HeyReach Reddit Case Study
LinkedIn automation platform · Reddit marketing for AI search visibility
24
AI citations of the Reddit threads naming HeyReach
November 2025 to June 2026 · Rankings and citations from Ahrefs, checked 19 October 2026
Objective
Get HeyReach named where buyers compare LinkedIn tools
Reddit is the most-cited source across answer engines, at 3.11% of citations (Profound, 4B+ citations, Nov 2025). When a sales team asks which LinkedIn automation tool to use, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews can pull the answer from a Reddit thread, and the same threads rank on Google. The goal was to get HeyReach named, in context, in the threads that buyers and answer engines both read.
Starting Point
Strong Google growth, little Reddit presence
HeyReach was already growing on Google through our link building campaign, which took it from DR 39 to 66. The Reddit campaign started in November 2025 as a separate workstream. We did not measure HeyReach's Reddit or AI citation footprint before it started, so this case study reports what the placements earned, not a before and after lift.
Our Approach
68 comments in 33 subreddits over 8 months
Threads where buyers ask for tools
We looked for questions about LinkedIn outreach, sales automation and cold outreach stacks: the threads where someone asks which tool to use and others answer. Across 8 months that meant 33 subreddits, led by r/SaaS (11 comments), r/b2bmarketing (7) and r/coldemail, r/GrowthHacking, r/micro_saas and r/AskMarketing (4 each).
Comments that answer the question
Every comment was manually written and posted from real accounts, each warmed up in the target subreddit before it commented. HeyReach is named in context, next to the tools the thread was already discussing. No links: brand-name mentions only, so the comment reads as advice rather than an ad.
A steady monthly cadence
About 10 comments a month from November 2025 to May 2026, then 1 in June. Spreading placements across months and subreddits keeps any single account or community from carrying the campaign.
Results
The Reddit threads that ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews cite
14 of the 68 threads are visible: 13 rank on Google for 88 keywords between them, 35 of them in the top 3, for an estimated 268 visits a month, and 6 are cited in AI answers.
| Thread | Comment placed | Google keywords (top 3) | Visits / mo | AI citations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| r/LinkedInTips | Nov 2025 | 30 (11) | 105 | 10: Google AI Overviews 8, Gemini 1, Google AI Mode 1 |
| r/SaaS | Apr 2026 | 9 (8) | 38 | 6: Google AI Overviews 6 |
| r/Entrepreneurship | Jan 2026 | 21 (3) | 26 | 3: ChatGPT 1, Google AI Overviews 2 |
| r/smallbusiness | Jan 2026 | 6 (1) | 31 | 3: Google AI Overviews 3 |
| r/b2bmarketing | Jan 2026 | 3 (3) | 19 | 1: Google AI Overviews 1 |
| r/GrowthHacking | Feb 2026 | 0 (0) | 0 | 1: Perplexity 1 |
| r/AskMarketing | Dec 2025 | 5 (3) | 27 | None yet |
| r/LeadGeneration | Feb 2026 | 6 (4) | 15 | None yet |
| r/SocialMediaMarketing | Dec 2025 | 2 (1) | 4 | None yet |
| r/b2b_sales | Mar 2026 | 2 (0) | 1 | None yet |
| r/b2b_sales | Apr 2026 | 1 (0) | 2 | None yet |
| r/SaaS | Feb 2026 | 1 (1) | 0 | None yet |
| r/SaaS | Mar 2026 | 1 (0) | 0 | None yet |
| r/b2bmarketing | Jan 2026 | 1 (0) | 0 | None yet |
20
Google AI Overviews
1
ChatGPT
1
Perplexity
1
Gemini
1
Google AI Mode
How to read these numbers: rankings, visits and citations are Ahrefs data for each thread, checked on 19 October 2026. Visits are Ahrefs' estimate of Google traffic to the whole thread, not to the comment. Citation counts show how often an AI engine cited the thread; Ahrefs does not show whether each of those answers also named HeyReach. Google AI Overviews includes citations found through Google keyword searches as well as tracked prompts.
Takeaways
What the HeyReach campaign taught us
Thread choice decides the outcome
13 of the 68 threads (19%) rank on Google, and 5 of them carry 85% of the estimated traffic. The r/LinkedInTips thread alone ranks for 30 keywords, 11 in the top 3, and drew 10 of the 24 AI citations. A comment in a thread nobody finds does nothing, however good it is.
Google AI Overviews cite the Reddit threads Google ranks
5 of the 6 AI-cited threads also rank on Google, and 20 of the 24 citations came from Google AI Overviews. When we pick threads now, a thread's Google ranking is the first thing we check, because it is a useful early signal of whether answer engines will retrieve it.
ChatGPT is the hardest engine to reach
One thread in 68 is cited by ChatGPT, against 20 Google AI Overviews citations. Without buyer prompts tracked before the campaign, we can't say whether ChatGPT's answers about LinkedIn tools changed. The next campaign starts with those prompts tracked before the first comment, so the ChatGPT effect can be measured as a before and after.
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