Been doing social media marketing for about 4 years now. Tried pretty much everything - Facebook groups, LinkedIn automation, Twitter threads, cold email. All work to some extent.
But Reddit? Couldn’t crack it for the longest time. Honestly was about to give up on it completely.
Then I saw a post on r/SaaS from a solo founder who hit $20k MRR with zero ads. His whole strategy was “respond to people faster than the competition in the right threads.” Sounded too simple. But I tested it anyway.
Six months later, here’s what happened.
The Numbers First
Since I know everyone wants the results upfront:
- 67 meaningful conversations (actual back-and-forth, not just one reply)
- 12 demo requests
- 4 paying customers
- $0 ad spend
- Time investment: about 45 min/day, 5 days a week
Not viral growth. Not life-changing money. But for a solo founder with no marketing budget? This is a real channel that actually converts.
What I Was Doing Wrong (For 2 Months)
For the first two months I was doing the same thing everyone does. Go to r/marketing, r/smallbusiness, r/entrepreneur. Sort by hot. Find posts asking for help. Leave a helpful comment. Maybe mention what I do.
Results? Maybe 5 profile visits total. Zero conversations. Zero leads.
The problem wasn’t my comments. They were genuinely helpful. The problem was WHERE I was commenting.
Hot threads with 50+ comments? Your reply gets buried at the bottom. Nobody scrolls that far. The person who asked the question stopped reading after comment 15 or 20.
I was fishing in the wrong pond.
The Switch That Changed Everything
That $20k MRR founder mentioned something specific that I initially glossed over: he only responds to threads with low comment counts.
The logic is simple once you think about it. Less competition means your comment actually gets seen. A thread with 3 comments means you’re one of 4 people in that conversation. A thread with 200 comments means you’re invisible.
I started filtering for threads with less than 10 comments. Specifically looking for posts that are 6-24 hours old. New enough that the person is still checking replies. Old enough that there’s not a flood of responses yet.
The difference was immediate. Same effort, same quality of comments, but people were actually reading what I wrote. Started getting replies. Then DMs. Then actual conversations.
The Tools That Make This Sustainable
Here’s the thing nobody tells you about Reddit marketing: the strategy is simple, but the execution is painful if you do it manually.
Scrolling through 15 subreddits looking for low-comment threads? That’s 90 minutes of pure scrolling. Every single day. It’s not sustainable.
I use a desktop tool now to filter by comment count across multiple subreddits at once. Saves maybe 30-40 minutes daily. There’s a few options out there - wappkit, gummysearch, redreach. Different features, similar concept. Point is you need SOME way to filter or you’ll burn out within a week.
The filtering cut my daily time from 90 minutes to about 25. That’s the difference between “this is viable” and “I’m never doing this again.”
What Actually Converts
After 6 months of doing this, some patterns emerged.
There was a case study I read about someone doing systematic Reddit outreach. They reported 4x lower customer acquisition cost compared to paid ads, and around 20:1 ROI. The key was following what’s called the “90/10 rule” - 90% of comments are pure value with no promotion, 10% might subtly mention their product when genuinely relevant.
That matches my experience. The moments I tried to be “strategic” and mention my product too soon? Crickets. Or downvotes. The moments I just genuinely helped someone and they asked what I do? Those converted.
Some specific patterns I’ve noticed:
Questions that start with “Is there a tool that…” or “How do you handle…” convert way better than “What’s the best…” posts. The first two are people actively looking for solutions. The third is usually someone writing a comparison article or doing market research.
Also learned to check post history. If someone’s asking about their business problem and their history shows they’re actually running a business (not just a throwaway account), those convert at 3-4x the rate of generic questions.
Timing matters too. Responding within 2-3 hours of a post going up makes a huge difference. After 6 hours in a big subreddit, you’re already buried.
The 90/10 Rule In Practice
This is worth expanding on because it’s the difference between getting results and getting banned.
90% of my Reddit activity is just being helpful. Answering questions completely. Sharing experiences. No links. No product mentions. Nothing promotional.
The other 10% is when someone specifically asks “what tool do you use for X” or I can genuinely add value by mentioning something I built as ONE option among several.
It sounds slow. It is slow. But the conversion quality is insane compared to any other channel I’ve used.
What Doesn’t Work
Just to save you some time:
Commenting on anything over 6 hours old in a big subreddit. Already buried. Waste of time.
Posts that are clearly homework questions or “just curious” type posts. They’re not buying anything.
Anyone who’s obviously a competitor doing research. Check their post history.
Threads where someone already gave a complete, perfect answer. Don’t pile on, you’re just adding noise.
Generic “what’s the best tool for X” threads. These are usually people writing listicles, not buying.
Where I’m At Now
Still refining the approach. The system works, but there’s definitely optimization potential.
Reddit leads already know their problem. You’re not convincing anyone of anything. You’re just showing up in the right place at the right time with something genuinely useful.
The founder from that $20k MRR post was right. It’s not complicated. But most people won’t do it because it feels slow and unglamorous compared to “running ads” or “going viral.”
Anyone else doing B2B lead gen on Reddit? What patterns have you found? Curious what subreddits work best for different niches.