Piper Out Positive on Reddit (RDDT) Amid May Ad Metrics, Notes RDDT Among Strongest Outperformers
Piper Out Positive on Reddit (NYSE: RDDT).
The analyst comments "May ad spend growth was above estimates and our buyer revised his estimates higher for 2Q and 2026. Positive standouts in our coverage were Youtube, ROKU, and RDDT, while notable underperformers included NFLX, TTD, and AMZN. Reddit ads manager data has been volatile, but we believe it is not an exact proxy for underlying user trends. May Ahrefs data shows a notable improvement in Reddit as a share of citations fueling AI Overview and AI Mode, and it now ranks #2 in share of domains by citations. RDDT Users Volatile (-): Reddit audience data in the Reddit Ads Manager fell 2% from April to May, but it was impacted by a 13% drop in users reported on May 20th that recovered two days later. We wonder if this was a glitch? Excluding the brief volatility, May users fell 0.6% vs. April. While the ads manager audience is an interesting directional data point, it may be more volatile/unreliable than we had appreciated. We believe strong commentary from management and improving performance in AI Search are more important positive signals for Reddit. Ad Spend (+): May ad spend was 30bps above estimates. Our buyer raised his 2Q spending estimates by 30bps and his 2026 estimates by 50bps. The strongest outperformers in May were X, Youtube, TikTok, Roku, and Reddit."
