey, I’ve got a, I’ve got a special link with a bunch of parameters on it. I’m posting that in on a website of some kind, or it’s being posted on a website and someone’s clicking through to

 

And then that’s how all the tracking happens. That doesn’t exist on Reddit. So you said you can’t do a redirect, which is usually what an affiliate link is in some way. What, what keeps that from happening? Does is Reddit structure actually, if I tried to put a redirect in, it would just not appear like it just went hyperlink or is this a, it’s moderated. Like, is this a part of just the way that users expect the site to be used?

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (15:01.23)

Yeah, it’s moderated. So if you come flying in and you have zero Karma score, 10 or 100 or something like that, and you’re a you know, affiliate or skincare publisher more likely, and you go to the skincare subreddit with a million, you think, I’m just going to post this, post this link and get like a gazillion, you know, easy free sales. There’s automated removal of links in some of the bigger subreddits. They’ve scripted it out. And further, the mods, they will find it four seconds, 12 seconds, they’ll, it’s not even like, don’t do that again, they just ban you, there’s no communication. So you will never be able to post like, well, I won’t say never, if you have a decent karma score and you’re engaged in the conversation and it doesn’t appear as spam, then yes, you can post redirects and maybe get away with an affiliate link or two and they’ll be okay with it. But if you come flying in at a left field and just try to throw a fastball,

 

They’re gonna ban you, they’re gonna reject you, and it won’t work at

Jerrid Grimm (16:03.122)

There’s no scale to it like you might get away with one link somehow if you had a karma score But I can imagine it’s really less of an accepted practice Which means you the only way you’re gonna be able to do it is hey, have a high karma score I’ve been involved in the discussion this link makes sense in this scenario. But again, there’s not a lot of scale to something like that.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (16:23.)

Yeah, it takes work. I mean, it’s like you’re starting at zero. You have to engage in the conversation. It’s like building a social media profile from scratch. You know, you just, this is not a get rich quick place. It’s just not going to work. It took me, I don’t know, seven years to be engaged enough and have enough up votes to really have some sway and do well. And now, yes, I could post in the skincare subreddit and my post will stick as long as there’s no link or anything like that. And I could probably do that every so often and be totally fine. And that’s what I do. That’s part of what Revatrage does. We’ll take some of the, know, if you’re targeting owls, if you’re targeting skincare, travel, I can post in those places and get away with it, in quotes now, where you can’t really do that now. You’d have to go to the paid side and the paid side of Reddit is just junk. You know, I helped them design it and it’s not great.

 

Jerrid Grimm (17:13.654)

What is the paid side? Is it banner ads and sponsored posts or how does it

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (17:19.572)

Yeah, so it’s your typical, right? You scroll, scroll, scroll. And then there’s two ways. You’ll get a display type of banner ad that could be a picture or it could be a carousel or it could be even a video in some cases. More often than not, remember Reddit is very text based. It’s unique. It’s like the opposite of YouTube. So you’ll actually get text display ads with like maybe a thumbnail picture or something like that. And they’ll stand out. It’ll say sponsored.

 

So that’s how they serve them and how you buy them. There’s a lot of different, again, I can write a book on that too. Long story short, you could do it by interest. Somebody’s interested in weddings or whatever. You could do it by subreddit, which by the way, this is just some free advice. That’s the only way you should ever buy ads on Reddit is by the subreddit. So like if you’re selling wine, go to the wine subreddit. The only problem with Reddit is it does tend to be an angry.

 

Young male type of place and they don’t love ads. So you really got to make that ad work into the discussion. You got to be clever with the wording, make it funny, make it shareable, like some of the same rules that apply to other ads and other platforms. If you do that, and you’re targeting the right way, you got to catch the ad. And it you could probably get away with it. If you’re trying to target women on Reddit, it gets real tough. You know, it’s like wedding planning, like things, things that women do, you

 

Jerrid Grimm (18:43.532)

Yeah.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (18:44.846)

Makeup, know, stuff like that. It’s tough. You know, I’ve tried to tap Reddit for women and the the guy selling the ads on Reddit and the account reps tell you, yeah, no problem. But, you know, it’s it’s hard. And if I can’t do it, not many people

 

Jerrid Grimm (19:00.544)

Yeah. So what is a way? you can’t do redirect links at scale. The ads, you know, aren’t really meant for, let’s say this affiliate probably as much. So what is the method of a let’s, take it from a brand perspective first. So I’m a brand. I’ve got a, I’ve got a skincare brand and I would like to be able to promote my products on Reddit in some way. What’s the practice? What do I

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (19:21.603)

Yep.

 

That’s actually a place you can do a ton and it’s probably gonna cost you maybe a few hundred dollars. Like we’re talking peanuts. So, you let’s say you’re a new makeup company. All right. And you’re starting at zero karma. Get that avatar looking right. You know, it’s makeup company underscore official, like whatever your name is. And before you just go stop, you know, dropping bombs everywhere and like drop a promotion.

 

Go into the subreddits that are talking about your stuff and share useful information or witty remarks. Think of it like just starting a Twitter profile. Hey guys, I found this survey that says this is the type of makeup people care about. I found this third party that says this makeup is crap. What do you guys think? You know, I don’t even know makeup, just making this up. So you just start commenting, get to like a thousand karma. Just work at it, put an intern on it or yourself just an hour a day.

 

And then at that point, I wouldn’t go to the skincare subreddit because it’s the big boy. It’s got like a couple million. But go to some of the smaller, like makeup or skincare niche subreddits and direct message all of the mods. Hey, what’s going on, man? This I love this subreddit. It’s so great. We got a new company and we want to do a giveaway. Your subreddit is perfect for this. Let’s you know, I’m willing to give away a $200 gift card to the site.

 

My idea is we do our silliest post about a makeup disaster or something like that. And that’s gonna do two things. That’s gonna get you in front of 10, 20, 30 ,000 subscribers of the subreddit. Number two, that’s gonna get you more karma, okay? And you could even turn it into an email capture campaign. say, yeah, you’re gonna drop your email here and we’ll let you know about the next campaign. You start doing that.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (21:12.59)

You can be really nimble with very little money and just kind of just attack it. But you have to come from a place of credibility first. can’t just do this with like zero. you have no, every day at least 15 brands DM me because they know I post stuff. They have like zero karma and they’re like, you want to push this out? You want to push this out? like, I don’t. I don’t want to do that because it’s a headache. So I only work with, you know, big brands now

 

Jerrid Grimm (21:34.933)

Yeah.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (21:41.132)

when I work with an agency will typically filter the ones that I think will work well. But that’s what I would do if I was a brand starting

 

Jerrid Grimm (21:46.848)

Yeah. Okay. So your brand, set up the same way that you’d set up a profile page on Twitter and you go in, you got to act, you act as a user in this case, because one thing about Reddit is a lot of it is anonymous, right? Like you, you mentioned you have several, so you have several usernames, but when you come in as a brand, you usually go in with your official, you’re upfront with it because I imagine the last thing you want is to go in, pretend you don’t work for that company, post a bunch of stuff and then, and then get found out and blocked and all the rest of it. Right.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (22:14.785)

Exactly, exactly.

 

Jerrid Grimm (22:15.818)

Okay, so if I’m, if I’m a brand and I don’t want to do all that, instead I just want to, I just want to use this as one of my affiliates, right? But I can’t use Reddit itself as an affiliate because it doesn’t really have that. It’s that same system. You know, they’re not sitting in the networks waiting to be worked with. How does someone work with you if I’m a brand? So again, let’s pretend I’m that same make care makeup care brand. How do I work with you? And then what do you

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (22:41.134)

Yeah, so working with me is very easy, actually. So what I’ll typically do is I’ll talk with a brand or I’ll talk with an agency that’s got a ton of brands and I’ll say, all right, what’s the brand? And then I’ll do a little bit of research and just figure out the right promo that will work. Typically, I’ll do something like slightly better. So what I found on Reddit is if they’re offering 10 % all the time on like an email campaign or something like that, I’ll come in with 11 % because it’s a weird number and it will make people stop and look at it. So

 

I will ask for a promo code associated with that code. So let’s call it deal 11, something like that. So now they’ve set up an 11 % off code. The code is deal 11. And then within 48 hours, I will probably post it in the deal subreddit, which has two to 300 ,000 people in it. It’s kind of the next version of slick deals. And it’ll be a very boring post. It’ll be something like save time, save 11 % off at jelly belly .com. Great jelly beans, promo code XYZX. That’s it. If you try to like get cute, the natives like everybody, they will just like bash you in the comments. If you keep it neutral, it’s simple, it works. And then I have enough followers where it will go. That’s typically all I have to do now is I’ve got enough karma and followers, somebody will see it. They will share it in the candy subreddit. They will share it in the kids kids. I don’t know who knows what else.

 

Jerrid Grimm (24:00.822)

These are other users that are going to share it. So you’ve got a bunch of followers. You post this very neutral, listen, this is the product. This is the promo code. And then they’ll go. So what is the incentive for them to post it in these other, in these other issues? Is it just because, Hey, it’s a deal on something. And I want to share this with my

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (24:09.228)

Yeah, it’s a good deal.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (24:17.676)

Well, typically it’s the best deal that exists. So that’s part of it. And I don’t know, people like to share good information. Again, they’re not going to share it it’s like a lousy deal or something like that, but it’s interesting. It’s a good company and they share it and it just works and then it goes viral and it leaves Reddit as well. I mean, it goes the old fashioned way into other channels like texting and email and stuff like that, but that’s where it starts. And then I would typically…

 

I work on a network and we would just set up whatever version of the click list tracking exists in the network. So whenever that promo code is used, the pixel will fire on the phone or whatever they’re using. And then it will track through the network just like any other affiliate, which is awesome. Again, this started happening in like 2012. And I was so happy when this tech caught up to what I was doing. And then that’s really that. I typically run it for like a month. We see how we do.

 

Course correct if we want to change things. And when everything’s going like a well oil machine, I’ll change up a promo like every 90 days. And then I’ll start to go into some of if everything’s gone well, I’ll experiment a bit. So now, instead of just posting in a deal subreddit, I will go into I don’t know the summer subreddit or like I said, the candy subreddit or something like that or board at work subreddit like you name it, I would go on a whiteboard and think of like 10 and hit up the mods there. Hey, you cool this post.

 

Get a post up there and just start seeping into the other areas as

Jerrid Grimm (25:46.636)

Yeah. It sounds like though there’s no, I can, I come from like the advertising world for most of my career and all you’re looking for is easy scale. just, create an ad, I push that out. It gets seen by a billion people basically. Right. This sounds a lot more like, like Reddit doesn’t really work that way. You have to be a user or you have to build up karma. You need to provide value all the time. How do you have a balance between the deal that you’re doing, which is, know, you’re this deal out there and then continuing to build up your karma as a user. How do you personally balance those two things or did you just build it up for years and now you can apply this like business side

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (26:28.334)

That’s really the second one. But I will say, you know, if you’re Toyota, you can scale. So if you want to spend a ton of money and don’t really care about the efficiency or the click through rate, you can blast a lot of money through Reddit and get your presence known. But then somebody like me who knows the algorithm of the ads, I can be right next to Toyota for 11 cents a click. It’s crazy. But you can scale there that way. It’s just not a great ad platform. I would avoid it. There’s a reason it’s just big companies because they don’t care or look at it. In terms of karma, I, you know,

 

I’ve done the work already. And so what happens if I share a good deal that tends to get voted up a lot. And so I’m getting the vote ups, the comment karma takes a hit because I just don’t comment that much anymore. But again, it’s high enough where I don’t care. So I’m continuing to improve by posting good deals. I get more followers and the posting karma goes up. So that’s kind of where I’m at. I mean, I have toyed around with just, you know, starting a couple new ones fresh, but I’m like,

 

I don’t know, I’ve done this a long time now, it’s working, I don’t wanna mess with it too much.

 

Jerrid Grimm (27:32.3)

Yeah, it’s really, that’s really interesting. Uh, what do you think is going to happen to so Reddit did a deal with Google just back in, I think it was in February, they did the $60 million deal with Google where Google can use their data for their AI, right? For their models. They also rank them a lot. I think there was a, I saw a report that something like, you know, the discussions area of the Google search engine results page at one point it was like 97%.

 

Of those discussions had a Reddit post in them. And even just like right now, I just did a quick Google search on how do I make a crispy pizza? I didn’t put Reddit at the end of it. That’s not like the way that I Google things and I get one review site as the top result. And then the next one is how to achieve a crispy pizza crust on r slash cooking, which is a sub Reddit. And I’ve got 12 Reddit posts that are my answers. So this is the number two search result and it takes up

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (28:13.43)

Yeah.

 

Jerrid Grimm (28:30.422)

Half the page because it’s all these individual comments. For someone like me that isn’t a Reddit user, I’m constantly exposed to Reddit and I would say more and more in the last few months than anything. Where do you think this is going? Is Reddit in this moment? You’re so close to it. Is this exploding the way that I see it? Or is it just that people like me are maybe being finally brought into the

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (28:57.218)

I’ve got a lot to say, man. Now, so the first thing I want you to think about, think about the power. If you were able to comment and you had a frozen pizza brand or something like that, and you were able to get your comment on that post. I mean, now you’re in the number two position or three, I believe you said, for free, for nothing, if you can get on there. Quick hack for Reddit users, after a year, they shut off comments on the post. So for me personally, you know, just trying to promote something.

 

I’ll make sure that I piggyback a post before that one year mark and then it closes down all comments. So that may have indexed from like three years ago and you can no longer comment on it. But if you can comment on it before it gets shut down. So that’s just like some tactical advice. You know, in terms of the Google thing, this is nothing new. I think it was like eight years ago, I had a bet with a new brand. said, I don’t think you can get this kind of visibility or whatever. It says, all right, give me two hours.

 

He gave me like a dummy promo, like it worked like for five people. I posted that thing on the deal subreddit. Within two hours, it had indexed in Google. So I sent him a video saying, you know, your brand promo code or like your brand discount. And boom, it showed up right there. Now that’s not the kind of traffic everybody wants, you know, the discount promo code traffic, but I was just proving a point in this instance. And that was like nine years ago before Google even cared. And I think…

 

The way, I’m an old dog, man. I was part of Internet 1 .0. The way I see everything going now, I’ve just seen so many things happen, right? This AI thing is going to be like, the level of impact it’s gonna have on humanity is like fire and the wheel and like the written word. don’t underestimate it. There’s a reason Google is going after Reddit because Reddit is probably the richest source of discussion that’s logged digitally.

 

Anywhere ever in existence. Like it’s all of humanity’s chatter in one actual place that you can run an API into. So why do you, I’ll tell you why. Why do you think Google wants to tap into that? Because you’ve got chat GBT and you’ve got Google Bard, which they shut down and now they’re changing. And whoever wins this, it’s like internet explorer and Netscape for those that are old like me. It’s whoever kind of is the number one and two player in this space.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (31:19.638)

Is going to open up a trillion dollar market. And so Google’s thinking, well, jeez, if I can get a smart team to tap into this Reddit API, they feed that into their AI engine and they say, all right, how do you make a crispy pizza? They’re going to head to that subreddit, look at that organic discussion, run it through an algorithm where it comes into actual words that people can understand and boom, it’s sourced. whoever like Reddit is just, they have just created this repository of discussion.

 

And it’s so valuable in this AI world. And I think the future for affiliates is making sure when you ask chat GBT what the best site is for this or the best recipe is for that, make sure you index and rank. And Reddit is probably a way that you can do that long -term. Make sure you’re doing well on Reddit and then you’ll probably do well in these AI engines going forward and other places

 

Jerrid Grimm (32:13.472)

Yeah. Well, that’s cool. Well, I think like if I was trying to think of this as I’m a, if I’m a publisher, I think the advice would be, become a user. The first step seems to be become a user and just act like a real user. Just be a real user, build up your karma points, post stuff that’s be in the right subreddits. Like you said, it’s so specific.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (32:34.42)

Or start your own subreddit. That is another way. So you could start your own subreddit for cigars. And then you could funnel people to that and just pay, you know, pay a CAC for whatever the, you know, user, like you could run ads. This is the best subreddit ever. We talk about this, you know, cigars and just start driving traffic to your own subreddit. That’s another way to do

 

Jerrid Grimm (32:54.528)

That’s actually interesting. like you have, it’s the way that, you know, the web works where you just create a super niche site, get a bunch of traffic to it or users to it. And then you have the ability to promote within it, right? That’s actually probably a better path. If you’re a publishers, yeah, create a subreddit. It’s also, you know, you have a little bit more control. You can say to a brand, Hey, I have this subreddit versus saying I’m a really great user. that’s a good way to do

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (33:01.122)

Yeah, it’s just a funnel.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (33:08.024)

faster, much faster.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (33:18.114)

Yeah, pros and cons because Reddit could also take your subreddit down. If you’re a user, you don’t care. there’s pros and cons of everything.

 

Jerrid Grimm (33:26.112)

Yeah, you probably need to do a little bit of both. And then if I’m a brand, I’m either going to come in and set up my official account. I’ll probably do both again, but come and do that. And then work with people like you that already have like, that’s a, that’s a fast way to get my deal into red.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (33:39.298)

Yeah, I’m gonna save you a thousand hours of work, because I’ve already done the thousand hours of work. That’s really what it

 

Jerrid Grimm (33:42.667)

Exactly. Yeah, that’s cool. I love this. So this was super educational for me. And I think, you know, there’s very few people like you that have been on Reddit for 15 years. I mean, I think the site is only 18 years old, right? So you’ve been on it since the beginning. So I sincerely appreciate this advice. I think all the publishers out there and the brands more than anything, it’s about just demystifying what Reddit is. Right.

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (34:01.709)

I

 

Jerrid Grimm (34:10.634)

So I appreciate you being on here. You continue to do this. Where would people find

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (34:17.624)

So I, yeah, I have somebody helping me now. I’m sort of semi -retired, but this is so fun that I still do it. So if you’re an agency or you manage brands or if you’re a brand that wants some Reddit exposure, the easiest way to hit me up is nick at revitrage .com. That’s R -V -I -T -R -A -G -E. I have a website, but I haven’t touched that thing in five years. It might as well just be a business card.

 

Revatrush .com. So just just email me I can send you case studies I can I can tell you what I can do for a particular brand. I’ve been doing this so long I can almost estimate the monthly orders I can get for a particular offer like plus or minus

 

Jerrid Grimm (34:41.377)

Yeah,

 

Jerrid Grimm (34:52.748)

Nice. Nice. Nice. I love it. Okay. And I want to know your recommendation for the best subreddit, your favorite subreddit as a

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (35:04.234)

Absolutely shower thoughts, the shower thoughts subreddit, Google that and spend a minute on there every day. It’ll make you laugh. It’ll make you smile and it’ll make you go, huh, for

 

Jerrid Grimm (35:13.704)

Alright great. Well, thanks a lot Nick. This is fun. Thanks for being on the

 

Nick Andrews / ReviTrage (35:16.482)

You got it. Thanks.