Why your Digital PR campaigns need KPIs

“How do we measure the success of this campaign?”

It’s a question that PRs need to be asking before every single campaign is launched, but more often that not it’s only ever asked at the start of a client-agency relationship OR once the campaign’s already wrapped up. Usually by someone with spreadsheets and dollar signs in their eyes, with a slightly raised eyebrow and sceptical tone.

Back in the days of column inches, it was easy for PRs to use vague success metrics…

“It went well.”

“We got some great coverage.”

“Journalist feedback was fab!”

And all of that might be true, but none of it actually tells you whether the campaign worked. If you can’t say what success looks like before you start, you’ve already lost the ability to prove it afterwards.

Why does this happen in the first place?

Part of it is genuinely down to how PR has traditionally been measured. Column inches and “media value” sound impressive in a report, but they don’t tell anyone whether the campaign actually moved the needle on anything that matters to the business. The other part is just habit – PR has often sat slightly apart from the rest of marketing, reported on differently, and judged by different (looser) standards.

That doesn’t fly anymore. Not when digital PR sits firmly inside the SEO and content marketing mix, and not when budgets are under more scrutiny than ever. If PR wants a seat at the table, it needs to be accountable to the same standard as everything else sat there.

Why KPIs actually matter

Without clear KPIs, every campaign becomes a vibes-based exercise. Did it feel successful? Great, but feelings don’t get you next quarter’s budget. Set the right KPIs from the start, and a campaign can:

• Prove its value in language the rest of the business actually understands (links, rankings, traffic, leads – not just “buzz”)
• Help you spot which story angles, formats, or publications are actually working, rather than guessing
• Give you something concrete to optimise towards mid-campaign, instead of finding out it underperformed once it’s too late to fix
• Justify (and protect) future PR budget, especially when it’s competing against channels with cleaner, more direct attribution
• Stop “vanity coverage” – the nice-looking but ultimately useless mentions – being treated the same as coverage that’s actually doing something for the business

The brands that treat PR as a measurable, accountable channel are the ones that keep getting the budget to do more of it. The ones that don’t, eventually get asked some very awkward questions.

What KPIs should you be tracking?

Not every KPI matters equally for every campaign – it depends on what you’re trying to achieve. But here’s a breakdown of where to start.

Awareness and visibility KPIs

• Number of relevant placements (quality over quantity, always)
• Estimated reach or audience size of the publications covering you
• Share of voice versus your closest competitors
• Branded search volume before and after a campaign

Authority and trust KPIs

• Domain rating or authority of the sites linking to you
• Diversity of referring domains, not just volume
• Sentiment of the coverage you’re receiving
• Whether you’re being positioned as a credible source, or just a passing mention

SEO and organic KPIs

• Number and quality of backlinks earned
• Organic visibility and ranking movement on your priority pages
• Referral traffic generated directly from coverage
• Improvements to topical authority around your key subject areas

Commercial KPIs

• Leads or enquiries that can be traced back to PR-driven traffic
• Conversion rate of that traffic compared to other channels
• Cost per acquisition versus your other marketing channels
• Contribution to pipeline, even if it’s part of a longer, multi-touch journey

It’s worth saying: not every campaign needs to hit all four categories. A reactive comment piece picked up by a trade publication is doing a different job to a six-month data-led campaign aiming for national coverage. Set your KPIs based on what that specific activity is actually meant to achieve, not a generic template.

Setting realistic targets, not just metrics

Tracking the right things is only half the job – you also need to know what “good” actually looks like before the campaign starts. That means:

• Benchmarking against your own previous campaigns, not just industry averages
• Being honest about what’s achievable given your budget, timeline, and current brand profile
• Agreeing targets with stakeholders before the campaign launches, not retrospectively
• Building in room to adjust targets if early results show the campaign needs reshaping

A campaign that hits a realistic, well-considered target is a far more useful result than one that “smashed it” against a KPI nobody actually agreed on in the first place.

Do KPIs ruin the creativity of PR?

Quite the opposite, if anything. Knowing exactly what you’re trying to achieve makes it easier to take bolder creative risks, not harder – you’ve got a clear way to judge whether the risk paid off, rather than just hoping it did. The campaigns that feel the most “creative” are usually still built on a very clear understanding of what success needs to look like.

PR without KPIs isn’t really a campaign – it’s an experiment with no way of knowing if it worked. Set the targets first, track the right things throughout, and the creativity has something solid to sit on top of, rather than something to hide behind.

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