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%

Translation: users mistakenly click it 28% more, before realising that it isn’t actually content

along with increased community engagement when comments are enabled.

Translation: more “fuck your ad” complains in the comments.

More importantly, I predict that the move will increase the usage of ad blockers within the site. Dressing ads as content feels like a bad idea - I feel like users interpret this as a sign of hostility, trying to “deceive” them. I’m not sure on that though, I’m half-drunk through the whole day and I don’t have data to back me up.

They been doing these ads for ages, sometimes they would leave the comments open and I’d google a better competitor and advertise them in the comments.

That’s also a common strategy. Someone will ask about a product that is actually the competitor’s product, and then they’ll reply to that post with a bunch of shill accounts saying “actually Acme doodads are better. Get them on the official website because Amazon is evil”. Then a bunch of people get duped into thinking they’re reading legitimate reviews from real people.

But then you watch the username and it’s like u/definitelyNotAnAcmeShill and it’s exclusively pushing their items

u/slapenplop53839

That’s the formula I’ve seen. Babble words followed by numbers.