THIRD-PARTY RESEARCH
We reverse-engineered 5,272 media placements from a UK reactive PR agency to find out what actually earns coverage: the topics, data sources, and timing that work.
The short version: finance and fashion get covered the most, free data beats expensive research, and one good regional placement is worth more than fifty cold pitches. That’s what fell out when we studied 5,272 published media placements across roughly 1,055 domains.
Worth being straight about where this data comes from: it’s not our own portfolio. These are published placements from campaigns run by Search Intelligence, a UK digital PR agency founded by Fery Kaszoni with 50,000+ claimed placements. We traced, verified, and tagged 5,272 of them by topic, outlet, data source, and timing, then used the patterns to sharpen our own playbook.
This isn’t 200 PR people describing their “best practices” in a survey. It’s what actually got published. Here’s what the data shows.
Finding 1: Finance and Fashion Dominate Coverage
If your story doesn’t touch finance or fashion, your odds drop fast. Those two topics alone account for more than a third of all 5,272 placements, and the top 5 topics combined cover about 78% of everything published.
Key Takeaway
Finance (20.7%) and fashion (17.1%) are the two topics you can’t afford to ignore for volume. If neither fits your brand, look at travel, health, or property next; together with finance and fashion they cover roughly 78% of every placement in the dataset.
Finding 2: You Don’t Need Original Research
Skip the $50,000 survey. The data sources behind most placements are free or already sitting in your toolkit.
- SEO tool data (Ahrefs, SEMrush) — ~317 placements
- Instagram followers/engagement — ~266 placements
- Google search volume — ~175 placements
- Expert quotes — ~128 placements
- Google Trends — ~77 placements
Those five sources alone show up in roughly 960 placements (about 18% of the dataset). None of them require a research budget, just a good angle on numbers that already exist.
Pro Tip
Expert quotes need zero data: just a credible person with a sharp, quotable opinion on something already trending. If you don’t have a dataset to pitch, that’s your fastest way into a journalist’s inbox.
Finding 3: Fashion Is the Bridge Topic
Fashion punches above its weight because it’s rarely about clothes. Of the 901 fashion placements in the dataset, only 13 actually came from fashion brands. The rest were gambling sites, VPN providers, and casinos borrowing “fashion” as a hook.
That’s the trick: fashion makes a hard data story feel human. A piece on “how much Taylor Swift’s wardrobe costs” is fashion, finance, and celebrity all at once, and it can land everywhere from The Sun to Forbes. If you’re not a fashion brand, that gap is your opening.
Finding 4: Regional Press Drives the Volume
Pitch regional first. One regional hit can cascade into five or more placements automatically.
MSN is the single biggest domain in the dataset at roughly 589 placements (about 11% of all coverage). MSN has no editorial team of its own; it syndicates from other publishers.
- MSN — ~589
- Express — ~356
- Yahoo — ~270
- The Sun (family titles) — ~209
- Digital Journal — ~93
Express, Mirror, Daily Star, Wales Online, Birmingham Mail, and Daily Record all belong to Reach PLC, the UK’s largest commercial publisher. Combined, Reach titles account for roughly 734 placements in this dataset, and a hit in one Reach outlet frequently syndicates across the whole network, then onto MSN as well.
Finding 5: Seasonal Hooks Are Overrated (Except in February)
Save the seasonal calendar for one month: February. Valentine’s Day, the Oscars, the Grammys, and the Super Bowl all land in the same 28-day window, roughly 162 placements from seasonal hooks in a single month.
Outside of that, evergreen wins. Only around 700 of the 5,272 placements (about 13%) rode any seasonal hook at all. The other 87% needed no calendar excuse whatsoever.
Summer and Christmas are the two biggest seasonal windows on their own (roughly 143 and 140 placements), but neither comes close to matching a plain evergreen data story.
Finding 6: Small Companies Win at PR
You don’t need a recognizable brand to earn serious coverage. You need a sharp, shareable angle.
- QR Code Generator — 32 placements
- Bed Kingdom — 32 placements
- HomeHow.co.uk — 16 placements
- Seating Masters — 13 placements
- A-Plan Insurance — 13 placements
QR Code Generator earned 32 placements across 24 unique domains using nothing but free Google data and a quirky, shareable angle. No agency retainer, no massive PR budget, just smart data and good pitching.
Key Takeaway
Niche companies with a sharp data angle regularly out-earn big brands running generic PR. Size isn’t the variable that matters here. The angle is.
The Playbook: What Works
Here’s the formula, distilled from all 5,272 placements:
- Use free data — SEO tools, Google Trends, government stats. Skip the paid survey.
- Pick a high-volume topic — finance and fashion cover more than a third of all coverage; travel, health, and property round out the rest of the top five.
- Default to evergreen — save your seasonal angle for February, where four hooks stack in one month.
- Target regional press first — a Reach PLC hit cascades to MSN and the rest of the network for free.
- Build bridge stories — pair topics (fashion + finance, travel + parenting) for wider pickup.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does this data come from?
Not our own portfolio. We reverse-engineered 5,272 published placements that originated from campaigns run by Search Intelligence, a UK reactive PR agency, and tagged each one by topic, outlet, data source, and timing. It’s research we use to sharpen our own strategy, not a tally of coverage we earned ourselves.
How recent is this data?
Most of the placements are from the last three years, with some older campaigns mixed in.
Can small businesses really compete with big brands in PR?
Yes. The data shows niche companies with a sharp data angle regularly match or beat larger brands running generic campaigns.
What is the best data source for PR campaigns?
SEO tool data (Ahrefs, SEMrush) is the single most-cited source at roughly 317 placements, followed by Instagram data (~266), Google search volume (~175), expert quotes (~128), and Google Trends (~77).
Do I need a PR agency to get media coverage?
No. The most successful campaigns in this dataset came from lean teams with a good data angle and sharp targeting, not from agency size or budget.
Underlying placement data researched from Search Intelligence · Google Trends
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About the Author
Salvador Jovells
Founder of Presslei. 12+ years in ecommerce SEO across international markets. After a decade of link buying for Hockerty and Sumissura, I reverse-engineered 5,272 earned media placements and founded a reactive PR agency that builds authority through data-driven stories journalists actually want to publish. Based in Zurich.
