Reddit now scores every campaign. Which recommendations should you apply to raise it?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Reddit's 19.6% compares high-scoring advertisers with low-scoring ones. It is not the result of raising one campaign's score.
2. Measurement fixes such as the Conversions API can lower reported CPA by counting more conversions, with no change in sales.
3. Sort recommendations by what they change. Apply counting and creative fixes, test spend and reach changes one at a time.
4. Judge every change on cost per order or qualified lead from your own records, not on the score.

On 20 October 2026 Reddit added three tools to Ads Manager: a campaign planner, a campaign budget optimization setting, and an optimization score for each campaign. The score comes with a headline number. Reddit says advertisers scoring 80% or higher saw 19.6% lower blended cost per acquisition than those scoring lower.

The obvious reading is to work through the recommendations until the gauge turns green. This piece argues for a narrower one. Some recommendations change what gets counted, some change spend, and some change who sees the ads. Each needs a different decision, and the score does not tell them apart.

What did Reddit launch on 20 October?

Coverage from PPC Land, Social Media Today and Social Samosa agrees on the basics:

• Campaign optimization score. A 0 to 100% rating per campaign, shown during creation and editing, with recommendations attached.
• Campaign budget optimization (CBO). One budget and bid at campaign level. Reddit moves spend toward the ad groups it expects to do best. Sales, Lead generation and App promotion are in beta.
• Campaign planner. Projected reach, impressions and cost before launch, with conversation themes from the targeted communities.

The planner and score roll out to all advertisers through October, so some accounts will not see them yet. The campaign score builds on an account-level score Reddit introduced on 1 July 2025. Reddit has not said whether the account version stays. That version ran to 100 points and highlighted fixes for accounts below 80.

Reddit's help centre adds two limits worth knowing before you act on a budget recommendation. CBO is not available for Sales campaigns that use a catalog. And from 10 February 2027, cost cap bidding will no longer be offered for Sales, App promotion or Lead generation.

What does the 19.6% actually compare?

Two claims came with the launch. Scoring 80% or higher was linked to 19.6% lower blended CPA. Each five-point increase was associated with 4.4% lower blended CPA. Single Grain reports that both come from Reddit's internal data for July to September 2026, and that Reddit's page says results are not typical. PPC Land found no visible footnotes when it checked, and notes that "blended CPA" is not defined.

Three things follow from the wording.

First, it compares advertisers, not changes. Advertisers above 80% are not the same people as those below. They may spend more, track better or have run Reddit longer. None of that was controlled for, as far as anyone has published.

Second, the two numbers fit each other. If each five points brings 4.4% lower CPA, compounding, a 19.6% gap needs about 24 points between the two groups' average scores. Treated as straight addition it needs about 22. So the headline is roughly what the slope predicts for a group averaging near 90 against one in the mid 60s. That is our arithmetic, not Reddit's.

Third, it says nothing about which recommendations did the work. A campaign can reach 80% by fixing tracking or by doubling its budget. Those are very different changes.

Does a higher score cause lower costs?

Reddit has not published anything that would answer this. Google's score has been studied for longer, and it is the closest evidence we have. The studies split along one line: across accounts the score tracks results, inside an account it does not.

Optmyzr's 19% matters most here. If one account in five can reach 90 without taking a single recommendation, the score partly measures an account that already looks the way the platform likes. Google's ads liaison has been blunt about the mechanism: "OptiScore has no influence on the auction," as Optmyzr quotes her. Google's own help page says the score is not used by Quality Score and that 100% is reachable by applying or dismissing every recommendation.

Comparing those who adopt something with those who do not is a known trap. In a 2016 white paper, Gordon and colleagues at Northwestern and Facebook compared randomised tests with observational methods. In one study, comparing exposed users with unexposed users estimated a 416% lift where the experiment found 77%. The setting differs, but the problem is the same. The people who choose a treatment are not a random draw.

Our verdict: the association is real and consistent across platforms. How much of it is caused by the recommendations is unknown. The score is not a forecast of your CPA.

Some recommendations change the count, not the sales

This is the part most coverage misses. Reddit has not published which recommendations feed the campaign score. Its conversion playbook for small advertisers, from Q4 2024, is the closest public list of what Reddit considers best practice. It includes the Reddit Pixel plus the Conversions API, deduplication with a conversion ID, advanced matching, and attribution of at least 7-day click and 7-day view.

Those are measurement changes. The same playbook says Pixel plus Conversions API brings 15% to 30% more matched conversions than the Pixel alone, from Reddit's 2024 data. Hold spend flat and count 15% to 30% more conversions, and reported CPA falls by 13% to 23%. No extra customer is needed. That range covers the 19.6% on its own.

Attribution windows work the same way. Reddit's current default for view-plus-click attribution is a 28-day click window and a 1-day view window, according to The Ad Spend and Directive. Lengthening the view window credits more conversions to Reddit without changing your orders. The Ad Spend makes the same point: changing the window shifts reported credit, while the count in your own system stays put.

None of this makes measurement fixes bad. Deduplicated server events give the bidding system better data, and you should have them. It means a CPA drop after a tracking fix is not evidence that the score worked. Mark the date and re-base.

Sort each recommendation by what it changes

The table maps the playbook's practices to the decision each one needs. Where a recommendation in your account does not fit a row, ask the same question: does it change what is counted, what is shown, what is spent, or who is reached?

The spend row deserves care. A higher budget can lower average CPA on Reddit's dashboard while the extra spend buys dearer results. AdEspresso's 2019 CBO test on Facebook called this the breakdown effect. Each audience has a limited supply of cheap conversions. Reddit cites 10% lower cost per click for Traffic campaigns using CBO, from an internal Q4 2025 study, but PPC Land notes no comparison group was given. Our piece on Performance Max channel sliders works through the same average-against-marginal problem.

The reach row has a live dispute. Reddit's playbook says to run Feed and Conversation placements together and credits that with 26% lower costs, with no source stated. Understory, a B2B agency, runs Conversation placements by default for software clients because its own spend data showed lower CPA there. Neither has published a controlled comparison. That makes it a test, not a default.

A worked example

Hypothetical numbers. A software company spends $20,000 a month on one Reddit Sales campaign optimised for sign-ups. Ads Manager reports 200 sign-ups, a $100 CPA. Its CRM shows 40 of those became qualified opportunities, $500 each. The campaign score is 64%.

The recommendations list four items: add the Conversions API, add three creatives, raise the ad group budget, and turn on automated targeting.

1. Conversions API first, alone. Next month, spend unchanged, Ads Manager reports 240 sign-ups. CPA reads $83. The CRM still shows 40 qualified opportunities at $500. Reported CPA fell 17%. Real cost per opportunity did not move.
2. Creatives next. Low risk, applied the same week.
3. Budget and targeting as separate tests. Each judged on cost per qualified opportunity.

If the team had applied all four at once and watched the score climb to 85% while CPA fell, it would have credited the score. Reddit's slope implies about 16% lower CPA for a 20-point rise, our arithmetic. The tracking fix alone produced about that much on the dashboard, with no change in the pipeline.

How to test the rest

1. Record the starting point. Screenshot the score, each recommendation and its points, with the date.
2. Sort every recommendation into the five rows of the table.
3. Apply counting fixes first, alone. Mark the date in your reporting. Compare matched orders or leads in your own system for two weeks before and after.
4. Apply creative fixes. Keep the landing page and offer fixed.
5. Test spend and reach changes one at a time. Change one campaign and keep a comparable campaign untouched as a control, then compare the change in each. If you can afford Reddit's split testing tool, our note on what a 65% confidence winner is worth covers how many conversions per arm it needs.
6. Wait out learning. Reddit's playbook says to leave at least two weeks after a bidding change, and 30 to 45 days for low-volume ad groups.
7. Judge on your records. Cost per order or qualified lead, matched from your CRM. Keep a log of dismissed recommendations and the reason for each.

Where this stops

Two unknowns remain. Reddit has not said whether dismissing a recommendation raises the campaign score, as it does on Google. And it has not published the list of recommendations behind the score, so our mapping uses its playbook. Check what your account shows.

This method tells you which Reddit setup works better. It does not tell you whether Reddit spend caused sales that would have happened anyway. That needs a holdout, which we cover in incremental attribution or 7-day click.

The short version: treat the score as a checklist, not a target. Apply what fixes counting and creative. Test what changes spend and reach. Judge everything on your own records. If you want paid results read against what your pipeline shows, the waitlist is open.

Questions

What is Reddit's campaign optimization score?

A 0 to 100% rating for each campaign, shown while you create or edit it, with recommendations for raising it. Reddit announced it on 20 October 2026 with a campaign planner and campaign budget optimization, rolling out to all advertisers through October. It builds on an account-level score Reddit launched in July 2025.

Where does the 19.6% lower CPA figure come from?

From Reddit. Advertisers scoring 80% or higher had 19.6% lower blended CPA than those scoring lower, and each five points was associated with 4.4% lower blended CPA. Single Grain reports the data covers July to September 2026. Reddit has not published the sample, the definition of blended CPA or any controls.

Does a higher optimization score improve ad delivery?

There is no evidence that it does on Reddit, and Reddit has not said. On Google, the ads liaison has said the score has no influence on the auction. A score measures how closely a campaign matches the platform's recommendations. Any effect comes from the changes themselves.

Should I turn on Reddit campaign budget optimization?

Treat it as a budget change and test it. Reddit cites 10% lower cost per click for Traffic campaigns from an internal Q4 2025 study with no stated comparison group. CBO for Sales, Lead generation and App promotion is in beta, and it is not available for Sales campaigns with a catalog.

Sources

1. PPC Land, Reddit links 80% optimization scores to 19.6% lower CPA for advertisers ppc.land
2. Social Media Today, Reddit adds AI-powered ad guidance tools socialmediatoday.com
3. Single Grain, How much do Reddit ads cost? Budgets, bids and planner math singlegrain.com
4. Social Samosa, Reddit introduces new tools for campaign planning and optimisation socialsamosa.com
5. Social Media Today, Reddit launches new ad optimization tips in-stream socialmediatoday.com
6. Reddit for Business, The essential playbook for Reddit conversion campaigns Q4 2024 for SMBs marketing.redditforbusiness.com
7. Reddit Ads Help Center, How much do Reddit Ads cost business.reddithelp.com
8. Google Ads Help, About optimization score support.google.com
9. Google Ads Help, How to become a Google Partner or Premier Partner support.google.com
10. Google Ads Help, About applying recommendations automatically support.google.com
11. Search Engine Land, Google finally launches revamped Partners program searchengineland.com
12. Optmyzr, Does optimization score affect Google Ads performance? A study of 17,380 ad accounts optmyzr.com
13. Doctor Ads, Does optimization score predict anything? 6,071 campaigns measured thedoctorads.com
14. MediaPost, Google's optimization score. Applying 10 recommendations changes results, data shows mediapost.com
15. Jon Loomer, Opportunity score and campaign score jonloomer.com
16. Hunch, Meta opportunity score. What to act on and what to ignore hunchads.com
17. Gordon, Zettelmeyer, Bhargava and Chapsky, A comparison of approaches to advertising measurement (white paper) kellogg.northwestern.edu
18. The Ad Spend, Reddit conversion tracking. Pixel, CAPI and event deduplication in 2026 theadspend.com
19. Directive, Reddit ads attribution for complex B2B buying journeys directiveconsulting.com
20. Understory, Reddit ads in 2026. What's changed and who should buy understoryagency.com
21. AdEspresso, Facebook CBO experiment adespresso.com

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