How to Measure PR Campaign Success

How do you measure PR campaign success?

It’s a question that PR pros have debated for as long as I’ve been in the business.

And the jury’s still out. Comms expert Adam Malik says its ‘notoriously tricky’. And PR bod Mark Pinsent calls it an ‘unsolvable conundrum’. No wonder 82% of PR bods don’t know where to start. And 34% don’t bother.

But quantifying the impact of your PR campaigns isn’t a nice-to-have: It’s crucial to prove your worth, refine your strategy, and show the board they’re getting bang for their PR buck.

As per Jori White PR, ‘gone are the days when PR professionals relied on subjective metrics and gut feelings to evaluate the success of their campaigns…the industry has shifted towards a more empirical and data-driven approach to measuring the impact of communication strategies.’

It sure has. And this ‘data-driven approach’ has changed the measurement game.

‘PR pros are no longer guessing if a strategy worked..they’re ‘equipped with the evidence to prove its success.’

That may be so, Jori White. But according to CoverageBook, 57% of PR pros lack confidence in their data literacy skills. So ‘proving success’ is easier said than done.

The good news? As a digital PR aficionado, I know what works. And I’m about to equip you with the knowledge you need to prove your efforts are hitting the mark with consumers and delivering value to your business.

But first, a quick primer on data-driven PR.

What is data-driven PR?

Before PR went digital, measurement was a combination of guesswork and intuition. Back in the day, us PR pros measured print articles and then equated an advertising equivalent on to brand mentions to get a pulse on our performance. It seems archaic now, right?

It goes without saying, these methods were cumbersome, time-consuming, and provided little by way of actionable insights. After all, they told us nothing about the actions taken by audiences or how those actions contributed to our client’s organisational objectives.

But digitalisation has taken the ambiguity out of the process. Today, you’ve got a wealth of data to provide meaningful insights into campaign performance.

And a ton of sophisticated tools to track that data in real-time.What’s more, with a few clicks of a reporting tool, you can arm the board with concrete evidence that your PR efforts are impacting the bottom line.

No wonder fellow public relation specialist Cheyne Belinsky says, ‘data analytics is no longer an optional component of PR strategy; it’s a necessity for success in the digital age.’

How to measure PR success

Data-driven PR has changed the measurement game. But how you can you make it work for your brand?

I’ll tell you one thing that won’t work. Randomly grabbing at numbers without knowing what you’re measuring, or why. There needs to be method behind your measurement. And it all starts with goals.

1. Establish your campaign goals

To quote entrepreneur Tony Robbins: ‘setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.’

He’s right. After all, you can’t measure success if you don’t know what it looks like. Moreover, if your PR goals aren’t aligned with business objectives, the bigwigs won’t see the value of your PR efforts either.

So, the first thing you need to do is marry the two up. Let me give you an example.

Say, for instance, the business objective is for your brand to ‘be seen as more environmentally friendly’. A relevant PR goal would be to ‘launch a targeted press campaign focusing on sustainability’, right?

Yes and no.

Sure, the goal aligns with the business objective, but it won’t cut the mustard with ‘results-driven CEOS’, because ‘vague goals produce vague results.’ So you need to make your goals SMART.

Like this. ‘Increase media coverage by 30% in the next twelve months through a targeted press release campaign focusing on our recent sustainable initiatives.’

It’s specific (media coverage), measurable (30% increase), achievable (targeted campaign), relevant (environmental responsibility), and time-bound (twelve months).

Job done.

Tip: Want to manage the CEOs expectations? Make the time-bound component realistic. After all, earning your way into conversations takes time.

2. Select your metrics

Once you’ve established your goals, you need to make sure you’re meeting them.

This is where metrics come in. For the unfamiliar, metrics are data points used to assess the impact of PR activity.

And they’re an essential piece of the measurement puzzle. You can use them to gather insights on everything from media mentions and audience sentiment to the number of times a hashtag has been used. But, to quote management consultant W. Edward Deming, ‘just because you can measure everything, doesn’t mean that you should.’

He’s right. And it applies here. Tracking every metric under the sun isn’t going to help you identify your PR wins.

On the contrary, ‘analysis paralysis’ is a surefire way to blur your focus and dilute the impact of the measurements that matter. Take it from an experienced PR pro: the only way to prove your campaigns are moving the needle is to home in on the metrics that matter.

Here are a few tips to help you do it.

Prioritise relevance

Metrics are used to track your performance against your goals.

So they need to align with your goals. I’m stating the obvious, but I see loads of measurement strategies fall short due to misaligned metrics. And trust me, if your campaign goal is to ‘increase website traffic’, and you track media impressions and social media engagement, all you’ll have to show for it is a ton of irrelevant insights and a big hole in your PR budget.

So, whatever you measure, make sure your metrics are fit-for-purpose.

Quality and quantity

There are two types of data, quantitative and qualitative.

Quantitative data is ‘what’ you got. And qualitative data is ‘why’ you got it. And you need to leverage both to get a holistic view of your campaign performance.

To assess your impact on PR intangibles like brand perception, trust, and message effectiveness, you need to supplement your numbers with words. And qualitative data analysis is the way to do it.

Unlike quantitative data, which is ‘anything that can be counted, measured, or given a numerical value’, qualitative data is subjective, descriptive, and expressed in language. It’s the kind of stuff you can gather through surveys and focus groups to establish your customers’ opinions, motivations, and feelings before and after your campaigns.

If you want a holistic understanding of campaign effectiveness, my advice is to measure both.

Balance action and vanity

Many PR pros equate vanity metrics with success. These are the numbers that make you look good but provide little tangible value.

Metrics are used to track your performance against your goals, so they need to align with them. I’m stating the obvious, but I see loads of measurement strategies fall short due to misaligned metrics. And trust me, if your campaign goal is to ‘increase website traffic’, and you track media impressions and social media engagement, all you’ll have to show for it is a ton of irrelevant insights and a big hole in your PR budget.

So, whatever you measure, make sure your metrics are fit-for-purpose. Success in modern PR measurement is achieved by combining multiple data points in order to get a bird’s eye view of the campaign’s efficacy.

The most common data points

I’m going to walk you through five common PR data points, and flag the tools you can use to measure them.

1. Media coverage

This measures the number of times your brand appears in the media (traditional and digital). Tracking your coverage will help you understand the exposure you’re generating with your PR campaigns.

The more you get, the more people you’re reaching.  If coverage is low, you need to level up your media relations.

You can track media coverage using a media monitoring tool like Google Alerts. It’s free to use and will send you an email alert whenever you score a mention.

2. Media impressions

This is the number of times your target audience sees or hears your PR message. Media impressions are a measure of visibility. And, in PR, visibility is everything. The more people who see your story, the more impact it has.

To monitor media impressions, you need to understand where your target audience spends their time, which is where your media coverage analysis comes in. Focus on the channels that work. And don’t forget, the way you measure impressions may differ depending on whether these channels are traditional or digital.

For digital PR campaigns, Google Analytics is a good tool to help you measure your web impressions.

If you opt for traditional media for your PR campaigns, you can:

• Use a research company like Nielsen
• Reach out to ask for broadcast monitoring services
• Estimate the number of prints in circulations, etc.

These give you a rough estimate of your impression. If you’re finding it difficult to ramp up your media impressions, there’s probably a gap in your strategy. So, find and fix it. This could be by re-evaluating your media channels or adjusting your messaging to suit your audiences.

Finally, note that impressions cannot be a standalone metric, especially for social media PR. These focus more on quantity instead of quality. So, if you’re tracking impressions, track engagement rates as well.

3. Engagement rates

This reflects the level of interaction users have with your content in terms of likes, shares, comments, and clicks. Engagement metrics offers a qualitative assessment of how well a message resonates with the audience. A spike in engagement during your campaign is a clear-cut sign that your efforts are paying off.

Most of the major social media platforms have in-built analytics tools to track engagement. Or you can use an analytics tool like Plecto.to visualise your social media metrics, including engagement, which is all displayed on a neat dashboard.

4. Audience sentiment

So people may be talking about your business, but what are they saying? Is it positive, negative or indifferent? Reading what people are writing in the comments is one thing. But understanding what exactly how they feel about your brand and products sheds richer light on brand health. You can even compare the sentiment towards your brand to that of competitors’ brands too.

A tool like Spout makes social listening easy and is one of the most effective ways to turn social media chatter around your brand or specific topic into quantifiable sentiment. It’s a qualitative metric that helps understand how people feel and what they are saying about your brand in online conversations.

Understanding these social listening metrics can shape your social strategy with real-time data.

5. Website traffic

Website traffic is one of the most basic metrics to measure the success of your PR activity and proves insights into how effective your PR campaigns are in driving audience interest and engagement. Site visitors and page views are indicators that your website is getting found through your digital PR activity, including your SEO efforts.

Your page views can be easily found on through free tools such as your Google Search Console. And  depending on your PR campaign goals you might want to look at new vistors to the site, as well as referral traffic, and then tweak your messaging accordingly.

Final Word on how to measure PR campaign success

Data-driven PR measurement is key to staying ahead of the game. Measuring your PR activity outcomes will help you refine your messaging, target your audience more effectively and ensure you make every penny of the PR budget count.