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9 Ways to Measure the Success of a Digital PR Campaign

Digital PR

At Passion, we believe in transparent reporting – but with digital PR, it can sometimes be tough to know which metrics you should report on. Not every campaign will have the same KPIs, and it should be established at the very beginning what success will look like, whether that be building links, driving brand awareness, increasing traffic, conversions or a mixture of them all.

Here is a list of key metrics we consider vital when reporting on our digital PR campaigns.

1) Total Number of Links

One of the most visible metrics to track when it comes to measuring the success of a digital PR campaign is the total number of linkable coverage earned. This includes both do follow and no follow links.

It’s also important to take into consideration the reach of the publications that are linking back to your site. A few links from high-brow publications with a large readership might bring more value than dozens of links from less reputable publishers.

2) Do Follow/No Follow Links 

While do follow links improve your SEO rankings, no follow links can still have a positive impact as long as the content is relevant to your business and driving traffic to your website.

3) Brand Mentions

Not every publication that uses your data or content will link to your campaign or website. Many outlets have a non-linking policy or only provide links for money – however, it’s worth highlighting that mentions of your business can still increase brand awareness, have a positive effect on your reputation and even have indirect SEO benefits. This is especially true if your brand is mentioned in a top tier publication with a high domain authority (DA).

4) Domain Authority

When it comes to measuring success, PR professionals know that not all backlinks are created equal. The value of a link depends on the quality of the referring website. This is where domain authority comes in. DA is used to measure how likely it is a website will rank in the search engine result pages (SERPs). The higher the DA, the more positive impact it will have on your site.

5) Trust Flow and Topical Trust Flow

Two other important metrics to consider depending on your brief are trust flow (TF) and topical trust flow (TTF). Trust flow is a metric that measures the perceived trustworthiness of a website based on its backlinks to other trustworthy sites. Topical trust flow shows how authoritative and trustworthy a website is within a specific niche. 

6) Traffic

Whether your campaign goes viral or not, it’s worth monitoring referral traffic. Referral traffic shows the number of users who arrived on your page via an external link. By using Google Analytics (GA), you can report on how many page views or sessions were generated from a single placement. You can also track the average time spent on the page and make an assumption about how engaging your content is.

7) Social Engagement

Another way to measure the effectiveness of your PR campaign is social media engagement. If you’ve got your target audience (and even people outside of your target audience) talking about your campaign on social, this is a good indication that your content is relatable, niche, shareable and engaging.

8) Anchor Text

It’s not just the website linking back to your page that needs to be relevant – the anchor text should be as well. Ideally, the anchor text will indicate the type of page/content the reader can expect to be redirected to when they click on the link. Best practice states that it should be either a brand name or a relevant keyword rather than a generic phrase like ‘click here’.

9) Leads and Conversions

For some link building campaigns the main metrics are new leads and conversion. If you are building links to specific landing pages, the traffic that you receive may lead to conversions. If that’s the case, this becomes a valuable metric.

Measuring the true success of a digital PR campaign is never straightforward and the definition of its success should be established, refined and personalised early on and in collaboration with the client. That’s the mentality we have at Passion Digital and that’s why we have a proven track record of helping our clients take their PR campaigns to the next level. If you’re ready to kick your next campaign up a notch, get in touch with our team of experts today.