In this 3-minute read for measurement month 2020, AMEC members Libby Howard and Steph Bridgeman answer some of the most frequently asked questions about measuring PR impact.

Measurement isn’t an easy topic at the best of times but in the middle of a global pandemic comms professionals could be forgiven for not wanting to take up this trickiest of challenges.

But with teams being downsized and budgets tighter than ever, being able to confidently demonstrate the value of communications work at board level is an essential skill – and just as important for in-house teams as it is for agencies.

To give you a helping hand for measurement month 2020, here are four of the most commonly asked – difficult – questions around measurement.

1. What’s wrong with using Advertising Equivalent Value (AVE)?

Global industry bodies disavowed AVEs years ago, but some clients still ask for them (according to the latest ICCO World PR Report, 46% of global PR agencies still use the metric, vs 10% in the UK).

While we can understand that a financial metric like this is attractive for budget-holders, it’s badly flawed. Here’s why.

A media source generating a high AVE is one which charges a lot to advertise. But is this the best source for your target audience? A smaller, more niche publication might have much more impact, but a far lower AVE. What if the BBC website ran your good news story? You can’t advertise on the BBC, so what would be the AVE for that?

Read this blog from AMEC Chair Richard Bagnall to understand more about why AVEs have been comprehensively discredited.

There are other financial metrics you can use to replace AVEs, such as cost per 1,000 opportunities to see, or opportunities to see per £/$ spent on PR.

2. Is Opportunities To See a meaningful figure?

An opportunities to see (OTS) figure is based on the total readership of a publication or website, multiplied by the number of times you achieve an article. But because OTS figures are typically very high (in the millions) this metric has been losing credibility in recent years, especially when set against other, more precise, sales and marketing metrics.

The use of sitewide monthly audience figures for online news sites have contributed to this lack of credibility. OTS powered by article level audience data is more credible, but this data is hard and costly to find.

Alternative routes include using free tools such as Hypestat and Siteworthtraffic, which indicate daily unique visitors. Coveragebot, the free tool from the people behind CoverageBook, offers an Estimated Coverage Views calculation which is a useful alternative to OTS figures.

When reporting on article reach:

• use credible sources to inform your audience data
• ask your monitoring provider for explanation of metrics if they seem nebulous,
• be consistent in your audience data sources
• be particularly careful not to mix monthly sitewide data with daily unique users.

3. Can I trust the reports from my media monitoring agency?

Monitoring agencies can save you a lot of time and many comms teams rely solely on these external reports to measure the impact of their work.

To get the very best results, it’s wise to invest some time in the relationship with your monitoring agency to ensure you’re both on the same page.  A little bit of regular house-keeping will also ensure your data can be relied on.

The efficacy of automated reports from your monitoring agency are reliant on:

• The relevancy and completeness of coverage identified;
• The robustness of audience data powering metrics such as reach/opportunities to see.

Work in partnership with your monitoring provider to ensure that false positives are not feeding into your measurement. If they do appear, delete them from the system if possible and feed back to your account handler – that way, you can be sure your reports are based on a clean and relevant data set.

4. How can I show that PR activity led to a positive business outcome?

This is perhaps the toughest question of them all, and there is no silver bullet.

For some types of PR activity, demonstrating business value can be fairly straightforward.  For example, generating leads via a white paper campaign that allows an organisation to collect new contact details in return for high value content. This can also result in sales.

Organic content generated through PR will add value to an organisation’s Search Engine Optimisation strategy, including creating high-quality backlinks that carry a financial value.

But most importantly, you need to remember what your communications objectives are.   These are not always about selling a product or service – and PR is only one part of the marketing mix.

At its highest level, the strategic function of PR is to promote and protect reputation by engaging effectively with multiple stakeholders.  One positive outcome from the pandemic is that this strategic function has been widely recognised as organisations have supported their employees, customers and partners through the crisis.

Looking ahead, communications now has an unparalleled opportunity to maintain its seat at the top table, where discussions are now about far more than pounds and pence.

/Ends