How to Measure Public Relations: PR KPIs That Actually Matter
Public relations (PR) professionals juggle many tasks – managing media relations, creating compelling narratives, organizing events and much, much more. At its core, however, PR has one primary purpose: building brand awareness. But unlike sales, which can track revenue, or IT, which can measure systems performance, PR deals with less visible outcomes like visibility and perception. That’s where the challenge of knowing how to measure public relations comes in.
Since PR results can’t always be quantified, many professionals avoid putting in the effort to measure them altogether. But there’s much more to PR measurement than what can be tracked on a spreadsheet, and understanding how to measure other PR metrics, and being able to tie them into broader business goals, is the key to demonstrating the value of PR.
Why PR Measurement Matters
Measuring PR efforts not only involves tracking progress towards specific team goals, but also communicating how they tie into broader business objectives. Once business executives see this connection, you’ll get more organizational buy-in and reinforce PR as an important role in the company’s success, rather than something that operates solely in the background without producing direct results.
PR measurement is also a tool for identifying areas of improvement. By analyzing metrics to determine what worked and what didn’t, you can refine your strategies — adjusting messaging, targeting a different audience or timing campaigns better – to align better with company goals.
KPIs to Measure Public Relations
There’s no shortage of what PR teams can measure. However, measuring PR activities and knowing how those measurements fit into the story you’re trying to tell – and how they fit into broader company goals – are two different things.
Every company has different business objectives, and for that reason, every PR team needs their own personalized goals. That’s why it’s important to know which metrics are the best to show progress towards those goals. Otherwise, teams miss the opportunity to plan strategically or optimize their tactics for success.
Quantitative Metrics
Quantitative metrics are one type of measurement, and can be defined as any fixed PR deliverables. For example, a PR team can share in an end-of-year report that there were 5 press release distributions, 8 podcast interviews and 4 thought leadership articles placed.
While these metrics are often all that business executives want to see, they don’t give strategic teams enough insight to determine business value. Instead, PR teams must also consider qualitative and anecdotal measurements as they think about the impact and narratives they want to deliver.
Qualitative Metrics
Qualitative metrics provide the “why” behind quantitative metrics, and act as the glue piecing together the whole story. Examples of qualitative metrics include audience feedback, competitive analysis and survey results — all of which help PR teams and business executives better understand how messages are being perceived by their target audience and other stakeholders.
These two metrics often go hand-in-hand, but there’s a third metric that’s equally important, yet often overlooked: anecdotal.
Anecdotal Metrics
Anecdotal metrics are a specific type of qualitative metrics, but focus on individual patterns and experiences rather than broader themes. For example, prospects mentioning they discovered the company through media coverage, increased job application or leads who have heard of the brand before being contacted by the sales team.
It’s also important to know what metrics need to be measured before launching any PR activity in order to properly track results, compare outcomes and demonstrate growth over time. And using a mix of metrics allows PR teams to tell a cohesive story about their activities and efforts, and how they align with the company’s overall goals.
Measuring Public Relations Success: A Three-Part Framework
To truly measure the effectiveness of your PR efforts, it’s important to focus on three outcomes: direct PR results, audience actions and lead generation – all of which can be supported by quantitative, qualitative and anecdotal metrics. Together, these outcomes provide a clear structure to properly evaluate how your efforts align and support broader business goals.
Direct PR results are often quantitative metrics and reflect the immediate impact of PR activities. Imagine a PR team about to publish a press release announcing a new product. Direct PR results answer questions like, “How many interviews were secured when pre-pitching the news,” or “How many media mentions did we receive after the release went live?”
These results can also be measured with qualitative metrics, such as the tone or greater context of the media coverage, or anecdotal metrics, like how many people selected “media” on a “How did you hear about us?” form.
The second outcome to focus on is audience actions, which reflect how well a message resonated with the target audience. Metrics such as the number of article or video shares, or page visits the day the press release goes live, give valuable insights into audience interest.
It’s also important to recognize the sentiment behind these actions. Are the article shares accompanied by a “congratulations” post, or is the user who posted opening up the floor – or social media feed – for debate? By measuring audience actions, and understanding the sentiment behind those actions, PR teams are better equipped to evaluate how their efforts align with business goals, or what they can improve upon in the future.
Finally, lead generation represents the gold standard of measurable success, as it ties PR efforts directly into the sales funnel, and can come in the form of case study downloads, form submissions, direct inquiries and more.
While it’s common to see a spike in leads following major PR activities, such as a press release distribution, seeing a consistent increase in lead requires time and patience. After all, PR is a buildable effort, with results that often compound as brand awareness grows.
How to Measure Public Relations Intervals
PR interval measurement involves assessing the timing and frequency of PR activities to determine their effectiveness and overall sentiment. By strategically planning when and how often to communicate with key audiences, you can maximize engagement while avoiding disinterest or news fatigue. Key aspects of PR interval measurement include:
Frequency of Communication:
The key to staying on audiences’ top-of-mind is having a steady stream of news coming from the company, whether it be via press releases, interviews, trade show appearances and more. However, bombarding stakeholders with too much news in a short time frame can dilute your message and even do the opposite effect of what you’re trying to achieve.
Timing of Releases:
Knowing when – and when not – to publish news can significantly affect the impact of your PR efforts. Align announcements with industry trends or major events to make sure your message reaches your targeted audience. For example, a retail technology client exhibiting at NRF should share news in the weeks prior to the show when industry buzz is at its peak. On the other hand, stay clear of sharing news near and during unrelated major events, since it may get lost in the noise.
Seasonal Trends and Opportunities:
Certain times of the year present opportunities to connect with your audience when they’re most receptive. For example, releasing data on consumer holiday spending in the weeks leading up to Black Friday, or sharing a teacher success story during Teacher Appreciation Week, are great ways to tie your messaging to moments that already resonate with audiences.
Media Coverage and Sentiment Analysis
Media Monitoring reports are a good way of taking an overall temperature check of how you’re performing in the market – both from a visibility and sentiment perspective, and compared to competitors. By tracking key metrics across various channels, you can determine the effectiveness of your PR efforts and use them to guide strategies moving forward.
There are several metrics that can be included in a report on print and online media, including:
- Total media mentions: Count the number of times your company is mentioned in print and online publications across business, consumer and trade outlets. Comparing this data over time can determine what PR activities went right, or what identify to be improved for the future.
- Potential reach: Measure the size of the readership or audience who may have come across your content. This will give you an idea of your visibility across key verticals.
- Theme analysis: Break down conversation topics and allocate percentages of how much those topics fit into the entire conversation to help you understand how certain messages are resonating with your target audience.
- Net sentiment score: Track positive or negative shifts in sentiment over time by assigning a score that will help quantify these changes and better measure audience perception.
Similarly, social and digital media provide valuable metrics that can help you gauge the success of PR campaigns and their impact on online visibility. Some of these metrics include:
- Social media mentions: Monitor the frequency of your company being posted across various platforms such as Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram and TikTok. Tracking posts, comments and other mentions per channel also offers insight into the performance for each platform.
- Social media sentiment: Assess the tone of media mentions and other online discussions in real-time surrounding your company.
Net sentiment score: Similar to a net sentiment score for print and online media, track the percentages of positive, neutral and negative mentions to calculate a number. From there, you can compare it to scores from other time periods.
CVM’s approach to PR Measurement
Effective PR isn’t solely about executive campaigns – it’s about making sure every effort brings value to the company and builds brand awareness. At CVM, we take a structured approach to PR measurement that not only evaluates the success of activities, but how it ties into broader business goals.
The foundation of any successful PR strategy is understanding the company’s short-term and long-term goals. From there, we can identify which goals PR activities can directly influence. For example, if a European company wants to break into the US market, PR can focus on increasing brand visibility, establishing credibility within target industries and building media relationships that will help elevate the company’s profile in the market.
Then, we create more specific PR goals by identifying current perceptions of the brand, determining how we want to shift those perceptions, and defining the target media we need to work with to make it happen.
With goals in place, we then map out the tactics needed to achieve them, such as crafting key messages that will resonate with the target audience. From there, we choose the most effective tools – press releases, media interviews, award programs and more – to deliver these messages and get results. During this step, we’ll also assign specific coverage goals as a base for tracking progress for all of our activities.
Finally, we evaluate the success of PR activities by measuring quantitative, qualitative and anecdotal metrics to determine how well the narratives made it into media stories and reached the intended audience.
Together, we ensure that every PR effort is strategic, measurable and impactful. We do more than measure PR results; we connect them to broader business goals and, most importantly, build brand awareness.