18 Key Performance Indicators for Measuring Public Relations

1. Media Impressions

Media Impression is an important PR criterion, and a reliable meter denoting how many people saw your content and what your brand has achieved throughout the PR campaign.

A PR team sets a target for the total number of PR impressions it is hoping to achieve and then focuses on achieving or surpassing that target.

In other words, media impressions are the sum of the total audience reached through a PR campaign as in how many times your target audience sees or hears your PR message.

Measuring this key indicator may differ depending on the channel used be it a traditional or digital medium.

If one is struggling to improve their Media Impressions, probably there’s a loophole in your strategy, by finding it and fixing it, one can reach the desired targeted audience.

2. Potential Reach

Potential reach is a tool that estimates the number of people who may be exposed to a brand’s content and campaign on social media or how many people read or browse their articles online.

It means exactly as it sounds that is, the sum of people viewing your media outlets every month.

However, It differs between paid and organic reach as paid reach refers to the group of people who view the content with paid distribution while organic reach refers to those who see it naturally.

It’s worth noticing that potential reach is widely considered a limited data point since it only measures the quantity of reach and not the content quality of reach.

Potential reach is useful in predicting how far a post or campaign can reach on social media as well as showing how many people may have browsed the articles on the published channels.

3. Share of Voice

SOV i.e. Share of voice is the most important metric after all as it provides a clear picture of where your brand stands within the industry.

This measures how much exposure a brand is receiving in comparison to other brands and measures your share of the total conversations in your industry.

Focusing on Media Relations, providing the best content of all times, and of course Actively engaging with their target audience can likely increase the popularity and image of the brand.

SOV can be the amount of traffic you’re getting relative to your competitors and can also be the amount of traction your hashtag gets compared to the whole industry.

In traditional PR, the share of voice could also include your share of radio ads, TV appearances, etc, compared to your competitor brands.

4. Key Message

Top-quality content differentiates you from your competitors, as content rules the brand’s image and position in the market.

This is the tool that measures how often a brand’s key messages appear in media coverage as it is important because it shows how well the brand’s messages are reaching its target audience.

Here, the focus is on the placement of the content and the key message should act as a standard for the brand’s PR value proposition.

This metric is very useful when a key message is central to the brand’s value proposition and it includes media placements, and the percentage of articles that include these key messages.

This metric is best used when tracking the overall view including positive, neutral, or negative points of placements as it helps the PR teams to adjust their messaging or direction if their original message isn’t functioning as desired results.

5. Exposure

In public relations (PR), exposure is a key performance indicator that measures how well a brand, product, service, or message is visible to the public eye, thus more the mentions, the higher the exposure.

KPIs are measurable values that help estimate the success of PR activities and campaigns, track progress, and evaluate if the goals are met with desired results.

It’s typically calculated by quantitative meters like the number of mentions one gets on the media, social media, websites, events, and other channels.

however, only the number of mentions is not enough, one needs to check the quality and significance of those mentions to ensure that their effectively reaching out to the right and targeted audience.

For instance, an article being mentioned by a major news outlet or a well-regarded blog in a reputable source has a high-quality mention as compared to others.

6. Social Media Engagement

In public relations (PR), engagement is an important factor that measures how much your audience interacts with your brand, product, campaign, or message.

It’s a way to understand how much attention and connection you’re getting from your audience and can indicate if your content is reaching out to your selected audience.

Social Media monitors the level of interaction and engagement with your brand through meters like comments, likes, shares, reviews, and testimonials as well as Website Traffic such as Analyzing the number of visitors to your website originating from PR campaign efforts.

If the engagement rates aren’t up to the desired level, focus on creating high-quality content for your brand’s campaigns such as including more videos in the campaigns, and make sure to mold the content according to your selected target audience.

Brands can also collaborate with influencers, host events, and shows, participate, and run contests to reach and connect better with their audience as well as cater to new audiences.

7. Increased SEO

SEO as a key performance indicator in PR campaigns is extremely important as content optimized with SEO shared through PR campaigns reaches a broader audience, generating more backlinks and brand mentions.

Positive brand perception fostered by PR efforts increases user engagement with your website, another crucial signal for search engines, and thus improves the online presence of a brand.

Many famous media outlets have high-ranking sites, so receiving a media placement in them can greatly impact SEO, especially when you work with a devoted SEO team.

Also, remember that strengthening PR to boost SEO is most effective with a firm and broad optimization effort.

Consequently, a higher number of backlinks can lead to enhancing your brand’s awareness, audience reach, and engagement, thereby increasing the visibility and credibility of your brand.

8. Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment Analysis is a power KPI tool where the process of understanding the meaning behind the words spoken online and in the media takes place.

It allows PR professionals to grade whether articles, social media posts, or broadcasts are substantially positive, negative, or neutral as a single negative article can adversely affect the image and reputation of the brand that has taken years to build.

This key understands the emotions, opinions, and attitudes expressed in text data – such as social media posts, customer reviews, news articles, or written content.

Having numerous mentions does not always mean that, people always think good about your brand’s product and services, it’s important to keep checking as people’s mindsets and opinions keep changing with time.

The brand needs to adjust its PR campaign strategy according to the goals and mission that are aligned with the company’s target audience.

With this useful insight tool, one can obtain a strong understanding of how your target audience perceives and understands you.

Thus allowing you to filter and tailor your campaigns and make more strategic decisions regarding your brand as well as address issues and damages before they turn into big crises for the brand.

9. Brand Awareness

In public relations, brand awareness is an important key performance indicator as it is a powerful metric that measures how familiar consumers are with a brand.

One can know how well your target audience recognizes, remembers, and engages with your brand.

Surveys can also provide qualitative insights into how the target audience feels about the brand’s products or services as well as search volume shows how many people are searching for the concerned brand by name.

Digital marketers may set a brand awareness KPI to track how their brand is perceived over a specified period.

Measuring brand awareness among people is very useful as it’s a reliable method to improve the further strategy and brand decisions for the positive impact of a PR campaign ahead.

10. Website Traffic

In public relations, website traffic is a contributing key performance indicator that measures how many visitors a brand’s website has over time.

It’s a way to track how well a PR campaign is performing in improving the website’s traffic and to evaluate its operational efficiency.

Tracking the number of visitors who click on your company’s site can be important due to your PR coverage and link placement.

Brands can measure website traffic through as all these factors indicate how engaging your content is to your targeted audience-

Bounce rate – The percentage of visitors who leave after browsing only one page on your website.
Conversion rate – The percentage of viewers who take a desired action after viewing the page, such as signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or filling out a form.
Average time on page – How long visitors spend on a page on average.

Several tools can be used to monitor website traffic and one of the most used ones is, “Google Analytics” which is free to all its users.

11. AVE (Advertising Value Equivalency)

AVE is the metric that measures the dollar value of the earned media coverage through the equivalent cost of paid advertising.

It may also serve in justifying the value of PR to stakeholders for further funding, on the other hand, AVE may be exaggerated as it does not take into consideration the reach of the audience, the quality of engagement, or the impact created by the earned media.

For example, a small article in a highly respected industry publication may result in a lower AVE than a larger article in a less influential publication.

However, the article in the industry publication may far more effectively reach the target audience and AVE does not take into consideration the incremental long-term benefit of earned media brand reputation and trust.

12. Backlinks

Backlinks refer to the links coming onto your website from other websites as they are among the most important factors when it comes to SEO.

They serve to indicate to search engines that your website is something valuable and relevant. When a reputable website links your content, it says that this content is worth sharing, and therefore it’s credible.

In any case, not all backlinks are created equal So, you get to enjoy much more elbow room with the search rankings courtesy of high-quality backlinks coming from authoritative websites, as opposed to poor-quality ones hailing from spammy and irrelevant websites.

The point is, that you need strategies that could help in building quality backlinks through actions such as guest blogging, content marketing, and outreach to industry influencers.

13. Email Metrics

Email metrics follow up on the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.

You can analyze open rates, click-through rates, bounces, and other things after which you can notice what needs changing so that a campaign further improves.

For example, a high open rate would indicate that your subject line and sender address were appealing, whereas a low click-through rate may indicate that the content of your email isn’t relevant or interesting to them.

As you look through these metrics, you can make data-driven decisions on your approach to e-mail marketing perfecting your target to enhancing your content or adjusting your send times.

14. Journalist Engagement

This refers to the level of engagement and interaction you have with journalists, Fair and balanced coverage is more likely if journalists know and trust you.

If these relationships are sound and good, then it might result in better media coverage, thereby helping in increasing brand visibility.

The regularity of communication, the building of a good reputation as a source to be trusted, and offering an exclusive story or insight will all help build such trust.

Offering to help the journalists with their stories with quotes or background information does provide yet another way of relationship-building that can lead to positive coverage.

15. Brand Mentions

Brand mentions referring to any mention of your brand either in the media or online discussions.

Monitoring your brand mentions will allow you to find positive and negative sentiment areas, monitor your brand reputation, and monitor competitive activity.

Social listening tools can enable you to understand brand mentions across various platforms, social media, news outlets, and online forums.

This will also provide great insight into how the general public perceives your brand. You are one step ahead in case of any crisis that may come up or an opportunity arises.
The tracking of brand mentions can help you understand how effectively your PR works and find other areas where you can create more value.

16. Media Placement

Media placement means the placement of your brand or message in any media outlet.

It is among the major keys to performance indication of your PR success, as through it you can widen your brand visibility and reach out to your target audience.

The quality and quantity can vary regarding the reach of the publication, the demographic relevance of the audience, and the relevance of the coverage itself.

The number of placements, type of media outlet, and prominence of the placement inside the publication should be tracked for this reason.

These metrics tell you how effective your PR is and what needs to be changed or adjusted in your strategy.

17. Crisis Response Time

Crisis response time is how long it takes from the moment an organization is supposed to arrive on the scene until it responds to the crisis or critical event.

The sooner and more favorably a brand responds to a crisis or any other negative situation, the lesser the damage its reputation and public trust take.

Crisis communication planning: A soundly developed communication plan during crises, describing the role of every important personnel, channel of communication, and messaging activity, will work wonders during a crisis.

Having this enables your organization to respond immediately in the event of a crisis and reduce the impact of damage to your brand reputation.

18. Conversion Rate

The conversion rate is the number of those people through exposure to your PR efforts who take an action that you consider desirable, such as buying something or signing up to receive a newsletter.

It’s a key metric for measuring the effectiveness of your PR efforts in driving business results.
You can make use of website analytics tools or any other proper tracking software to track conversion rates.

By studying your conversion rates, you are going to be able to see where your PR is most effective, and you’ll know what to do further in regard to your PR strategy based on the data you receive.

For example, if you notice that your rate of conversion is coming from a particular media outlet, you may want to strategize how to get more placements within that publication.