Earned reach or bought reach:RADAR reads it from public data

A launch video crosses several million views in a day. Did that reach grow the way organic reach grows, or was distribution bought and layered on top of a real post? RADAR answers that narrow question with evidence, not opinion.

It does not judge the product or the founder. Paying for distribution is legal and common, and often a sound launch tactic. RADAR measures how the reach was built. That distinction is the entire reason it exists, and it is the line the rest of this page holds.

On organic posts, reach and genuine engagement rise together, because the same feed that surfaces a post also makes it easy to like it. When views climb but the engagement does not keep pace, the extra views are arriving from somewhere that does not also produce engagement. That gap is the fingerprint of bought distribution.

Organic amplification spreads. A genuinely viral post collects amplification in a long, irregular tail as different people find it over hours and days. A bought amplification tends to be a burst: a coordinated set of accounts amplifies in a synchronized window early on, manufacturing the velocity the paid distribution then rides.

RADAR reads the timing pattern of a launch's public amplification and how tightly it clusters. Amplification that lands in a narrow early window, rather than spreading as different people find the post over days, reads as coordinated rather than organic. RADAR weighs the shape of that pattern, not any single account.

Coordinated launches tend to be scheduled. A post whose timing fits a planned, scheduled slot rather than a spontaneous moment is a mild tell. On its own it means little, but alongside a large reach-to-engagement gap and a coordinated amplification pattern it corroborates a coordinated launch.

The three signals above are RADAR's original, hand-audited method, and every launch page states which method produced its read. Launches RADAR monitors live carry a richer, five-component forensic grade instead of the ratio alone: the view-velocity curve's shape (organic spread vs an injected burst), engagement coupling weighed across the full reply and quote layer rather than the like count in isolation, reply-network authenticity (real, distributed accounts vs a coordinated pod), the amplifier-cluster pattern (word of mouth vs a known repost ring), and smart-follower activation (whether specific high-influence accounts engaged, when that data exists).

This matters most on exactly the launches where a raw ratio would mislead: a large, established account posting to a broad, largely passive audience can show a views-to-likes ratio deep in what looks like fraud-tier range while every other engagement layer, replies, reposts, quotes, moves the way real reach moves. RADAR's forensic grade is built to catch that case rather than flag it as bought on the ratio alone. A launch graded this way still shows its raw ratio in full, RADAR does not hide an unusual number, it explains why the grade weighs it differently.

Grade and confidence band come from the same evidence standard as the rest of this page: a High-confidence grade requires the underlying signal to have enough data to read reliably, and maps to the verified confidence label used across RADAR; a lower-confidence band maps to reconstructed. A launch with too little data on a given component shows that component as neutral, still monitoring, rather than forcing a call either way.

RADAR covers launches of every size, from micro to major, and the confidence label scales with the evidence available.

RADAR's readings are calibrated against a labeled corpus of real launches (30 fully profiled, with a high-resolution time-series reference set), and a live monitor watches launches in real time as they happen. The methodology is versioned and refreshed as the platform's dynamics change. Every input traces to that corpus and public platform data, not to any private source.

RADAR sits alongside the rest of FORKOFF's first-party measurement work in FORKOFF research, and it grows out of running managed distribution and influencer marketing at the scale where the difference between earned and bought reach stops being a guess and becomes a measured signal.

For the plain-English version of the questions this method answers, read what a botted launch is, how to tell if a launch is botted or organic, and the organic vs amplified launch benchmark.

To see the method applied, browse the best product launch videos ranked by views or the full set of tracked launches on the Launch Radar hub.

FORKOFF runs managed distribution. We help launches reach more people, and that is a paid service. RADAR reads whether a launch's reach was earned or bought. So FORKOFF sits on both sides of the same question, and you should know that before you trust a reading.

That is a real conflict, and the answer to it is not a promise. It is the method itself. Four things keep a RADAR reading independent of who is paying FORKOFF.

A RADAR reading is an evidence-based opinion derived from public data, not a statement of fact about any person, and it is open to correction and reply. If you are the subject of a reading and believe a fact is inaccurate, wish to add a response, or want to request erasure, email crew@forkoff.xyz with the launch and the specific point at issue. We review requests in good faith, correct any factual error, and consider a response for publication alongside the reading. The path is the same for everyone, whether or not they are a FORKOFF client.

The full detail is set out in the privacy policy and the terms of service.