Align First

When it comes to measuring PR success, I’m kind of a total junkie—I love the variety of different software tools out there. And if there’s a metric you want, there’s a product for it. 

But here’s the thing: One of the biggest misconceptions about public relations is that there’s a one-size-fits-all approach to measuring progress in PR. There’s no one magic product that will measure everything. 

Unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot of companies spend money on software, believing it’s an out-of-the-box solution. But measuring PR success is more complex than choosing the right software.

Somewhat paradoxically, it starts with the end. 

In PR, we’re creative people—we love tactics, and we want to dive into creating that article, video, or social media campaign. We can’t wait to turn our creative brains on. But it’s so important to make sure that we’re aligning with executives and business leaders to truly understand the business goal of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. 

And that means working closely with company leadership to understand what motivated the need for the PR campaign in the first place. So even before we build the PR campaign, before we develop content strategy, or plan an event, we want to first understand what the end goals are. 

And from there, we can work on our measurement strategy. 

The aim is to align PR metrics with the broader business objectives, and to involve all supporting teams on the measurement plan to allow collaboration, alignment, and engagement. 
‍

‍Metrics for success

The importance of digital communication, the rise of social media platforms, and the need for brands to manage their public image and stakeholder relationships has resulted in a boom in the PR software market. In fact, the market research firm IMARC Group estimates that the PR software market will grow at a compound rate of 9.6% from 2024 to 2032.

You can see metrics in everything—and I think sometimes it complicates things, almost leading to analysis paralysis. The key is focusing on tools that will help you understand the broader impact of your campaign, and that often means using multiple metrics to examine data from a couple different angles to see the full impact.

From there, use critical thinking to apply that back to why that data matters. That is the skilled aspect of measurement and the real part of the strategy—it can’t be done with software alone. 

And remember, PR doesn’t work in a bubble. Neither do businesses. Whatever initiative you’re working on, the other business units that relate to it should also be part of understanding that goal.

To get started, here’s a cheat sheet of popular types of PR metrics.
‍

‍Exposure Metrics: Insight into the reach and visibility of your PR efforts. 
‍
‍This can include media mentions, which is how often your brand is mentioned across media outlets; impressions, or the estimated size of the audience who sees your coverage; Share of Voice (SOV), or how much media coverage your brand gets compared to competitors; audience reach; and circulation/readership, or the number of copies a publication distributes.

‍

Engagement Metrics: How the audience interacts with your PR content. 

‍This can include website traffic; social media shares, likes, and comments; video views; event attendance; and top influencers, advocates, and ambassadors who talk about your brand through earned or paid media efforts. 
‍
Sentiment Metrics: Tone and perception of your coverage. 
‍
Sentiment analysis is the ratio of positive, neutral, or negative mentions across your media coverage. Tone of coverage has to do with whether media coverage appears favorable, neutral, or unfavorable.

‍

Brand Metrics: The effectiveness of PR efforts on the brand.
‍
‍You can examine brand awareness through surveys or studies. Branded search terms include the keywords and phrases that people use to search your company online. You can use surveys or focus groups to gauge changes in public perception and reputation improvement.

‍

Financial Metrics: Designed to assess the monetary value of PR efforts.

‍This is a largely subjective number and shouldn’t encompass your entire assessment. Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) demonstrates what it would cost to buy the same space or time. Other assessments include Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM), and Return on Investment (ROI).

‍

Online Metrics: This focuses on assessing PR performance in digital space.

‍It can include Search Engine Rankings, Email Open and Click Rates, and Domain Authority (DA), or how strongly a website ranks based on earned media links. 

‍

I’ve used some combination of these (if not sometimes all of these) on different campaign reports depending on what the business goals of that campaign are. If one of your goals is brand awareness for the website, you can go deep into the information, including seeing how visitors came to the site and what pages they’re landing on, for instance.

Measuring other qualitative components of PR, such as sentiment from focus groups, event attendance, and social media engagement, all can help tell that deeper story of the impact of your campaign.

‍
Practical Tips

For companies looking to measure their PR success: Don’t buy the software first and then figure out your measurement strategy later. It’s not always about adding. Software can be expensive, and somebody still has to push the buttons and understand the reports and do the analysis on the reports. That all compounds, and sometimes it doesn’t make sense to do it in house.

Again, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. First understanding what you want to monitor is the key to successfully measuring the effectiveness of your campaign. Measurement can be used to inform strategies or campaigns before they’re even built.

Bottom line: Begin with the ending in mind. Start with the business objectives and build backward. Communicate the goals of the campaign, or better yet, slow down and work with all supporting teams—such as sales, customer service, and marketing teams—to develop those campaign goals. 

That communication allows for discussion to open up ideas about aspects that could be measured and explored. It truly is about building relationships first—it helps us to successfully work through our measurement strategy and then more accurately select the right tools for our measurement needs.