The same slide appears at the end of many PR reports, and most of us have made one. It lists everything that increased: coverage, total reach, a big audience number, and maybe an advertising value equivalent that no one truly trusts but everyone still mentions. The client nods, and the slide essentially says we were active, and people noticed, but it never shows what any of it was actually worth.
This is the real issue behind how our industry talks about its value. PR’s main problem isn’t underdelivering; it’s underreporting, often poorly. PR drives the results businesses care about more often than it can prove, because we keep measuring the wrong things and then seem surprised when we must justify our budgets.
The structural problem
PR is in a tough position. It’s largely responsible for how a company is perceived, but it has always measured what it creates, not what changes as a result, focusing on outputs rather than outcomes, and on coverage rather than changed opinions. This worked for a while because other marketing channels were also unclear about their numbers.
The problem is that patience has largely evaporated. Over the past decade, every other channel has improved at linking spending to results, while PR has largely stayed the same. In budget meetings, the channel that can prove its value wins, regardless of which one did more for the business. PR’s real issue isn’t performance but showing up to meetings with the wrong proof.
The legacy metrics problem: what we still measure and why it fails
If you look at a typical report, the problem is clear. Reach measures the chance to be seen, not the actual impact; a ‘potential audience’ of ten million doesn’t mean ten million people were informed or persuaded. Volume and column inches show activity, not importance. And advertising value equivalent still lingers, treating earned coverage as if it’s the same as buying ad space.
The attribution gap and why PR's impact hides in plain sight
The bigger reason PR has trouble proving its value is that its impact is real but diffuse and occurs before the sale. Good PR creates the conditions for other channels to succeed: it makes a brand familiar so ads work better, credible so salespeople get meetings, and trusted so customers choose it over cheaper options, often without realising why.
When a sale happens, credit usually goes to the last touchpoint that influenced it: a click, a demo request, a discount code, or whatever was closest to the purchase. PR does much of the work but gets little recognition because last-touch attribution overlooks what happened earlier. This is the attribution gap, and it’s why PR’s real impact is hidden, not missing, just mixed in with other results.
What the evidence shows when PR is measured properly
But if you measure PR the right way, the results look very different. Good measurement starts with outcomes tied to goals set at the outset: changes in awareness, consideration, and trust; whether people connect the right messages to your brand; and their willingness to buy, recommend, or apply for a job. All of this should come from real research, not just reach numbers. If you add marketing-mix modelling and controlled studies to assess what PR alone contributed, the impact becomes clear in a way coverage reports never show.
When you do this, PR often proves more valuable than its coverage summaries suggest, especially for long-term effects such as trust and reputation. These are things that last-click measurement misses, yet they quietly influence costs and conversion rates across the board.
It helps to be specific about this. Reputation acts as a leading indicator: it builds slowly, stays in the background, and then shows up later as lower acquisition costs, faster sales, cheaper hiring, or less expensive crises because of built-up goodwill. These benefits don’t appear in the same quarter as the coverage, which is why short-term reporting misses them. The truth is, measuring PR impact properly usually makes PR look good. The reason the industry doesn’t do this more isn’t weak evidence; it’s that collecting it takes more effort than just exporting a media-monitoring report.
The GEO dimension
There’s also a new way to see this value clearly. As answer engines become a main tool for people researching brands, a measurable outcome appears: does your brand get mentioned, cited, and recommended in the answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google’s AI Overviews?
This matters for measurement because these systems rely heavily on earned, third-party, trusted sources. That means PR is responsible for whether a brand appears in them at all. For once, the numbers work in our favour. Share of voice in AI answers can be tracked, and it directly follows from the coverage PR creates. It connects that coverage to something a business can see—whether the brand is present when a customer is searching. From a measurement perspective, generative engine optimisation gives PR a clear, quantifiable result that is more directly linked to its work than almost anything in the old marketing funnel.
What better measurement actually requires
The good news is that this isn’t a tools problem anymore. PR measurement has plenty of frameworks. The methods, from outcome research to mix modelling to tracking citations in AI answers, already exist. What’s missing is mostly discipline, and the same few mistakes keep happening.
It begins with setting objectives from the start, linked to business outcomes, so there’s something real to measure. This is where most measurement quietly fails, even before the campaign begins. Measure outcomes, not just outputs, and finally stop using AVE for good. Accept that proper measurement requires time and money for research and analysis, and treat it as part of the job, not something to cut. And be willing to report what the work was worth, not just the easier story of what happened.
This isn’t just about making reports look better; it matters because closing the measurement gap now decides whether PR retains its budget, influence, and place at the decision table. A strong case for PR ROI isn’t just a nice extra for the quarterly review—it’s what determines whether there will be another quarter to review. Demonstrating PR’s value has become a survival skill, not just a bonus.
The work itself is mostly strong. The argument for PR has rarely been better. What’s missing is the industry’s willingness to stop counting what’s easy and start measuring what really matters.
About the author
Simarin Tandon | Junior Digital Account Director
Having worked with brands across the Beauty & Wellness, FMCG, FinTech, and Home & Lifestyle sectors, Simarin focuses on driving acquisition and growth, whilst managing the Digital team at brandnation.
A curious marketer, Simarin’s finger is always on the pulse when it comes to performance and digital updates across both paid and organic platforms.
