Reddit ads for cybersecurity companies
Security professionals distrust marketing by profession. Their whole job is to notice when something is not what it claims to be. That makes them the hardest audience to advertise to, and one of the most valuable to reach, because they research carefully and their recommendations carry weight.
Reddit hosts some of the largest and most active security communities on the internet. Vendors are discussed there every day, by name, in detail. The question for a security company is not whether to be part of that. It is how.
What security buyers respond to
Technical substance. Explain how the product works. Publish detection rates, benchmarks, architecture and limits. Vague claims are treated as red flags.
Honesty about what you do not do. No tool stops everything, and everybody in the field knows it. Saying so is a mark of credibility.
Free value. Open-source tools, free scanners, research write-ups and community editions are welcomed. They also give people a way to check your competence before a sales call.
A human voice. An ad that sounds like it was written by an engineer will outperform one that sounds like it was written by a committee.
What to avoid
- Fear-based marketing. Breach statistics and alarmist headlines are mocked on sight.
- Buzzword stacking. "AI-powered next-generation zero trust platform" tells an expert nothing.
- Unverifiable superlatives. "Unbreakable" and "military grade" invite public testing of the claim.
- Gated everything. Demanding a phone number to read a whitepaper loses this audience.
Choosing communities
Security is not one audience. Blue team defenders, penetration testers, security managers, system administrators and compliance specialists gather in different places and want different things. Community targeting lets you address each group separately. So does separate ad copy.
Adjacent communities matter too. Many security purchases are driven by system administrators, developers and IT managers, who discuss security tools in their own forums.
The comments question
Security is the category where the decision about comments on or off matters most. Open comments on a security ad will attract technical questions, and sometimes attempts to pick the product apart. For a strong product with engineers ready to answer, that scrutiny becomes proof. For anyone else, starting with comments off is the wiser choice.
Measuring results
Security sales cycles are long and involve several people. Track early signals such as documentation visits, tool downloads and trial starts, and connect conversion tracking to your CRM to follow leads through to opportunity. Use retargeting to stay visible during the evaluation.
Why we know this audience
Before Team of Monkeys became a Reddit advertising agency, we built and released our own security tools, including scanners and network utilities used by people who test systems for a living. We have been on the receiving end of this audience's scrutiny, and we are also based in Israel, at the centre of one of the world's most active security industries.
That background is why the cybersecurity campaigns we run deliver click-through and conversion rates that lead the industry, and the same discipline carries into the other industries we serve.
It is also why we are blunt. If a product's claims will not survive contact with a security community, we will tell you before you spend any money. Our goal is repeat business, and we know you will only come back if you are consistently happy with the results.
Common questions
Do security professionals click on ads at all?
Yes, when the ad is specific, technical and respectful of their time. They ignore hype, not information.
Is Reddit suitable for enterprise security vendors?
Yes. The practitioners who evaluate enterprise tools are active on Reddit, and their opinion shapes the shortlist long before procurement gets involved.
Want to know if Reddit will work for your product?
Team of Monkeys is a Reddit advertising agency that plans, writes, launches and manages campaigns with click-through and conversion rates that lead the industry, across many industries. If we do not think your product will succeed on Reddit, we will tell you before you spend any money. Our goal is repeat business, and we only earn that when you are consistently happy with the results. See our simple pricing or book a 30 minute call.