10 Yetis Insight Blog - 7 Ways To Measure Success of a Digital PR Campaign

It's a well known fact that PR is difficult to measure, which is really ruddy annoying for brands and PR teams alike. Clients often want to see a direct return on investment for their public relations spend, but the reality is that it's not always as easy as that.

The success of a digital PR campaign is certainly easier to measure than more old school and traditional activity targeting print publications. In this insight blog post, I'm aiming to highlight a few of the ways in which an online PR campaign can be measured, in terms of how successful it has proved to be against the objectives that were set before any activity commenced.

1.Number of links

Many of the briefs we are handed by clients have one sole objective; links, links and more links. This is because many digital campaigns are now under the 'PR for SEO' umbrella; whereby clients want to achieve a number of links that will ultimately have a positive impact on their website's search engine optimisation (i.e. how highly they rank on Google for key search terms).

Therefore, often we will measure the success of our campaigns based on how many links we have managed to achieve to their website within the online media coverage we have generated through our activity. Some clients will ask us at the start of the campaign how many links we'd hope to have secured for them by the end of the project and, the simple truth of the matter is, we just don't know. However, we can roughly estimate what we'd hope to achieve based on previous similar activity that we've done and the links we managed to secure for that. If the number of links we've secured for a digital PR campaign by the end of the contract matches or exceeds the number we'd estimated, we're pretty chuffed with that!

2.Quality of links

The number of links is one thing, but the quality of them is a whole other ball game. Sure, you could've secured 100 links for a campaign and that seems fan-flipping-tastic, but if they are all poor quality links then it could actually be damaging for your brand or client. When we talk about the quality of links generated from a digital PR campaign, we're considering factors such as the domain authority (DA) of the website that the link is on and whether or not it is a follow/no follow link. The DA is a score assigned to every website by Moz, which developed the metric (and is a pretty awesome tool all PR people should be using in my opinion). Websites are scored out of 100 and the higher the DA the more authoritative the website is in Google's eyes.

Links within online coverage to your brand's or client's website can also either be 'follow' or 'no follow' links. The simplest way to describe the difference between the two is that links tagged as 'no follow' pretty much wave a huge sign above their heads telling search engines to ignore them and not count them when analysing what impact it should have on rankings of the site that's being link to. Follow links, on the other hand, are the holy grail of PR for SEO campaigns. When secured, especially on websites with a high domain authority, Google thinks 'yep, that's pretty awesome... let's make that site rank a bit higher'.

Search engines also take into account the quality of the site that's hosting the link; not just in terms of DA but in terms of content. If you somehow managed to get your brand or client a follow link on a high DA website, but it was some kind of adult entertainment website, the murky content on there could raise a red flag to the likes of Google which isn't ideal. Essentially, a successful digital PR campaign is one that generates lots of follow links on high DA (say, 60 or above) websites. If you think of a site like Yahoo! UK which has a DA of 100, a follow link on there (which we've managed to get for a fair few clients) is pretty sweet.

3.Number of pieces of coverage

The number of pieces of coverage you achieve for an online PR campaign is usually a pretty good indication of its success. Some brands and clients like to focus on how many different media outlets and publications picked up on the story and, of course, lots of coverage can demonstrate a successful campaign. It's not always as plain and simple as that though and the old adage of 'quality over quantity' certainly rings true. Personally, I'd rather have just 10 pieces of coverage on quality websites with a high DA + follow link for a client than 100 pieces on naff sites with no links at all. This is worth bearing in mind.

4.Traffic increase

Often, we'll ask our client to keep an eye on their site data or even ask for access to their Google Analytics during a campaign that we're carrying out. It's important to monitor spikes in traffic at times of online media coverage during a digital PR campaign. If an online piece of coverage goes live with a link through to you brand or client's website and then suddenly there is a lot of referral traffic from that link, this is a good thing because it can lead to... drum roll please...

5.Revenue increase

Yes, sales! Ultimately, PR campaigns are less about brand awareness these days and more about return on investment and a boost for sales. So, if there have been an increased number of sales, bookings or even just enquiries around the time of online media coverage for your brand or client, it's a good indication that the campaign is doing its job. We once had a piece of coverage on the Metro.co.uk website for a client with a link through to a product page and this drove £200k worth of sales. We were feeling proud as punch that day!

6.Social media shares

The thing about digital PR campaigns is that they almost always cross over onto social media. You can usually tell if your activity has taken off based on the social media conversations it is encouraging. If, for example, you get a piece of coverage on the Mail Online and it's being shared over and over again on Twitter, with loads of people talking about it (in a positive light) thenthis can be a way in which the success of the campaign can be measured. There are loads of tools to help you measure the impact something is having on social media, including Hootsuite and Buzzsumo.

7.Sentiment

Some people will argue that all PR is good PR, even if it's negative. Others will argue until they're blue in the face that this couldn't be further from the truth. Well, it's all a matter of opinion at the end of the day. Looking at the sentiment of PR coverage is important though; public relations, after all, is about brand reputation. If media coverage is largely positive and the reaction from journalists and the public seems to be good, I think that's enough to deem the campaign a success and is a good way to measure how effective it has been.

There you have it! How do you measure the success of you digital PR campaigns? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.