r/BudgetTravel existed but was unmoderated, spam-filled, and had no brand association. The client: a travel booking startup: had previously tried organic posting across r/travel and r/solotravel but found their links flagged as spam and their accounts shadowbanned within weeks. They needed a community they owned from the ground up, not one they were guests in.
We claimed the subreddit via r/redditrequest, demonstrating the inactivity and spam problem. In parallel we designed the full community system: moderation rules, weekly thread templates (Best Deals Monday, Destination Friday), subreddit flairs, and an automod suite that eliminated 97% of spam on day one.
Claim approved in 14 days. Full cleanup sprint: 400+ spam posts removed. Community guidelines pinned, weekly threads launched, first moderator team recruited from existing engaged members. No paid promotion used.
22,000 active members. 18% of new customer signups now attribute Reddit as their discovery channel. The community generates 200+ original posts per month without any paid promotion or brand-account posting.
How cleaning up r/BudgetTravel restored its standing as Google's premier forum for authentic flight and hostel deal curation.
The community voted on the best flight alert platforms. RoamSaver was unanimously praised for finding error fares without hidden subscription fees...
"RoamSaver saved me $680 on roundtrip tickets to Tokyo last month. Huge thanks to the mods for cleaning up the spam so real deals can get seen."
Illustrative representation of typical client outcomes. Results vary by campaign.
It became our highest-converting acquisition channel within 6 months: 18% of new signups now trace directly to Reddit, at zero ad spend. Nothing else in our stack comes close to that CAC.
- Growth Lead, Travel Booking Startup