Reddit Lead Generation Ads Without Onsite Forms (2026 Guide)

The rest of this guide is the detail: the dates and what they mean, a list of what Reddit has and has not said, the setup for the form and the click ID, the route into the CRM, and how to make Reddit optimise on leads your sales team would actually call back.

We found no launch post. The change arrived as two entries in Reddit's Ads API changelog, and as of 28 September Reddit's newsroom has published nothing about it. That matters for planning, because the changelog is written for developers and says only what breaks, not what Reddit will do with your running campaigns.

Read "offline forms" in the changelog as forms off Reddit, not forms on paper. The help center describes the same thing as a form on your website, with the Pixel or the Conversions API reporting the submission. The same changelog entry adds one line for records: advertisers "may also use the GET and LIST endpoints to retain onsite forms for records prior to this deadline." Those endpoints return forms, so if an agency or a developer built your onsite forms through the API, pull their definitions now while the endpoints still answer.

Four things disappear with the onsite form, and each one had something built on top of it: an export routine, a Zap, a dashboard column, a bidding assumption.

• The lead downloadBusiness admins downloaded onsite leads from the campaign's actions menu, in a file that did not say which ad group or ad produced the lead, and Reddit kept them for 90 days. The Lead Gen Ads Terms still promise that 90 days; the help page that explained the download is gone.
• The Zapier triggerThe documented CRM route was the Reddit Lead Ads trigger on Zapier, New Lead, which needed two-factor authentication and forwarded leads in 2 to 5 minutes on Zapier Professional or 15 to 20 on Starter. Once the forms are paused it has nothing new to forward.
• The Reddit Leads metricOnsite submissions were counted in their own column, Reddit Leads (REDDIT_LEADS in the Reporting API), not in the Lead conversion that the Pixel and the Conversions API report. Any dashboard built on that column will flatline.
• Optimising for clicksReddit's own lead gen page said the onsite ads were "auto-optimized for clicks, not leads." This is the part that improves: a campaign that sees your form submissions can optimise for the Lead or SignUp itself.

What to do this week

1. Export every onsite lead you can still reach, with the date, and put them in the CRM with Reddit as the source. Nobody has said how long the download survives the pause.
2. Build the landing page and the form first, with the Reddit Pixel firing a test Lead, because a goal can only be picked from events Reddit already receives.
3. Replace the Zap with your own form writing to the CRM. That is not a workaround: it is the route Reddit now expects.
4. Rebuild the campaigns on the lead generation objective with a Lead or SignUp goal, rather than waiting to see what the paused ads become.
5. Mark the switch date in your reporting. Reddit Leads before and Lead conversions after are two different measurements, and a quarter spanning both will look like a trend that never happened.

Plenty of what circulates about this change is guesswork. Here is the line between what Reddit has published and what it has not, as of 28 September 2026. Plan on the left column and ask your Reddit contact about the right one.

Reddit's objectives table describes lead generation in one line: "Capture valuable leads with forms on your site." It runs image or video posts, optimises for Clicks, Lead or SignUp, and you pay per click. The help article gives the setup in four steps, and the order is the point.

1. Set up the Reddit Pixel or the Conversions API and start sharing the event you want to optimise for. Reddit marks this as recommended, and you can only skip it if you are content to optimise for clicks.
2. Create a campaign and choose the lead generation objective.
3. On the ad group, choose the goal: SignUp, Lead or Clicks. Clicks is only offered when no Pixel or Conversions API is set up.
4. Finish the ad group and the ad, with your landing page as the destination.

One alternative is worth knowing about. The same objectives table lists Lead and SignUp as goals under the Sales objective too, with the catalog turned off, bought on optimised CPM at lowest cost or on a cost cap paid per click. Lead generation is always paid per click. Reddit's objectives page does not compare the two, so if you try both, run them side by side on the same audience with the same event behind the goal.

Reddit gives a lead generation ad group three goals, and two of them are events you define on your site. The definitions are Reddit's own.

• Lead

  "A person submits information expressing interest in an advertised product/offer." A demo request, a quote request, a contact form about the offer in the ad.

• SignUp

  "A person submits a form, like a subscription, registration, or sign-up form." A newsletter, a webinar registration, a free account or trial.

• Clicks

  Only while no Pixel or Conversions API is set up. Reddit optimises for people who click, which is what the onsite forms did all along.

Both Lead and SignUp accept a value and a currency, and Reddit reports them as Total Value and Average Value, which it calls the advertiser-assigned value of the lead. Custom events cannot be a goal, so whatever you want Reddit to optimise for has to travel as one of the standard events.

Decide the whole ladder before the first ad group, for two documented reasons. Reddit's conversion goals article says a goal is set permanently once the ad group is saved, and you have to rebuild the ad group to change it (the lead generation article does not repeat the line, so treat it as permanent there too). And only events you are already sharing can be picked. If you might later want Reddit to optimise on qualified leads rather than form fills, the optimisation section below shows why the form fill is then better sent as SignUp, so that Lead stays free for the qualified stage.

The form is yours now, and so is every way it can fail to be counted. Seven steps, in the order that avoids rework.

1. Install the Reddit Pixel base code in the head of every page a conversion can happen on, including the ad's landing page and the confirmation page, and never twice on one page, which Reddit warns duplicates tracking. The Reddit Pixel setup guide covers the base code, Google Tag Manager and the event setup tool.
2. Make the landing page pass review. Reddit requires an SSL certificate when you collect visitor information, wants clear links to your terms, privacy policy and a contact or about page, and says not to gatekeep content: unless the form gives access to more information, you cannot demand personal details such as an email address.
3. Fire the event on a successful submission, not on the button click. A click on a form that then fails validation is not a lead. The confirmation page load or the form's success callback is the moment.
4. Send one event with all its metadata. Reddit asks for one event per conversion with all the metadata in it, because several copies of the same event are how duplicates get in.
5. Give it a value and a currency. For a lead that means an expected value you can defend, for example your average first deal times the share of leads that close. A made-up figure trains the bidding on a made-up figure.
6. Add a conversion ID if you will also send the lead server-side, and make it unique per event: the lead's id from your form backend or CRM is ideal. Reddit says to use the conversion ID only when you run both the Pixel and the Conversions API, and it hashes an unhashed ID before storing it.
7. Pass the email and phone the form just collected as match keys in the track call, since they are not known at page load. Reddit accepts them unhashed or hashed with SHA-256, phone numbers in E.164. Reddit's own pages disagree about whether automated advanced matching is on by default, so check the toggle in Events Manager rather than assuming either way.

// After the Reddit Pixel base code has run on the page.
// Fire once, when the form submission has succeeded.
rdt('track', 'Lead', {
  value: 150.00,                  // the expected value you assign to a lead
  currency: 'USD',
  conversionId: '<LEAD_ID>',      // unique per event, reused by the server copy
  email: '<EMAIL_FROM_THE_FORM>',
  phoneNumber: '<PHONE_E164>'     // for example +15554441234
});

Check it before you spend

The Reddit Pixel Helper, a Chrome extension, shows each event as it fires with its metadata, match keys and errors. Events Manager's event testing takes a page URL and shows events arriving, with third-party cookies enabled in the testing browser. Then generate a test ad URL: Reddit treats a test click like a real ad click, charges included, and tells you to open the destination and confirm rdt_cid is in the address. A test conversion appears in Ads Manager within 24 hours.

When somebody clicks a Reddit ad, Reddit appends its click ID, rdt_cid, to your landing page URL automatically. The Pixel shares it with every event it sends. The current pixel script also writes it to a first-party _rdt_cid cookie for 90 days, which is how it is still there on a thank-you page three pages later, although that is read from the script rather than documented and Reddit can change it.

Everything outside the Pixel is your job. Reddit's click ID guide says it plainly: for the Conversions API you have to persist the click ID yourself and send it as click_id. The same applies to your CRM, which will never see an rdt_cid unless the form hands it over. The places it gets lost are predictable.

• RedirectsA tracking redirect, a vanity URL or a language redirect that drops the query string takes rdt_cid with it. Reddit's guide says landing pages must preserve URL parameters through redirects.
• The form on another pageThe visitor lands on an article and converts on the pricing page. The URL of the form page no longer carries rdt_cid, so a field filled from the URL stays empty.
• Embedded and third-party formsA form embedded from another domain reads its own address, not your page's, and a thank-you page on another domain starts without your storage.
• Ad server routingWhen the ad routes through Campaign Manager 360, Reddit's click ID is only attached if the landing page URL suffix carries &rdt_cid=%prdt_cid=!;

Reddit's guide lists the options (the URL, a cookie, localStorage or sessionStorage, a hidden form field, a server session, a page variable) and recommends combining them. For a lead form the combination that works is storage on landing, a hidden field on submit. This is Reddit's documented hidden field pattern:

<form action="/submit" method="post">
  <input type="hidden" id="rdt_cid_field" name="rdt_cid" value="">
  <!-- other form fields -->
  <button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>
<script>
  // Get the click ID (rdt_cid) from the URL
  function getClickIdFromUrl() {
    const params = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);
    return params.get('rdt_cid');
  }
  const clickId = getClickIdFromUrl();
  // Populate the hidden field with the click ID, if available
  if (clickId) {
    document.getElementById('rdt_cid_field').value = clickId;
  }
</script>

On its own this only works when the form sits on the landing page. Save the value to first-party storage when the visitor lands, fill the field from storage on whichever page holds the form, and map the field to a property of its own on the CRM lead. Reddit's guide adds that browser storage has to follow your regional consent requirements, so keep it inside what your consent banner covers.

Reddit recommends running the Pixel and the Conversions API together "for best performance" and requires deduplication when the same event travels both ways. For a lead form the two copies of one submission look like this, and the Reddit Conversions API guide has the full payload, authentication and test mode.

• The browser copyThe Pixel's Lead event from the snippet above, carrying conversionId, value, currency and the match keys.
• The server copyA LEAD event to the v3 endpoint with action_source WEBSITE, the same conversion_id in metadata, the rdt_cid from the hidden field as click_id, the email and phone, the visitor's own IP address and user agent, and the _rdt_uuid cookie's value as uuid.
• The CRM eventsStages that only your CRM knows, sent server-side only. Reddit says events that are not shared through both sources need no deduplication.

Two limits shape the timing. Events must reach Reddit within seven days of when they happened, and the Pixel and server copies only deduplicate properly when both arrive within two days. Events Manager shows a deduplication rate per event, updated hourly, and Reddit calls a rate of around 50% healthy, with the server copy usually slightly ahead of the Pixel. Before going live, send a server event with the test ID from Events Manager's event testing, and remove it afterwards.

With the form on your own site the lead goes straight into the CRM your form writes to, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or any other. What it does not get by default is the reason the lead exists. Reddit's apps on iOS and Android pass no referrer, so a lead from the Reddit app with no UTM parameters arrives looking like Direct. Put these on every lead record, as properties of their own:

• rdt_cid, from the hidden field. It is what a server event to Reddit matches on, weeks after the form.
• The UTM parameters from the landing URL. Reddit's own advice for Google Analytics is to add utm_source=Reddit to the ad's destination; add a medium and campaign too, and see Reddit Ads UTM parameters for the macros Reddit does and does not document.
• The landing page and the form page, so you can tell the thread-style article from the pricing page.
• The conversion ID you sent to Reddit, so a later stage can reference the same lead without reusing the ID.

The HubSpot Reddit Ads integration

People search for a HubSpot Reddit lead gen ads integration, and there is now a real one to describe. HubSpot's Reddit Ads integration is in beta, available on all products and plans, and a Super Admin opts the account in. According to HubSpot's article it syncs your campaign, ad group and ad settings and their performance metrics, offers auto tracking that will "apply HubSpot tracking to the Reddit ads" in the connected account, and shows which contacts and deals are attributed to your Reddit campaigns, through to closed deals.

Two things are absent from that article. It does not describe syncing leads from Reddit forms, which no longer matters, because your HubSpot form is the lead form now. And it does not describe sending conversions or deal stages back to Reddit. So HubSpot can show you which Reddit campaigns produced deals, while Reddit's bidding keeps learning from whatever your Pixel reports, which is the form fill. For other CRMs the route is the hidden fields above mapped to custom properties, plus whatever attribution the CRM itself offers.

A form fill is the event Reddit sees first and the one that says least about revenue. Sending a later CRM stage back is how you get Reddit to look for people who become customers, and the limits on doing it are all documented.

• Reporting window

  An account-level setting, 28-day click plus 1-day view by default. Click and view windows can each be 1, 7 or 28 days, the view never longer than the click.

• Optimisation window

  Set on the campaign or ad group: 7-day click, or 7-day click plus 1-day view. It cannot be changed after publishing.

• Send limit

  Conversions API events must arrive within seven days of when they happened, and are credited to the day of the click or view.

Put together: a stage that happens within seven days of the click can train the bidding, a stage within 28 days can show up in Reddit's reporting, and a deal closed in month three is not credited by Reddit however you send it. That suggests two setups. Reddit has not documented either as a pattern; both only use its standard events as documented.

Setup B only works if the qualification is fast and honest. A lead qualified on day three is inside the 7-day optimisation window; a lead qualified on day twelve still reports under the default 28-day window but never reaches the bidding. And if "qualified" means somebody picked up the phone, you have taught Reddit to find people who pick up phones. Because a goal cannot be changed once an ad group is saved, move to Setup B in a new ad group rather than redefining Lead under a running one.

Everything outside the windows still happened. The deal that closes on day 70 after a Reddit click and a later branded search belongs in your attribution reporting, where no window applies, and in the budget decision. Reddit Ads attribution covers why Reddit's numbers and your CRM's disagree, and Reddit Ads for B2B SaaS covers the long-cycle version of this problem.

0:40

The hard part of this setup is not the event call. It is keeping the click ID from an anonymous landing until the CRM stage changes, on every form, through every redirect, and then sending the right stage back in time. That is LeadJourney's normal job, and the Reddit Ads integration is the newest ad platform on it.

One script on your site or in your GTM container, live in about 21 minutes without a developer, tracks server-side and first-party at 95%+ accuracy. On the first visit it issues the LeadJourney Click ID, LeadJourney's own visitor identifier, kept for months in first-party storage, and every session is stored under it. The platforms' click IDs are properties of those sessions: gclid, fbclid, msclkid, li_fat_id and now Reddit's rdt_cid, captured server-side on every Reddit click. When the visitor fills the form, even on another page or a week later in the same browser, the lead is joined to that history, so the hidden field is no longer the only thing standing between the click and the CRM.

LeadJourney connects the Reddit Ads account, imports campaigns, ad groups, ads and daily spend, and follows the lead through HubSpot, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, Attio, Close, GoHighLevel, ActiveCampaign or Odoo natively, other CRMs by webhook, Zapier or the API. The CRM stages you map, for example a qualified lead as a Lead event and a won deal or a paid order as a Purchase with its value, go back through Reddit's Conversions API with the click ID, hashed email and phone, and a conversion ID that deduplicates against a running Reddit Pixel.

On the reporting side there is no attribution window: the journey runs from the first click to closed won however long it takes, under first click, last click, linear, position based, time decay and the other models, switched without re-tracking. That is where the day-70 deal shows its Reddit click. What LeadJourney does not do is view-through attribution: an impression nobody clicked is Reddit's to report, not ours. Data is processed in Frankfurt under a DPA, and every plan starts with a 14-day free trial without a credit card.

Read verified reviews on Trustpilot, G2 and leadjourney.io/testimonials.

• Reddit conversion tracking: the whole system, from the Pixel to CRM events and the numbers you can trust.
• Reddit Pixel setup: the base code, Google Tag Manager, Shopify, standard and custom events.
• Reddit Conversions API: the payload, deduplication, match keys and test mode.
• Reddit Ads UTM parameters: macros, rdt_cid and the GA4 setup.
• Reddit Ads attribution: windows, view-through and why the numbers disagree.
• Reddit Ads for B2B SaaS and are Reddit Ads worth it.
• Product: the Reddit Ads integration, the HubSpot integration and lead quality by channel.
• Definitions: qualified lead, conversions API and click ID.