Hypertune · Internal

Launch PR performance, Story Mob

8 to 19 September 2026 · prepared 19 Sep · sources: Story Mob coverage tracker and CoverageBook, Hypertune first-party site analytics, Stripe via the affiliate portal · all money USD

The push was set up to establish legitimacy and put Intel's name next to Hypertune's in public. It did that. Intel is in every headline, Tom's Hardware ran it, and Business Insider carried it inside an Intel stock story. As an acquisition channel it moved traffic for six days and did not move sales.

95
pieces of coverage
30 countries · median DA 54
+33%
site visitors vs prior 12 days
17,517 → 23,236
726
new paying customers
740 in the prior 12 days
15
payers traced to press or X
$329 gross to date · fee $12,000
The one lasting issue. Every headline says "up to 60% FPS". The site now says 41%. Igor's Lab, Hardware Busters and BornCity ran their own benchmarks and published 4 to 28%. Those three articles now sit in Hypertune's search results.

1What was delivered

MetricFigureNote
Pieces of coverage9522 English · 32 European · 30 Asian · 2 LATAM · 9 social
Estimated views (CoverageBook)25.7M11.8M of it is two NetEase (163.com) pickups, each counted at 11.8M
Combined audience242MCoverageBook figure. The tracker's 285M double-counts Yahoo Español, QQ and 163.com
Average domain authority53Moz DA, from CoverageBook. Median 54. Detail in section 5
Outlets on the distribution list~300Media List tab
Outlets approached for hands-on~100Three waves. No review was published. Counted as unsuccessful

Originals vs pickups, English. Three originals with Hypertune input: GamesBeat exclusive (8 Sep), Tom's Hardware (9 Sep), Sportskeeda interview (12 Sep). Nine independent write-ups: VideoCardz, KitGuru, TweakTown, Igor's Lab, Club386, Hardware Busters, Basic Tutorials, Invision, PCMaster Insider. Ten syndications of those. Unpaid social: TechLinked 303k views (10 Sep) and WAN Show 254k views (11 Sep).

2Traffic and sales, 12 days before vs 12 days after

Before = 27 Aug to 7 Sep. Press = 8 to 19 Sep, with 19 Sep a part day.

BeforePressChange
Visitors17,51723,236+5,719 · +33%
Sessions20,71927,164+31%
Peak day1,809 (30 Aug)3,353 (10 Sep)2.4x baseline
New paying customers740726flat
Revenue$25,551$24,970flat
Paying churned207273+32%
27 Aug
1,379
28 Aug
1,076
29 Aug
1,601
30 Aug
1,809
31 Aug
1,574
1 Sep
1,643
2 Sep
1,460
3 Sep
1,588
4 Sep
1,414
5 Sep
1,375
6 Sep
1,329
7 Sep
1,269
8 Sep
1,505
9 Sep
2,818
10 Sep
3,353
11 Sep
2,834
12 Sep
2,126
13 Sep
1,940
14 Sep
2,162
15 Sep
1,645
16 Sep
1,440
17 Sep
1,657
18 Sep
1,349
Daily visitors, hypertune.gg before launch from 8 Sep. Back to baseline by 15 Sep.

New payers per day ran 52 · 75 · 104 · 70 · 79 · 79 · 50 · 45 · 42 · 61 · 52 from 8 Sep against a pre-launch average of 62. Five days above, then five below. Net zero.

3Where the extra traffic came from

ReferrerBeforePressChangeRead
Google search3,5006,643+3,143People read about Hypertune and searched for it. The largest single effect of the PR
X (t.co)4041,729+1,325Tom's Hardware, GamesBeat and pickup posts
Direct4,4435,741+1,298Typed URL, app links, untagged. Partly PR, partly existing customers
Press sites0620+620Clicks from the articles themselves
Brave, DuckDuckGo363637+274Same search halo
YouTube5,1663,087−2,079Creator traffic fell 40% in the same window

Attribution. Strict (press-site clicks only): 620 visitors, 2.7% of the window. Fair (press sites plus the search and X lift): about 5,100 visitors, 22% of the window and roughly 90% of the increase over the prior 12 days. Nothing else changed on 8 Sep that would double Google traffic. Search Console will split that Google lift into branded and generic queries once connected.

4Sales attributed to each piece of coverage

First-touch attribution: the outlet a customer arrived from on their first ever visit to hypertune.gg, joined to their Stripe record. Window 8 to 19 Sep. Gross is what has been charged so far, mostly first month.

OutletDAEst. viewsSessionsSignupsPayersGross
VideoCardz767.0K14163$30
Tom's Hardware9115.0K11352$120
Tarreo (ES)553.7K10591$4
Golem.de · not in tracker··7832$70
ComputerBase · not in tracker··4210·
Adrenaline (BR)786.5K3630·
Hardware Upgrade (IT)719.6K2400·
Igor's Lab633.0K2010·
HardZone (ES) · not in tracker··1900·
WinFuture (DE) · not in tracker··1910·
PurePC (PL)635.5K1710·
JagatReview (ID) · not in tracker··1510·
HardwareCooking (FR)429.8K1100·
MSN, GamesBeat, El Chapuzas, PCGH, LTT forum, Overclocking.com, Tom's IT, Club386, Connect.ro, Basic Tutorials··2400·
Press sites664318$224
X (t.co), all posts··1,946577$105
YouTube, for scale (creators)··3,684728113$2,168

Fifteen paying customers and $329 of revenue to date can be tied to a specific article or post. Including the search halo, a fair estimate is 100 to 150 subscribers attributable to the PR, which is $80 to $120 of fee per subscriber. YouTube creators produced 113 payers from fewer sessions than press and X combined, at a 3% session-to-payer rate against 0.3% for press and X. Press readers look; creator viewers buy.

5Domain authority: what the coverage is worth for search

Moz Domain Authority for the 88 pieces CoverageBook scored. This is the value of the coverage as backlinks, which is the part that outlives the news cycle.

8DA 90+
22DA 70 to 89
19DA 50 to 69
20DA 30 to 49
19DA under 30

By region. English 22 pieces, average DA 61. Asian 30 pieces, average 52. European 32 pieces, average 46. LATAM 2, average 50.

DA 90+: MSN 95, Business Insider 94, QQ News 93 (three pickups), Sina Finance 91, Tom's Hardware 91, Sportskeeda 91.

DA 70 to 89, notable: Yahoo Taiwan 89, Yahoo Español 89, TweakTown 85, Sohu 84, TechPowerUp 82, ITHome 80, MCV 80, KitGuru 79, Adrenaline 78, NewsBreak 77, VideoCardz 76, TudoCelular 72, HWUpgrade 71.

The catch. DA only counts if the article links to hypertune.gg, and only fully if the link is followed. Referral traffic is the tell. Of the 30 pieces at DA 70+, five demonstrably sent visitors, so they link: Tom's Hardware, VideoCardz, Adrenaline, HWUpgrade, MSN. The other 25, including Business Insider, TechPowerUp, TweakTown, KitGuru and all the Chinese portals, sent none. They either do not link or the link is nofollow.

Search Console's Links report will settle this outlet by outlet. Until then, the defensible backlink haul is five strong domains plus the sceptical reviews (Igor's Lab 63, Hardware Busters 43, BornCity 60), which do link.

6Creators ran in parallel

Creator deals were live in both windows. Creator-attributed first-time payers fell from 367 (50% of new payers) before launch to 243 (33%) during the press window, and YouTube referrals fell 40%. Non-creator payers rose by about 110. PR held the total flat while creator output dipped; it did not add on top. Deal start and end dates are being added to the portal, and this split can be re-run by deal window when they are in.

7Country signal

Card country known for 47% of new payers. Indicative.

RegionBeforePressCoverage
United States10199Tom's Hardware, GamesBeat, MSN, TechPowerUp
Spanish-speaking3341Tarreo, Yahoo Español, HardZone, Profesional Review
Portuguese815TudoCelular, Adrenaline
Germany, Austria, Switzerland3415Golem, ComputerBase, Igor's Lab, BornCity. Two of four sceptical
China, Taiwan, HK, Japan, Korea3530 pieces, 11.8M estimated views on NetEase alone

Spanish and Portuguese coverage converted. Asian coverage, a third of all pieces and most of the estimated views, produced five customers. German payers halved while German coverage was at its highest.

8The claim in the press record

OutletDateDAHeadline
Hardware Busters10 Sep43"Intel-backed Hypertune wants $9.99 a month to overclock your PC, and its own numbers top out at 28%"
Igor's Lab11 Sep63"Hypertune automatic PC tuning subscription: 60 percent FPS promise, 28.2 percent own benchmark"
BornCity (DE)14 Sep60"Hypertune gaming software promises up to 60%, benchmarks show only 4 to 28%"

The website now says up to 41%. Whatever number goes up next needs its method published alongside it, and it needs to hold against these three tests. Search Console will show where these articles rank for "hypertune" once connected.

9Story Mob: closing out

Story Mob's reporting is taken as delivered; the coverage book will not be revised. Duplicates and the NetEase view count are noted above and the numbers in this report are adjusted for them. Final report and invoice around 11 Oct. Two things are still worth having from them:

The hands-on programme is closed as unsuccessful. The AMD beat runs at least a month behind Intel, on named outlets agreed in advance, with AMD's messaging guidance before any outreach.

10What Search Console adds when connected

Search Console is verified on the domain. Kevin has been asked to pull it into the warehouse daily with the 16-month history. When it lands, this report gains:

GA4 follows as a second feed for Google's demographics and interests and as the bridge to Google Ads once ads run. It does not change this report.