5 PR KPIs Most Modern Marketers Neglect

Success in PR - like in any other area of marketing - can be most accurately determined on the basis of results and ROI.

Therefore, having the right metrics and KPIs in place to measure the performance of your PR efforts should be a key priority in your marketing strategy. You're probably already tracking data in key areas that are clearly connected to PR, like:

• Website traffic
• Backlinks
• Social media engagement
• Social shares

But have you found the most effective ways to gain focused insights into where your PR is benefiting the business and where it could be improved? Here are five KPIs that’ll help you on this mission:

1. Domain authority

Domain authority is an important indicator of your ability to rank highly in search results and stack up well against your competitors.

Expressed as a number between 1 and 100, it's calculated based on three main factors:

• Backlinks
• Outbound links from your site to other reputable domains
• The age of your site

Domain authority is a significant PR metric if one of your most important goals is to boost the credibility and standing of your site by earning backlinks and placing outbound links in your content.

Free tools from providers like Moz can give you an idea of your domain authority, as well as your top pages, ranking keywords and other key metrics.

2. Share of voice

If one of your top objectives where PR is concerned is to strengthen your position in the marketplace relative to your competitors, gauging share of voice is a good way to know how you're performing. It's a measure of how much coverage you're getting in key channels and mediums, compared to other brands in your sector.

There are different ways to approach measuring share of voice. You can focus on the presence of your brand, particular products, or even certain individuals within the business.

You'll also want to consider whether you should compare yourself to just one competitor, or concentrate on how you're performing within the industry as a whole.

3. Active coverage

Analyzing active coverage proves highly useful when you want to develop a data-driven idea of how your PR team is performing. It's simply a measure of how much coverage has been directly secured by the PR department.

For a more nuanced view, you can focus on how much attention you've gained in the channels that are most important and valuable to you, such as well-established, reputable industry publications. This will give you a better idea of the true value you're deriving from your PR activities.

4. Quality of coverage

Going a step further from simply measuring how much PR coverage you're getting, it's wise to consider the quality of that coverage. For example, is your brand featuring prominently in the headline or opening paragraphs of an article from a high-reach publication, or are you only being mentioned in passing while your competitors get more attention?

Furthermore, it's important to remember that not all press coverage is positive. Your brand might be getting lots of mentions in influential publications, but you should look into the tone and context of the content to get a true picture of how beneficial it is to you.

Analyzing your quality of coverage can give you an indication of audience sentiment and point you towards problems that need your attention.

5. Message penetration

You want to have confidence that your PR activities are succeeding in conveying your most important messages to your audience. Message penetration, or resonance, is a useful KPI that can give you an idea of how effectively you're getting your point across.

One way to measure it is to look into all the coverage you've received and break it down based on key themes and topics. You can then think about how closely you are (or want to be) associated with these issues and what that means for your brand.

This becomes particularly important when you're embarking on a PR campaign with a specific aim. For example, if you're keen to push the environmental benefits of a new product or service, you'll want to know how much of your press coverage is concentrating on this theme.

The results you collect will refine your understanding of where your PR strategy is succeeding, and where you need to make some changes.