4 Practical Steps to Effective PR Measurement

PR can be expensive. And unlike many, tangible expensive things, you can't hold it in your hands and be like "yes, this expense was worth it because I can feel how expensive it is." No, PR is ethereal and based on ideas like reach and impressions and "Share of Voice" (whatever that is).

So, how do you know that your PR is effective? How can you tell that you've provided value and put your budget to good use? Well, that's where PR measurement comes in. PR measurement is taking the intangible, and creating solid proof that your campaigns and efforts are, in fact, as amazing as you claim.

Measurement is a key component of good PR strategy, which is why we offer the detailed campaign analytics that we do. But with so much talk of measurement and so many tools out there, it’s easy to get lost in a rabbit hole of clickthroughs, trackbacks, mentions, views, likes, engagement, [insert your favorite metric here].

Before you know it, you’ve spent hours wading through data and aren’t any closer to knowing whether you’ve really succeeded, much less what you should do next.

First you need to make a strategy of what you want to achieve, decide what success will look like, and then keep measuring. Of course, it's not quite that simple. We've outlined the key points below, but to really get stuck into creating a PR strategy that works, read our guide or better yet, watch the roundtable.

Now, on to the good stuff.

PR evaluation is how to answer the question: how effectively are we communicating the brand's message to the public?

This would be simple if each campaign only had one element or method. But alas, because it's not that easy, our evaluation is rarely that straightforward. If posting on Twitter is only one part of your PR campaign, then Twitter analytics is only one part of your PR evaluation. Most PR is a mixture of SEO, press outreach, influencer marketing, advertising, and so much more.

So, to evaluate your PR across myriad platforms and mediums, you will need the tools to aggregate and showcase the various metrics and analytics related to your strategic initiatives. Which is a lot of jargon-y buzzwords to say: show evidence that the things you're doing are making progress towards the goals you (and the client/business) want to accomplish.

PR evaluation is part of, but different from, a PR report. PR reporting is the over-arching and comprehensive document that is made to showcase all of your PR initiatives. PR evaluation tracks those initiatives. So similar, but different.

Read more about the magical, elusive world of PR reports.

Before we go wading into the weeds, let's establish why we're bothering to measure anything. Wouldn't it be better to just focus on connecting with audiences, putting out communications, implementing campaigns, and building networks? Measurements and evaluation metrics and other number-y things seem like a time sink that distracts from the real goal: communications and long, leisurely lunch breaks 💅 ​

Well, this used to be true.

Before everything went online and our every move was tracked, every click monitored (thanks, Big Brother!), you really could only measure efficacy by output.

Now, data is everywhere.

Having access to the numbers is no longer the problem – working out how to turn them into something useful and actionable? Yeah, little more tricky. But 100% worth the time and energy it takes to get it right.

That's because tracking and analyzing the right data can help you achieve marvelous things.

Data – it helps you:

• Demonstrate the value of your work
• Get better results
• Know what tasks are worth spending your time on
• Stop clients from derailing your work
• Advance in your public relations career

There are now approximately gazillions of analytics tools to add quantitative analysis to your laudable PR initiatives. And with this power comes great responsibility.

Evaluation and measurement are important because they substantiate your efforts. It's one thing to say, "we felt really good about this campaign." And it's another to say, "we reached 4,500 people from this one email."

Hoping your work speaks for itself is no longer enough when we have a bajillion tools to track that work and turn it into pie charts (and other charts too). Analytics and attribution are not perfect (yet), but if done right, they can speak meaningfully to the work you're doing.

Another reason evaluating your PR work is important? It helps you know whether your efforts are working. Maybe the tone of your Twitter account is off and isn't quite landing with the youths like you expected. Maybe your new ad campaign came across as embarrassingly tone-deaf and weird.

Without evaluation, it can be easy to stay the course and keep making the same mistakes that are harming the brand's reputation and wasting a ton of money. Proper PR evaluation techniques give you the opportunity to take a step back and look at the campaign from an analytical standpoint to ask the age-old question, "was this a terrible idea? Or are we actually... brilliant geniuses?"

Answer: it all depends on what you're trying to achieve. I know – grr!

The things you should be measuring are the things directly related to the goals of the organization you're working with. And the PR metrics that you should focus on are an immediate reflection of what your agency finds important.

For example, if the overall goal of your campaign is to increase the number of sales, then hey, the number of sales that are happening is absolutely something you should be tracking. On the flip side of the coin, if your goal is to increase awareness or to educate, success is unlikely to be reflected in the sales figures.

Okay, we know the ultimate goal of measurement: to understand whether we are delivering on the (hopefully) aligned goals of the company. This doesn't tell us what we should be measuring specifically.

We're in communications. We're not data analysts.

It's super tempting for us to want that one right PR metric, that one perfect number to report on so that we can move about our day without having to engage in statistical calculations and pie graphs and circle charts (that last one doesn't exist).

Sadly, it just doesn't work that way.

Happily, you can figure out the metrics that are important to you by doing what PR folk do best: making mimosas! 🥂

I'm kidding.

You can do it by ✨ communicating ✨

More specifically, what you need is to speak with your stakeholders (that's c-suite if you're in-house, your client's c-suite if you're agency or freelance) and understand the end goal of what they're trying to achieve.

Bear in mind that what they think they want you to do and what they actually need you to do may very well be two vastly dissonant things. Because since when do people make things easy for you?

And if your client doesn't have a system for measuring the value of your PR? Create one.

Most importantly, make sure your goals align with that of the company as a whole. You need to do research, internally and likely client side. You need to work out the tactics you will use to achieve your goals. You need to decide what PR evaluation metrics will change if your tactics are successful and bring you closer to your goal, and you need to track those figures from the very beginning, not just when your campaign is done and dusted.

I know, it's a whole lot.

Don't worry, we'll get into it in just a moment. But first:

We know what we specifically do not want to measure, and that's activity. Activity is just the things that we do, not what we accomplish. Here, Richard explains it much better:

So, when planning out how to measure your PR performance, it's not enough to report on the things you do. You need to analyse the impact.

You can send 100 emails, but what's the open rate?

You can draft 1,000 press releases, but how much coverage did you get?

It's not enough to spin your wheels by doing anything, you must be doing the right things. So what are those things? Well, this brings us to our favorite S-word...

Checking piecemeal data points after a campaign is a lot less effective than going into your campaign with a strategy. Why is this? Well, when you track analytics after a campaign, it limits what data you're able to obtain, and you focus more on activity versus outcome.

At this point, we're going to rename our series from PR Roundtable to Strategy Roundtable. Our guests love strategy. Rand loves strategy. Chris loves strategy. Gini and Laura love strategy. With all these heavy-hitters raving about the importance of a strategic approach to PR and measurement, there has to be something to it.

The simple fact is, there's too much data out there to not be strategic. But with so much data out there, so many analytics and feeds, and socials and metrics to track, what should you (yes, you) focus on?

These four brief guidelines will help you figure out what to focus on.

"Why am I doing this?" sounds like a very basic question, but don’t underestimate the importance of knowing exactly why you’re doing what you’re doing.

From a business standpoint, this question will help you clarify your ultimate goal for any new initiative. It probably has something to do with earning more money, gaining a bigger following, retaining happy customers and generally moving your business forward.

If you don’t know what your goals for a given campaign are before you launch that campaign, you’re already dead in the water. Do you want to catch the attention of a market niche? See your brand all over the media? Decide in advance what you want to accomplish.

Once you’ve identified your goals, decide how you will know when you’ve achieved them. If your goal is a strong social media community, you might measure things like mentions and shares. If you want coverage by top influencers, decide what kind of coverage and by whom.

Example: if your goal is to increase membership, decide how much of an increase spells success. Say you spend $10,000 and get 100 new members. Is it a success or not? The answer is, it depends. If every new member is worth $5,000 in new business, then probably yes. If every new member is worth $5, probably not. You can’t know unless you’ve decided in advance what success looks like for your business.

Decide which metrics to pay attention to, and which metrics to ignore. You can find an extensive list of PR metrics here.

The top PR metrics to measure in your 2024 KPIs

Or, what numbers to track so that the CEO doesn't fire you

Keeping with our example of increasing members, you obviously want to measure new memberships, but there are many related metrics that will also be helpful to you. If you’re driving traffic to a sign-up page, you probably want to know where the most traffic is coming from, how many people leave without signing up, and how many people begin the sign-up process but don’t complete it (to name just a few). Conversely, know which metrics you can ignore – this will vary widely based on your specific situation, but remember that just because you can measure something, it doesn’t mean that you should..

Once (and only once) you’ve answered these three questions, you can get down to the actual business of measuring and reporting. Measurement itself is a tactic, and numbers won’t tell you anything if you don’t already know what you’re looking for.

How do you build your PR measurement and evaluation strategy? What metrics are important to you, which ones do you ignore, and how do you decide what it means to be successful?

After you’ve outlined your high-level success metrics, break them down into smaller milestones so you can measure your progress against them.

If your goal is a strong Facebook presence and one of your metrics is 10,000 fans in three months, you might set benchmarks for 1,000 fans at the end of the first month, 5,000 after the second month, etc.

If you find that you aren’t hitting the benchmarks you set in step 3 above, don’t panic. Take it as a sign that you need to adjust your strategic and tactical approaches, or that perhaps your original benchmarks were unrealistic.

Measure your progress against your goals, success metrics, and milestones as you go, and you’ll always know if your approach is working or if you need to make mid-course adjustments in order to meet your goals.

Hopefully, this was a helpful crash course in learning how to measure your PR efforts. If you're interested in learning even more about the power of measurement and KPIs in PR, read this fantastic article to further your evaluation education.

Or, want to see how Prezly can support your team's PR measurement methods? Sign up for a free 14-day trial now! (Good vibes included.)