With any brand awareness campaign, the goal is simple: get your key messaging in front of your target audience and saturate the market.

But with so many ad types and platforms out there, it can be difficult to know where to focus your efforts. What kind of ROI will you get? What does the audience reach look like? How much effort does it take to get started?

Today I’m comparing Reddit Category Takeover (CTO) ads with LinkedIn’s Reserved Ads.

What makes these two ad types special is how they get you to market saturation. Both ditch the bidding auction entirely and guarantee your placement and visibility; instead of competing for impressions, you're locking them in.

Let’s look at what each ad type offers, how they perform, and when I recommend using each.

I'll bet I know what you're thinking. You've never seen Category Takeovers listed as an ad type on Reddit, and LinkedIn Reserved Ads? You've never even heard of them.

Think of these ad types as the big sibling of brand awareness ads: bigger, better, and a whole lot LOUDER.

Let's walk through each one, including its requirements, details, and how to get access. I’ll also discuss the key differences between Reddit CTOs and LinkedIn Reserved Ads.

You’ll most likely be the most familiar with this ad type. A CTO is a premium, reservation-based buy in which your brand owns the ad inventory within a specific category of subreddits (say, technology, finance, or gaming) for a set period, typically a day (though it can last longer).

It ditches the bidding auction and guarantees that your ad will be the first to be seen and will dominate the share of voice across that community's feeds and conversations for the duration.

The pitch is undivided attention: you're the brand showing up while people are deep in a topic they care about, in a context that's hard to replicate elsewhere. It's built for awareness and big-moment pushes (launches, events, category claims) rather than always-on efficiency.

• How do I access it? Because this is a premium ad type, you'll need to contact your Reddit rep to get started.
• Who will I reach? Reddit CTOs are based on industry, and Reddit has 15+ industries to choose from (ask your rep about audience size based on industry and location). Once you pick yours, Reddit serves your ad to any subreddit that fits that category. Your rep will send you the list of subreddits, and you can call out specific ones you'd like to be removed from.
• What's the timeframe? Reservations are required, and this is not a campaign you can launch in a day. You'll need to give your rep the date you want to advertise, the industry you're targeting, and confirm the cost. Be flexible, because some days and industries book up fast. You'll also likely need to sign a contract to lock in your date.
• How much? Pricing is set by the industry you choose, the location you're advertising in, and the day you want to run. It swings a lot. For example, our client was in tech and wanted to promote in the United States and the UK on a Tuesday for 24 hours. The UK campaign cost around $8K, while the US campaign cost around $84K. You can also expect different pricing in Q2 than in Q4. 😳
• What assets do I need? You can run images or videos, and you'll need at least four spec variations: 1:1, 4:3, 4:5, and 16:9. Reddit asks for two headlines: a 300-character max and a 100-character max.
• Who builds the campaign? Reddit does. Your rep sends a tracker where you fill in copy, link assets, and provide URLs and UTMs. You likely won't see anything until the ad is live. Transparently, I didn’t love that aspect, because the lack of visibility did cause some concerns.

This one was new to me, too, and from what I can tell, it's a newer ad type on LinkedIn. If you search "Reserved Ad" on LinkedIn, you may not find much about it. Our LinkedIn rep brought it to us as a new opportunity that works much like a Reddit CTO role.

It's a way to drive attention, awareness, and impressions with sponsored content that appears at the very top of the feed, and you can choose your share-of-voice percentage based on price.

• How do I access it? This is a premium ad type, so you'll need to contact your LinkedIn rep to see if it's available for your company or ad account.
• Who will I reach? You target the same way you would on any LinkedIn campaign (job title, seniority, function, industry, company, custom lists, and so on), and you can combine regions. Unlike CTOs, you have a lot more control over who you reach. One thing to note: audience size depends on price, with required sizes ranging from 750K to 1.5M. Ask your rep for the specifics.
• What's the timeframe? You can run for up to 30 days, or shorten it to a week if you need to. Keep in mind the price is fixed, so a shorter run won't get you a smaller budget.
• How much? Pricing depends on how much share of voice (SOV) you want. The minimum spend is $100k for 50% SOV. You can pay more for a higher share: roughly $300K for 75% SOV, and around $580K for 92%+ SOV.
• What assets do I need? Reserved Ads work with most sponsored content formats, including video, single image, carousel, document, thought leader ads, and event ads, so you have more flexibility with creative. For example, we paired a thought leader single-image ad with a sponsored content single-image ad.
• Who builds the campaign? Your LinkedIn rep has to set up the build and the ad type, but once the shell is in place, you add the creative yourself. You can also add ads while the campaign is live. As a nervous Nelly, I loved being able to add creative, check UTMs, and pull examples myself.

• Access: Both require you to go through the platform reps to get started.
• Targeting: LinkedIn is more flexible and offers the standard targeting controls. Reddit is more rigid, keeping you within a specific category.
• Timeframe: Reddit runs for 24 hours at a fixed price. LinkedIn runs for up to 30 days, also at a fixed price.
• Cost: Both depend on your dates and audience, and LinkedIn depends on the share of voice. Both can get expensive fast.
• Assets: Reddit takes images or videos. LinkedIn works with most ad types.
• Creation: Reddit is built 100% by Reddit's reps. LinkedIn is more of a 50-50 effort, where the rep starts the build and you can plug in the creative or completely pass off assets to your rep.

So, how did the Reddit and LinkedIn campaigns perform?

One caveat before I dive into the numbers: these campaigns ran in different months and quarters, so treat this as a directional comparison of how each channel behaves, not a controlled head-to-head comparison.

Let's also be clear that brand awareness is never just brand awareness. Of course it’s great that people see your content and know your name. But at the end of the day, every brand awareness campaign has an ulterior motive: pipeline, conversions, and revenue. That's very much how we're looking at performance here.

Reddit's role in this matchup is top of funnel: maximum reach, lowest cost, filling the room with people deep in a relevant topic.

Judge it on that, but read the numbers with a clear head. Reach this cheap is easy to fall in love with, and most of what looks impressive here (impressions, clicks, CPMs) is vanity. These users are at the very top of the funnel; they aren't ready to convert, and the volume doesn't mean intent.

Across the US and UK combined, the CTO generated 7,611,915 impressions at a $12.08 CPM, 16,076 clicks at a $5.72 CPC, and a 0.21% CTR. Big, cheap, and broad, exactly what it says on the tin. We also saw 25 conversions from contact forms and demo requests, but treat that as a happy accident, not a signal of buying intent.

The real test of a top-funnel buy is what you do with the audience next. So we built retargeting audiences from users who engaged with the CTO and from those who converted, then compared the 30 days after launch to the 30 before.

Here, the story got harder: conversions fell 40% period-over-period (141 to 85) and CPL rose 45%, even as spend, impressions, clicks, CPMs, CPCs, and CTR all improved.

In other words, Reddit delivered the cheap reach it promised, but that warmed audience didn't convert efficiently when we retargeted it.

LinkedIn's role is the opposite of Reddit’s: precision and down-funnel pull. Fewer, more expensive impressions aimed at decision-makers by job title and seniority rather than topic.

The metrics here look worse on paper (lower volume, higher CPMs), but they're the ones tied to revenue, so they carry more weight than anything Reddit's reach produced.

The Reserved ad generated 2,240,800 impressions at a $120.93 CPM, 11,625 clicks at a $23.31 CPC, and a 0.51% CTR. Again, while this was built to drive brand awareness, we saw 46 conversions from high-intent form submissions.

Down funnel, we built retargeting audiences from users who engaged with the Reserved ads and those who visited the sites we directed them to, launching them a week into the campaign's runtime. Since launching those audiences, conversions increased 4,000% period-over-period (27 to 1,106), and CPL dropped by 97%, paired with a 20% increase in spend and improvements across impressions, clicks, CPMs, CPCs, and CTR.

Takeover Performance Snapshot (Top-Funnel Results, Reddit vs. LinkedIn):

Down-Funnel Performance Snapshot (Post-Retargeting Results, Reddit vs. LinkedIn)

So who is the winner? Well, everyone is a winner; it just depends on your end goal! From the data, here are the major takeaways and use cases you should know.

When it comes to bang for your buck and the broadest targeting, Reddit is the way to go (just don't mistake cheap reach for a warm audience). Its strong top-funnel numbers are real, but they're vanity metrics. If conversion is your goal; these users are nowhere near ready to buy.

When it comes to business impact and down-funnel action, LinkedIn takes it (and no surprise to anyone who knows me, LinkedIn is my personal winner). If your goal is to blast your messaging to warm a cold audience and trickle users down the funnel, LinkedIn delivers those downstream actions.

Since LinkedIn’s selling point is its high-quality targeting, it's the more expensive platform. It's no surprise we saw fewer impressions and clicks. But the value is in reaching industry leaders and decision-makers, and the conversions and leads we generated show we did exactly that.

• You need maximum reach per dollar. At a $12 CPM, Reddit buys the broadest top-of-funnel exposure of the two by a wide margin. This is where a brand-awareness budget stretches furthest.
• You're claiming a category or seeding a new message. Owning a community's share of voice for a launch, event, or category-defining moment is exactly what the takeover format is built for.
• Your audience is defined by interest, not job title. Reddit reaches people deeply into a topic. If your buyer is identified by what they care about rather than their title, this is your room.
• You're filling the top of the funnel to feed other channels. Use the cheap reach to build large audiences, then move them into a consideration phase. Keep in mind that the funnel you're feeding is still cold; it doesn’t warm your audience the same way LinkedIn does.

• Down-funnel action is the actual goal. The retargeting results speak for themselves: when you need awareness that converts, LinkedIn moves warm audiences down the funnel far more efficiently.
• You need to reach decision-makers and buying committees. Firmographic targeting puts you in front of the right seniority, function, and named accounts. If a buying committee needs to see you, this is the channel.
• Precision matters more than volume. You'll pay a premium CPM for fewer impressions, but every one lands against a qualified professional rather than a broad interest pool.
• You're warming a cold professional audience over a long cycle. Repeated visibility against the right titles keeps you in consideration through a drawn-out B2B sale.

The only wrong move is buying one when you need the other. Know which outcome you're paying for before you book the placement.

Reddit Category Takeover and LinkedIn Reserved ads are both premium "own the room" placements, but they do different jobs.

Reddit = top of funnel. Cheapest reach by far ($12 CPM), broad interest-based targeting, best for true brand awareness, and getting in front of an engaged industry audience. Weaker when you try to retarget that audience into conversions.

LinkedIn = down funnel. Expensive ($121 CPM) and lower volume, but precise firmographic targeting reaches decision-makers and buying committees. Far stronger at driving downstream conversions, especially through retargeting.

The verdict: Use Reddit to reach users cheaply, LinkedIn to convert the people who matter.

Quick reminder: these campaigns ran in different months and quarters, so read this as directional rather than a controlled head-to-head.

Want help testing out Reddit Category Takeover Ads and LinkedIn Reserved Ads? Contact our team to discuss Seer’s paid media services.