Reddit Ads Campaigns

Strategic guide for managing Reddit advertising via the Reddit Ads API v3. The toolkit is a raw-HTTP client, so parameter types must be sent exactly as documented — strings as strings, integers as integers, and all money in micro-currency.

Requirements

• Hyper MCP installed and connected. https://app.hyperfx.ai/mcp
• Reddit Ads integration connected (a Reddit Ads business account with ad account access) at https://app.hyperfx.ai/apps.

If redditadsgetme / redditadslistbusinesses is not in the tool list, stop and tell the user to enable Hyper MCP and connect Reddit Ads. Serving ads also requires an active funding instrument on the ad account — campaigns and ad groups can be created without one, but the account must be funded for ads to run.

Out of scope — defer to other skills

• Organic Reddit research (mining subreddit discussions, pain points, voice-of-customer) → [customer-research](../customer-research).
• Creative generation (ad copy, images) → [ad-creative-generation](../ad-creative-generation).
• Cross-platform campaign launches → use this skill for Reddit, then invoke meta-ads / google-ads / tiktok-ads separately.

Critical Rules

CRITICAL: All budgets and bids are in micro-currency. $1.00 = 1,000,000 micros. A $50/day budget is goalvalue=50000000; a $0.50 CPC is bidvalue=500000. Never pass dollar amounts directly.

CRITICAL: Create campaigns, ad groups, and ads with configured_status="PAUSED" (the toolkit default). Never launch live without explicit user review. Because everything defaults to PAUSED, you can build a full campaign and archive it without spending — ideal for demos.

CRITICAL: Discovery flows through businesses, not a flat account list: redditadsgetme → redditadslistbusinesses → redditadslistadaccounts(business_id=...). There is no top-level "list all ad accounts" call.

CRITICAL: An ad promotes a post — it needs a postid (or a profileid + creation), not raw creative fields. Before creating an ad, find an existing post (redditadslistposts) or create one (redditadscreatepost). Only community posts can be promoted via the API.

CRITICAL: The ad group targeting.communities array takes subreddit NAMES, not the t5 IDs that searchtargeting returns. Use the name field from the search results: "communities": ["marketing", "SaaS", "Entrepreneur"] — passing t5_... IDs fails with "You cannot set invalid communities". (interests does use the IDs; geolocations uses country codes like "US".)

CRITICAL: Resolve targeting with redditadssearchtargeting before building — never guess values. targeting is a named parameter on createadgroup; pass any other variant-heavy fields (audiences, schedule) via inputdata.

CRITICAL: starttime is required when creating an ad group (ISO 8601). On a campaign, starttime is only valid with CBO enabled — for non-CBO campaigns, omit it at the campaign level and set it on the ad group, or you get "Cannot set start_time for a campaign without having campaign budget optimization enabled."

CRITICAL: bidvalue is always required for bidtype CPC/CPM/CPV/CPV6 — even with bidstrategy="MAXIMIZEVOLUME". Set a cap (e.g. bidvalue=600000 = $0.60) or get one from redditadsgeneratebid_suggestion.

CRITICAL: There is no instant hard delete. Reddit requires an entity to be ARCHIVED for 3+ hours before it can be permanently DELETED. redditadsdelete* tries the real delete and falls back to archiving (which stops delivery) when it isn't deletable yet. Check the returned configuredstatus (ARCHIVED vs DELETED) and tell the user a hard delete is possible ~3h after archiving.

CRITICAL: Reporting (redditadsgetreport) requires fields, startsat, and ends_at. Spend metrics come back in micro-currency.

IMPORTANT: Campaigns require name, objective, and (to serve) a fundinginstrumentid — list them with redditadslistfundinginstruments. Conversion-optimized ad groups need a conversionpixelid (redditadslistpixels). From 2026-07-13, ad groups and CBO campaigns require conversionpixel_id.

IMPORTANT: Lead generation works as a campaign objective (LEAD_GENERATION), but lead-gen form management is not available via this toolkit (it needs a feature-gated scope) — build lead-gen forms in Reddit Ads Manager.

CRITICAL (CONVERSIONS campaigns): the ad group optimizationgoal is required and, for standard (non-CBO) CONVERSIONS campaigns, the only accepted value is CLICKS. SIGNUP, PAGEVISIT, PURCHASE, etc. are valid enum values but are rejected for this campaign type ("Conversion goal ... is not valid for Conversions Campaigns"). Reddit validates in two layers — enum membership, then campaign-type allowance. Use optimizationgoal="CLICKS"; the CONVERSIONS objective still governs delivery.

CRITICAL (post types): valid post type values are IMAGE, VIDEO, CAROUSEL, TEXT — not LINK. TEXT posts are "free-form ads": they cannot carry a click_url and CANNOT be used in CONVERSIONS-campaign ads. For any ad with a destination (especially CONVERSIONS), promote an IMAGE / VIDEO / CAROUSEL post.

CRITICAL (creating posts with new media): prefer redditadscreatestructuredpost — it takes media as a URL that Reddit downloads and re-hosts, so it needs no pre-uploaded asset. Creation is an async job: the tool polls up to waitseconds (default 45) and returns the job; on status="SUCCESS" use job.postid as the ad's postid, else poll redditadsgetstructuredpostjob. IMAGE needs mediaurl + destinationurl; VIDEO also needs thumbnailurl; CAROUSEL takes 1–6 {imageurl, destinationurl, ...} cards; PROMOTEDPOST promotes an existing SFW community post by id. calltoaction is a display label ("Sign Up", "Learn More"), never "SIGNUP". The legacy redditadscreatepost cannot fetch media by URL — its content[].mediaurl must reference an already-uploaded Reddit asset (redditadslistcreative_assets), CTA lives inside content[], and TEXT posts must have an empty content[]. Use the legacy tool only to reuse an existing asset.

IMPORTANT: Posts are immutable after creation except comments — to change headline/media/destination, create a new structured post. redditadsupdatepost(postid=..., allowcomments=...) only toggles comments (set isstructured_post=True for structured posts).

Tool surface

All reference files live in references/. Read them at references/<file> (e.g. references/discovery.md).

Routing table

Campaign Workflow

Discover business/account → audit account → research (objective, targeting, budget, post) → resolve targeting IDs → confirm strategy → create campaign (PAUSED) → create ad group → find/create post → create ad → review with user → activate (update_* to ACTIVE).

Known Limitations

Safety Rules

Never:

• Assume business, ad account, campaign, post, pixel, or targeting IDs — look them up or ask.
• Skip the account audit phase.
• Create campaigns, ad groups, or ads without explicit user approval.
• Set anything to ACTIVE without user consent.
• Pass dollar amounts instead of micro-currency.
• Create an ad without a valid post_id.
• Promise an instant permanent delete — Reddit requires ARCHIVED for 3+ hours first.
• Guess targeting IDs — resolve them with redditadssearch_targeting.