The Public Relations Blog

The definition of vanity metrics, and why they don’t really matter.

What we usually think of as vanity metrics are numbers like impressions, advertising value “equivalents” (AVEs), mentions, likes, shares, re-tweets, clicks, page views, downloads, etc. Although some vanity metrics may be important for historical benchmarking or baseline purposes, they shouldn’t be relied on for real intelligence. 

Vanity metrics are good for feeling “warm and fuzzy” and bad for action. In other words, vanity metrics are numbers that feel important yet are fundamentally superficial, or worse, deceptive. They are numbers for numbers’ sake.

This is a story about determining ROI for public relations efforts. There is also a story about learning the fundamentals of measuring PR ROI as well.

When most people think about public relations, they tend to think PR is earned media coverage. (Even though PR is more than earned media coverage.)

And what is earned media anyway?

Traditionally, measuring a PR campaign and its outcomes were challenging. You may have even been told that public relations can't be measured. When it was measured, it was often assigned "publicity value," "advertising value equivalency," or some other arbitrary number. It doesn't have to be.

The industry is evolving quickly, making PR increasingly measurable through attribution technology.

How to measure your strategy performance

Most companies focus their energy and resources on designing and implementing their marketing campaigns and underestimate the importance of measuring the results. It’s very important to understand that measuring your results will help you improve your future outreach campaigns.

Axia Public Relation’s campaigns tie directly to what’s important to business leaders

Public relations campaigns work to impact your organization’s reputation, revenue, and recruiting. At Axia Public Relations, all our efforts drive one or more of these important factors. We start by tying our communication metrics to your company’s financials and key metrics. We’re able to articulate the value of PR in terms that your company leaders care about, such as their ROI.

Understanding the process of earned media and measuring the value of your coverage

How do you know if your earned media coverage is successful at telling your message? Our process for measuring earned media efforts can prove its value to organizations. Go beyond media impressions and measure numbers that really matter.

Beyond impressions, use these success factors to calculate the value of earned media coverage

Earned media coverage is a way to reach audiences and share your company’s message. A common way to make an announcement is to distribute a news release on a newswire. What does this actually do to reach audiences?

Axia PR helps you measure the ROI of your public relations efforts

While it might seem difficult to measure public relations, it’s not impossible. When you measure PR, you document the return on investment of your public relations campaign. Great PR improves an audience’s awareness, trust, understanding, and consideration of the topic, and it ultimately causes the audience to act.

Busy work doesn't generate results. Outstanding work leads to the bigger impact

It happens every time. When explaining the nuances of our office culture, especially in regard to tracking hours, people are shocked to hear that as an agency, we don’t clock in, clock out, or keep personal time sheets. Sounds crazy, right? (There’s a method to the madness.)

Blogging is a great way to attract visitors to your website and convert them into customers. It’s also great for SEO and positions your company as a thought-leader in its industry. How do you know your blogging efforts are working? Hopefully, you’re measuring certain figures, like blog views and blog subscribers.

At Axia Public Relations, we have seven principles for how we measure PR and a four-level measurement approach that provides the true impact to your organization. This approach includes setting SMART objectives and using communication methods to move your target audiences down the PR measurement funnel to the impacts stage where they’ll take action.