In early testing of the new format, Reddit found that free-form ads outperform all other ad types in average click through rate (CTR) by 28%, along with increased community engagement when comments are enabled

so they’re bragging how much more misleading the new format is, gotcha.

I don’t believe that number, the average reddit clicks one if every 4 ads shown?

No way.

It’s just 28% more than the CTR of the other ad methods. It isn’t necessarily 4ish times. Let’s say before they were getting 100 clicks per ad with the old format. With the new format they’re getting 100*1.28=128 clicks.