Textbroker’s Reddit Brand Marketing Case Study 

 By Giuseppe Colucci, Chief Growth Officer at Textbroker

Brands don’t lose on Reddit because their product isn’t good. They lose because they’re not there. Reddit is where consumers workshop decisions in public and which brands deserve trust.  

Textbroker’s Reddit Brand Marketing unit worked, over the last few months, for a well-known, American salad brand, nurturing and creating high-intent conversations every day, in sub-reddits where the brand itself was nearly absent.  

In a 60-day push, Textbroker’s Reddit Brand Marketing (RBM) program set out to change that, moving the discussion from “never heard of them” and “too expensive” to a steady pattern of positive, peer-to-peer recommendations. 

On most platforms, brands have to buy attention. On Reddit, however, they earn it. Communities police self-promotion, penalize copy-pasted messaging and can instantly spot automation. This is also why the potential reward is so high: when a product is recommended in a trusted thread, the recommendation is more like a friend’s advice than an ad, and it has a lasting impact through search. 

Before the campaign, the brand had a low presence within high-traffic food communities. While people discussed meal prep and nutrition daily, the brand had little control over sentiment and almost no share of the searchable conversation. If they did nothing, competitors would dominate the narrative and high-intent buyers in places like r/Food would continue to exchange recommendations without ever coming across the brand. “Not participating” wasn’t neutral, it was leaving the brand’s story to chance. And the clock was ticking. 

Reddit’s immune system is real. Bots, templated comments, and suspicious posting patterns are quickly identified and banned. RBM’s safety protocol was designed to avoid that trap, with a US-based team of native English speakers, anti-spam compliant posting, and no bots or AI-generated text. Sentiment monitoring is also carried out throughout the process. The goal was to contribute in a way that felt native to the platform. 

Textbroker’s RBM began by building credibility. Before amplifying anything with paid media, the team ensured that the brand was inserted into high-intent discussions where it could genuinely add value. The targeting focused on communities where people debate routines and shopping decisions in detail, such as r/MealPrepSunday, r/EatCheapAndHealthy, r/Nutrition, r/Food and r/HealthyFood. 

From there, the team aligned the angles with the values of each subreddit: 

• Budget: store-bought vs. homemade comparisons 

• Health: freshness and ingredient comparisons 

• Convenience: quick meal prep and work-week routines 

Seasonality sharpened the timing of back-to-office preparation, autumn recipes and budget-friendly shopping, ensuring the brand appeared where it naturally belonged. 

”More mentions” was not the north star. The campaign defined success as narrative control: what people consistently say about the product, and what future readers find when they search for it. RBM operationalized this with three goals: 

1. Authentic infiltration: enter “walled garden” subreddits such as r/MealPrepSunday and r/Nutrition without triggering bans. 

2. Sentiment engineering: shift the conversation from “it’s too expensive” to “it saves me time and money”. 

3. Maintain the green zone: keep CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) at 100% positive throughout the run. 

On a platform that values scepticism, maintaining a consistently positive sentiment indicates that the brand has earned trust rather than purchased exposure. 

The Textbroker’s RBM was carried out in two phases over a period of about two months. 

• Phase 1: Trust. The team focused on “helping”, not selling.  

• Phase 2: Influence. Once credibility had been established, the strategy broadened to include budget planning and value perception. 

In 60 days, the campaign produced: 

• 70 high-authority mentions (including 20 organic mentions created by real users) 

• 417 total upvotes 

• 23 live conversations 

• 100% positive sentiment (CSAT), versus an industry benchmark of 72% 

The bigger win was behavioural: real users started creating their own threads to praise the brand. It’s less about “we placed a message” and more about “we sparked a pattern”. When users voluntarily advocate for a brand, other shoppers read this as a sign of community approval, rather than brand persuasion. 

This wasn’t built for a single spike. The output is a library of real-world advocacy, with threads that can be rediscovered through search months later and shared across related communities. RBM also refers to this as ‘futureproofing’, as recommendation-style questions are increasingly being answered by systems that summarise what people say online.  

A query such as ‘best salad kit for meal prep’ doesn’t just retrieve product pages; it retrieves the collective opinion. If your brand is absent from the most trusted conversations, you’re invisible at the moment of decision. However, if you are present with credible, upvoted threads, you will become the default ‘frequently mentioned’ choice. 

1. Focus on where the intent is strongest, rather than where the audience is largest. 

2. Lead with utility. Providing advice earns your permission, whereas pitches get downvoted. 

3. Shift framing, don’t fight objections. “Too expensive” becomes “saves me time.” 

4. Treat sentiment as a KPI, not an afternote. On Reddit, tone is a strategy. 

Once narrative control had been established, the next steps were to increase mentions to over 30 per month, launch a branded subreddit, and use Reddit Ads to promote the most successful organic content. Expansion targets included related categories such as Fitness & Macros, Family Meals, Budget Hacks, and Healthy Convenience, so the brand could extend its authority without compromising its core values.  

Reddit users are already talking. This case study serves as a reminder that brands do not have to hijack the conversation to win it; they simply need to earn a seat at the table and then ensure they are present often enough to maintain ownership of the narrative.