Metrics You Should Care About in PR

We’re often asked about how we gauge success in our work. The answer tends to be a bit murky as no clear-cut method to measure PR success exists, such as the standardized metrics applied to marketing and advertising campaigns. We often rely on broader metrics to track PR effectiveness, but these tend to fall short of capturing the true impact of any publicity. Here, we will address typical metric-associated questions:

What are the primary metrics used to track a PR campaign?

The most notable metrics associated with public relations are impression numbers, circulation numbers, domain authority, and audience reach. Impression numbers signify the total number of times the public viewed your content, whether clicked on or not. Circulation numbers total the number of times content is distributed over a specific time period. Domain authority describes an outlet’s relevance for a specific industry, trade, or subject area. Audience reach details the total number of viewers (households, individuals, etc.) viewing a specific piece of content in a specific amount of time. What’s important to note here is that none of these metrics fully capture the value behind strategic public relations efforts, but rather highlight part, if not irrelevant aspects, of a campaign. 

Are some metrics more valuable than others?

PR’s true value is rooted in the impact of storytelling: Did you tell the right story to the right audience? The answers to this question will provide the best overview of PR return on investment (ROI) for any campaign, while stressing the importance of establishing objectives from the campaign’s outset to ensure that the end results can be effectively measured.

If you are a digital marketing agency seeking to engage with brand marketers, a story in AdWeek is naturally more effective than a piece in TechTimes, for example. Garnering millions of impressions on a piece that generates limited engagement with a key sales audience is a less successful strategy than yielding a few thousand impressions from highly qualified audiences. If you solely look at impression numbers to evaluate success, you will not come to the same conclusion and can be easily misled by the impact of this PR decision. 

How do you track success?

A number of tools have been developed specifically for measuring PR campaigns. Critical Mention is an excellent tool ERPR uses to track metrics such as audience size, publicity value, mentions by media type (broadcast, online news, etc.), and syndication information. The shining star of Critical Mention is the “publicity value metric,” which calculates a dollar value for each placement and provides a clear ROI for a campaign, along with a publicity value ultimately generated. 

Aside from Critical Mention, other platforms offer similar capabilities, such as NewsBreak, Cision, Meltwater, Agility PR Solutions, and TVEyes. Organic monitoring – either via Google Alerts or a social media tracking platform – provides a free alternative but is not nearly as comprehensive as the above platforms. 

How can I tell if a media placement is worth it? 

Misconceptions abound regarding the quality of media placements, with much emphasis placed on the brand recognition of a particular outlet. Of course, it’s always beneficial to appear in mainstream media, but that coverage represents only part of the equation in any successful campaign.  Notoriety is achieved through a consistent cadence of press that provides brand credibility. That consistency may only be achieved by engagement with a mix of media outlets. Most brands will not achieve regular national outlet coverage, and most are lucky to achieve such broad publicity a few times a year. What increases those opportunities are smaller, repetitive features in targeted outlets. Being overly focused on publication size and only seeking opportunities in mainstream media often results in a misguided attempt at showcasing a brand’s story that will ultimately stunt overall publicity efforts. 

Consistent media presence is critical for any long-term strategy. A brand’s story should be consistently shared in a variety of press outlets to create a steady cadence that can strategically snowball into more mainstream coverage once brand credibility and trust are established. In short, smaller pieces and placements are vital to the larger strategy, as is evaluating media coverage holistically rather than by each individual placement.

What metrics should you not care about in PR? Any information to avoid giving to a brand?

Impression numbers are often cited as PR ROI metrics, but we view these as an unsophisticated method of evaluating PR.  Instead, we evaluate impression numbers the same as, if not less than, any other metric associated with PR. In other words, impression number provide only part of the story. They are essentially an estimate of the audience size of the outlet associated with a story and fail to take into account how often the story was shared, the domain authority of the outlet on the subject, how prominently the brand was featured, and if the story trends positive or negative. For those reasons, impression numbers can be a wholly misleading metric.

That being said, when taken into consideration with the story and the audience, impression numbers can tell a more compelling, realistic story of publicity efforts.