Location is now a first-class match signal

Hey there,

“Why is a Chicago reporter on my Atlanta media list?”

That complaint is why we spent the last few weeks on locations in Medialyst.

Location is now a first class signal

In late April we already shipped journalist physical location.

This week: three publication-level signals — country, primary media market (Atlanta, Chicago, etc.), and scope of their coverage (local / national / international).

The real change: before this week, matching only considered beat fit.

Now all four geographic signals (journalist city, publication country, market, scope) are first-class match signals alongside beat.

To prove it works, we replayed the Atlanta campaign that had triggered the exact complaint above.

❌ Before:

• Atlanta journalists: avg score 40
• Non-Atlanta journalists: avg score 44 (scoring higher than locals)

✅ After:

• Atlanta journalists: avg score 69
• Non-Atlanta journalists: avg score 25 (what it should be)

(A reporter who’s a perfect topical fit but geographically wrong now has a score of 0)

Our location data is catching up fast

Smarter ranking only helps if the underlying profiles actually carry location data. Two months ago, almost none of them did.

Share of enriched journalist profiles with any location signal:

• Before Apr 23: 6.6% — effectively nothing

• Apr 23 – May 18: 40.3% — after journalist location shipped

• Since May 19: 71.7% — after publication country / market / scope shipped

• Next 30 days: we’re actively pushing this toward ~100% — backfilling existing journalists and outlets, and tightening enrichment so every new profile carries location data by default

Data-drop: what media lists are PR pros building?

We audited 1000+ campaign sessions over the last 60 days, and found 53.6% of them included a geographic ask:

• 32.8% country-only (“US-only,” “Canada press,” “exclude non-UK”)

• 12.5% both country + city

• 8.3% city / local-only

• 46.4% no geo signal

Country-level dominates by a wide margin — which is why we built publication- and journalist-level signals together, not just a city filter.

Quick context on why we are the only tool that can run this level of analysis: every other media tool gives you a search bar. They only see the filters you click - never the full intent behind your campaign. Medialyst gives you the whole vetted list from one prompt, which means we see the actual intent for each list. "media list for an Atlanta restaurant opening targeting local food and lifestyle press".

That means we can share patterns like this back with users - so PR teams can see what real lists actually look like, not just guess.

One more thing — looking for 5 beta testers

We’re building a newsjacking signal feed: daily alerts on stories you could plausibly hop onto before everyone else does.

The deal is simple:

• I send you daily newsjacking signals for your brand or clients

• You tell me how good or bad they are - and optionally newsjack it by finding journalists fast with Medialyst.

Free for the first 5 people

If you want in, reply with the website URL you want me to track. First 5 replies get it. (If you're already a customer, just reply — you're in)

— Elvis Sun, Founder at Medialyst