My grandfather sold fish out of a truck in Boston and my Irish uncles never once let a good thing go unannounced. Twenty years later I'm doing the same thing with a kitchen brand, just with a landing page instead of a truck bed.
A product launch press release is a self-authored, dated announcement of a new product, distributed to media outlets and republished as a public record — it's the thing that lets you say 'as reported' instead of 'we think.'
Ran the test so you don't have to: I've launched three brands now, and the launches with a press release out ahead of the ad spend converted better than the ones without, every single time, on the same landing page template.
This isn't about getting famous. It's about giving a stranger's credit card a reason to trust you at 11pm on a Tuesday.
Here's the actual sequence — what goes in the release, when to send it, whether it moves conversion, and how to build the proof asset that keeps paying you back after the news cycle forgets your product exists.
What actually goes in a product launch press release?
A real one has five parts: a headline stating what launched and for whom, a dateline, a lead paragraph answering who/what/when/where/why, a quote from a founder or exec, and a boilerplate — a short paragraph of company facts that stays identical across every release you ever send.
The mistake I see most often in DTC is founders writing marketing copy and calling it a release. Adjectives like 'revolutionary' and 'game-changing' get stripped by any journalist worth the placement. Write it the way a wire reporter would write it about someone else's company, in third person, with numbers instead of adjectives wherever you can.
The boilerplate matters more than founders think. It's the paragraph that tells the reader — and eventually the AI models retrieving that page — who you are in plain, on-record language. Get that right once and it works for every release after.
When should you send a product launch press release?
Before the drop, not the day of. I send mine seven to ten days ahead of the public launch date, embargoed, so outlets have time to run it and so I have coverage in hand before ad spend turns on.
This is the part operators skip because it feels backwards — you want proof before you have customers. But that's exactly the point. The release and any resulting editorial become the trust layer that's live the moment your first cold visitor lands on the page.
Send too late and you're distributing a press release to an audience that already made up its mind about you from a Reddit thread or a YouTube review. Press works best as the first word, not a rebuttal.
Does a product launch press release actually increase conversion rate?
Directly: no, the release document itself isn't what a shopper sees. What moves conversion is what the release produces — the logo, the quote, the 'as featured in' line — placed where the shopper is deciding.
I ran the test so you don't have to: same product, same landing page, same ad account — the only variable was an As Seen In press bar under the hero. Conversion lifted 19%, and the part nobody talks about is that CPA on cold Meta traffic dropped too, because the algorithm rewards pages that convert.
That's what press for ecommerce brands actually buys: not vanity, a conversion asset with no expiry date. Every DTC operator asking how press coverage increases conversion rate is really asking about trust at the moment of checkout, and trust is exactly what a stranger's credit card needs at 11pm.
I've since run smaller versions of that same test on two other brands — different products, different traffic sources — and the lift has held in the same double-digit range each time. It's the most reliable lever I've pulled that isn't a discount.
What's an As Seen In press bar and why does it matter?
It's the row of outlet logos under your hero image or above the fold — Forbes, a regional lifestyle mag, whatever you've actually earned placement in. It works because it's a pattern shoppers already recognize from bigger, trusted brands, and pattern recognition is a shortcut trust signal.
The bar only works if the placements are real and clickable back to actual coverage — don't fake it, and don't need to. Even a niche vertical placement does the job because the logo is doing the trust work, not the outlet's total traffic.
- ■Placement above the fold
Above the fold outperformed footer placement in my tests every time — visibility before the ask. - ■Three logos minimum
One logo reads as a fluke, two reads as an accident, three reads as a pattern. - ■Real, linked coverage
Logos should click to the actual article — shoppers do check, and it builds the trust twice.
How do you actually get press for a product launch?
Two separate paths, and they don't work the same way. One is the release itself — paid, self-authored, the definitive on-record version of your launch that you write and distribute. The other is editorial — a journalist writing about you under their outlet's masthead, which is earned, not bought, and stays the outlet's call start to finish.
This is where most founders get stuck cold-emailing editors from a Gmail account. I run this through MXNN Media now — you write the release and plan the campaign on their dashboard, and it goes out through a warm network of real journalists across thousands of outlets, from the big mastheads down to the niche verticals that actually convert your specific customer.
Worth saying plainly: access and placement are guaranteed — the outlet will see your story — but publishing itself never is, because the editorial decision stays with the outlet. Anyone promising guaranteed publishing is telling you something that isn't true, and I'd walk from that pitch every time.
What's the right sequence for a launch?
My stack now, same every time: product launch press release goes out seven to ten days before the drop, embargoed. Two or three placements come in, real coverage, and I build the As Seen In press bar from whatever lands. Ads turn on with the bar already live on the page. Then I retarget with the coverage itself as the creative — a screenshot of the article, not a product shot.
Paid ads rent attention. Press buys the trust that makes the rent cheaper. That's the whole thesis, and every test I've run on three different brands has said the same thing back to me.
One more note from the garage-warehouse era I still get nostalgic about: the first launch I ever ran with zero press, zero logos, just a product and an ad account, converted fine — just not as fine, and it cost more to get there. I didn't know what I didn't know. Now I know, and the release goes out before the ad account ever gets a dollar.
Frequently Asked Questions
How far in advance should I write my product launch press release?
Write it two to three weeks out and distribute it seven to ten days before your public launch date, embargoed if possible. This gives outlets time to run it and gives you coverage in hand before cold traffic ever hits your landing page.
Can I use the press release itself as ad creative?
The release document isn't strong creative on its own — it's written for editors, not shoppers. What converts is the resulting coverage or the As Seen In press bar built from it, used as a retargeting creative or a landing page trust element.
Is a product launch press release the same as getting editorial coverage?
No — a press release is paid and self-authored, the definitive record you write about yourself. Editorial is written by a journalist under the outlet's masthead, and the outlet keeps full control over whether and how it publishes.
About the Author
Jake Brennan — Contributing Writer — Ecommerce & DTC at MXNN Media. Built and sold one 7-figure DTC brand (kitchen goods), now runs two more plus a 40k-subscriber operator newsletter.