Getting earned media coverage in the vaping industry isn’t easy.
Between advertising restrictions, health warnings, editorial caution and the wider sensitivity around nicotine products, most links in the space tend to come from paid placements, affiliate content or commercial partnerships.
Very few are earned through traditional digital PR.
But that was the challenge.
Our client wanted high-authority backlinks and mainstream brand visibility, but without anything that could be seen as glamorising vaping or pushing a product-led message.
That meant the campaign had to be handled carefully.
No paid placements.
No sponsored content.
No link buying.
No advertorials.
Just earned editorial coverage based on stories journalists actually wanted to cover.
The Objective
The goal was to build authority for a vaping client in a restricted and highly scrutinised industry.
The client needed links from trusted publications, but the messaging had to be safe, responsible and editorially acceptable.
We could not rely on promotional angles. We could not make the client the story. And we could not pitch anything that felt like an advert dressed up as PR.
So the strategy was simple:
Create stories that were relevant to the client’s niche, but strong enough to stand on their own as news.
The challenge
Vaping is a difficult industry for digital PR because journalists are cautious.
Editors do not want to publish anything that feels like it encourages vaping. Many outlets are careful around health-related claims. And even when a story is accepted, commercial vape links can easily be removed if the angle feels too promotional.
That meant every campaign idea had to pass a simple test:
Would a journalist cover this even if the client was not attached to it?
If the answer was no, the angle was not strong enough.
The Solution
We split the campaign into two waves to test multiple angles.
Wave 1: Trending Lifestyle & Health Hooks
The first wave focused on timely lifestyle and public-interest stories that allowed us to connect the client to wider conversations without making the coverage feel promotional.
These stories were built for lifestyle, health, consumer and regional desks, giving journalists useful expert commentary and topical angles they could quickly turn into articles.
This wave secured coverage across major publications including The Sun, Express, Nottingham Post, MSN, ChronicleLive, Daily Record, Mirror, Manchester Evening News, New York Post, Birmingham Mail and Bristol Post.
Each piece subtly tied back to the client’s niche while staying within editorial guidelines and avoiding product-led messaging.
Wave 2: Data-Led Study
The second wave focused on a location-based data study ranking towns and cities across the UK.
This gave the campaign a stronger news hook and made it easy for regional journalists to localise the story for their own audience.
That angle worked especially well because it was not just about vaping. It was about local behaviour, public interest and regional comparison.
The study was picked up by over a dozen publications, including Express, Mirror, MSN, Yahoo News, Essex Live and more.
The Results
In total, we earned 30+ backlinks from high-authority publications including:
- The Sun
- Express
- NYPost
- MSN
- Mirror
- Daily Record
- Yahoo News
- Manchester Evening News
- Essex Live
- ChronicleLive
- Bristol Post
- DevonLive
- Nottingham Post
We also secured multiple brand mentions on sites including WalesOnline, MyLondon and Irish Star, further increasing the client’s visibility across national and regional media.
Every piece of coverage was earned.
No links were bought.
No sponsored posts were used.
No editorial control was forced.
No advertorials were placed.
The client gained links from publications that would be extremely difficult to access through traditional link building, especially in a restricted industry like vaping.
Why this matters
The value of this campaign was not just the number of links.
It showed that the client could be referenced by trusted national and regional publications without relying on paid media or risky link building.
That matters because editorial links from major publications help build authority, strengthen trust signals, and create a link profile that competitors cannot easily copy.
For a business in a restricted niche, that is the real value of digital PR.
You are not just buying exposure.
You are earning credibility in places where your competitors struggle to appear.
Want Digital PR for your Vaping Brand?
Restricted industries are not impossible to PR.
They just need better angles, stronger messaging and a strategy that understands what journalists will and will not touch.
This campaign proved that even in a space like vaping, it is possible to earn mainstream media coverage, secure high-authority backlinks and build brand visibility without paid placements or sponsored content.
Hard niches do not need louder promotion.
They need smarter stories.
If you think your niche is “too hard” for digital PR, think again. You just need the right angle. If you would like to see if we can build links for your website, book a call here.