Tier 1 vs Tier 2 Publications: What the Terms Actually Mean

There is no governing body, no official list and no agreed criteria. That matters more than it sounds, because it means anybody selling you press can define the tiers however suits them.

What tier 1 usually means

Nationally or globally recognised. Large newsrooms. Names a stranger recognises without explanation.

In business and general news that typically means Forbes, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, the BBC, Business Insider, the Financial Times, Reuters, Associated Press. In their own fields, Variety, Rolling Stone, Vogue and similar carry the same weight.

The common thread is that you do not have to explain what the publication is. That recognition is what people are buying.

What tier 2 usually means

Established, credible publications operating at smaller scale. Regional dailies, trade titles, respected sector publications, digital business outlets with real readerships.

Digital Journal, Benzinga, International Business Times, the major regional newspapers, and the trade press of any given industry.

These are real publications with editorial processes. They are simply smaller and less universally known than tier 1.

Where the terms get stretched

Because nobody governs the labels, they drift, always in one direction.

"Tier 1" gets applied to things that are not. A site with a national-sounding name and modest traffic gets sold as tier 1. Occasionally a syndication network gets described as tier 1 because the syndicated version appears on a large platform.

"Tier 2" absorbs everything else. Including sites with no meaningful readership at all, which properly belong in a third category nobody wants to name.

Reach numbers get quoted for the wrong thing. A publication's total monthly traffic is not your article's traffic. Your article gets a tiny fraction of it. Any provider quoting the site's audience as though it were your audience is doing something misleading.

Why tier 2 often beats tier 1

This runs against instinct, and it is true more often than the industry admits.

Relevance beats size. If you sell to accountants, a feature in an accounting trade title reaches more of your actual buyers than a general national piece. The national outlet reaches vastly more people, almost none of whom can buy from you.

Local authority is real. A regional daily carries weight in its region that a national title does not. For a business serving one city, that is worth more.

Trade coverage reads as peer recognition. Professionals see their industry's publication and read it as validation. The same person seeing you in a general newspaper reads it as marketing.

Tier 2 is achievable. You can get tier 2 coverage now. Genuine tier 1 editorial takes years, real news, or both.

The businesses getting the most out of press use both: one tier 1 name for the credibility a stranger recognises, and tier 2 coverage in the publications their actual buyers read. The first opens doors. The second closes deals.

The question that cuts through the labels

Forget the tier. Ask this instead:

"Would my customer recognise this publication, and do they read it?"

If the answer to both is yes, it is worth having, whatever tier anybody calls it. If the answer to both is no, the label does not save it.

How we use the terms

We say tier 1 and tier 2 on this site, so it is fair to say what we mean.

Tier 1 for us means the globally recognised names: Forbes, Bloomberg, Business Insider, USA Today, AP News, Yahoo Finance and similar. Tier 2 means established outlets a step below in scale, including the business and trade titles that make up most of what we place.

We do not describe small sites as tier 1, and we do not quote a publication's total traffic as though it were your article's readership. Our publications page lists everything by name so you can judge for yourself rather than trusting a label.

Tier 1 audiences: a different meaning

In advertising, affiliate marketing and app marketing, "tier 1" describes countries, not publications. Tier 1 countries are the markets where each user is worth the most to advertisers, usually the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, often with New Zealand and much of Western Europe. Tier 2 and tier 3 countries are markets where advertising costs and returns per user are lower.

So a "tier 1 audience" means readers or users in those high-value countries. It says nothing about which publication they read. A tier 2 publication can have a mostly tier 1 audience, and a tier 1 publication's global edition can reach mostly tier 2 and 3 countries. When press is sold on audience, ask which one is meant.

The short version

Tier 1 and tier 2 describe scale and recognition. Nobody governs them, so they get stretched.

Tier 1 buys you recognition from strangers. Tier 2 buys you relevance with buyers. Most businesses need both, and most agencies sell only the first.

Judge the publication, not the tier.

Related reading: how to choose the right publication, what is a contributor article, and how to vet a PR agency.