From Vanity Metrics to Real ROI: The Role of AI and Data in Revolutionizing PR Analytics

The world of PR and communication is evolving at a rapid pace, and with it, the traditional methods of media outreach and measurement are also changing. In this post, we will explore how the rise of online media, social media, and martech tools have impacted the PR industry and why reader-centric data is crucial in today’s world.

Traditional Metrics and the Need for ROI

Traditionally, media outreach lists were based on reputation rather than precise numbers. The merit of certain publications denoted the quality of journalism, editorial freedom, and appreciation of specific intellectual strata of society. However, with the rise of online media, PR folks struggled to make sense of it all. They deployed traditional measurement metrics to the world of online media, such as coverage volume, sentiment, and volume vs. competition.

The Problem with Social Media Virality

Soon, the need to go a step further arose. What do these metrics mean in terms of ROI? The rise of social media provided engagement numbers per article, such as shares, likes, and comments, which became the hallmark of all PR strategies. However, PR got siloed in the reputation bucket, struggling to rely on analytics tools focused on social media engagement data.

The world of marketing, on the other hand, benefitted from the rise of martech products, tools, cookie-based tracking, audience personalization, and analytics. The reader was soon forgotten, the one who spends time reading the content on news sites, rarely sharing the same on social media, and may engage on Twitter or others from time to time. The ROI discussion got limited to the social media virality of the content.

The Emergence of Reader-Centric Data

However, for long, reader-centric data tells us otherwise. Did you know that over 90% of press releases you send out get ‘ZERO’ readership? Unless Dhoni, Kohli, Ranveer, Investment, OTT shows names are mentioned in your release, there is an 85% less chance that anyone will even click on your story’s headline. Thousands of articles get published every day on news sites, and what are the chances of yours getting discovered by people? Only 1/4th readers who choose to click on the headline will never go beyond the first paragraph. Your brand’s earned online news media segment share is not the number of articles published but the number of readers achieved! Your potential reach, based on which AVE, PRV is calculated, is not the number of visitors on the root domain but factors like bounce rates, return/new visitors, time spent on the article, and more.

Arkreach: The Alternative Solution

Enter Arkreach, an alternative to the norm. Communication analytics can’t start and end with social media engagement data. The number of readers consuming content on news websites is massive, and user behavior needs to be studied beyond just clubbing them as a homogeneous entity for PR analysis. Our IPs, rooted in AI, answer some basic questions that have tormented PR for ages. Who did we reach out to and how often? Did I reach my audience persona? Is my media outreach list optimum, or should I continue to use traditional media lists for online media as well? How do I change my media outreach mix for PR to get the most out of it?

Arkreach brings deep reader-centric data and analysis, providing answers to these questions and more. The PR industry needs to adapt to these changes and focus on reader-centric data for better media outreach and measurement. With the help of Arkreach, PR professionals can understand their audience persona, media outreach list, modern measurement metrics, crisis mitigation and the media outreach mix required to achieve the desired outcome.

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