CEO of Next PR, an award-winning, full-service public relations firm with offices across the U.S.
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For many years, PR teams have relied on clipbooks and run items to prove the value of their work. Throughout most of my career, a “hit” in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today or other top-tier publications was considered a huge win, no matter how small the mention.
Today, the business stakes are much higher, and these “vanity” metrics aren’t cutting it any longer. Between an unstable economy, layoffs and shrinking capital investment, companies must prioritize ROI and business value in everything they do, including PR. Yet, according to a recent study, while 62% of PR pros know that tying PR to key business initiatives elevates the value of their efforts, measuring impact on revenue ranks just 6 out of 10 in the top PR metrics being used to measure success.
With PR competing for budget with other marketing efforts, now more than ever, we need KPIs to justify continued investment. Whether you’re reporting to a CMO, fractional CMO or Chief Revenue/Financial Officer, they’ll need to see PR success translated into the language they speak: financial and revenue impact.
That means all the media coverage in the world may not be enough, especially if your target audience doesn’t see it. Here’s why PR teams need to move past vanity metrics—and how they can deliver value that moves the needle on business impact.
Value Vs. Vanity
While marketing has always had some form of ROI measurement (leads, conversions, sales, loyalty), PR has traditionally been harder to pin down. You can glean some value from distribution data, equivalent ad value, readership, or average monthly visitors for a publication, but you really have no idea if those people actually read your article.
Focusing on vanity and volume has historically been the go-to strategy for combatting this lack of provable value, and the number of stories placed still ranks as a top metric for success among PR pros. If we get lots of placements, especially in big-name publications, that must do something for us, right?
Maybe it’s just nostalgia, but I admit there’s still something so satisfying about a 2-inch-thick clipbook, and it’s exciting to hang the framed New York Times feature on the office wall or include, “As seen in the WSJ” in your email signature. While those do have value when it comes to bolstering morale and culture, beyond being a point of pride, are they really doing anything to grow the business?
PR Metrics That Matter
The distinction between value and vanity metrics is simple: What action, if any, do audiences take based on the content? In order to truly be effective, PR efforts must have a measurable effect on:
• Driving new leads: Did readers visit your website, fill out a form, sign up for a webinar/demo or interact with your social content—virtually any action that creates an opportunity for further engagement?
• Driving your target audience to your product: Did they click the embedded link, download your latest research or sign up for an account?
• Exposing new audiences to your content or products: Did a new vertical audience learn about you through a trade publication, podcast or social channel like LinkedIn or TikTok?
The key is tying business growth to your PR strategy, setting KPI goals around those metrics, and measuring against those targets.
Which Metrics To Measure?
The explosion in online media has made it easier to measure audience activity and digital attribution. Beyond page views and time-on-page data, going one step further adds a layer of business value to the metrics. Here’s what your PR team should be aiming for and measuring at minimum:
• Direct links back to your website: Do your media placements include backlinks for readers to learn more? With these, you’ll be able to track how many visitors each placement drove back to your website—a valuable lead generation metric.
• Engaged website sessions: How many visitors are exploring your site, reading through content or watching your video demos? This demonstrates more than just passing interest and hints at purchase intent.
• Downloads and conversions: Do leads download your content, submit sales inquiries or sign up for accounts?
• Social engagement: Do followers like, comment or repost your content? What’s the audience reach of that engagement?
• Share of voice: How much of the content in your market or industry is about you or your product? Within share of voice among competitors, it’s critical to pay close attention to sentiment—is it good publicity or bad?
Whether you’re running PR in-house or working with an agency, your PR team needs to have the tools and expertise to measure efforts against business KPIs and explain what those results mean in business terms. There are a wide variety of tools and techniques available. A few of our favorites include Muck Rack for finding the right reporters and publications and Signal AI for tracking media mentions and share of voice analytics. Plus, over 90% of our team is Google Analytics certified, helping them source valuable insight on audience attribution.
Of course, like any other tool, simply having the data is only part of the solution; it’s what you do with it that matters. Ask your team how they’re using these metrics to prioritize effort and investment. Request evidence of how they’ve leveraged data to prove ROI toward business goals.
When budgets are lean and every investment counts, now more than ever you need a team that can show receipts of their efforts.
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