FORGET ABOUT IMPRESSIONS. MEASURE WHAT YOUR COMMUNICATION ACTUALLY ACHIEVES
At the Communication Summit, Katie Delahaye Paine argued that media mentions, impressions and reach no longer show the real value of PR, urging marketers to measure whether communications change trust, attitudes and behaviour among target audiences. She warned that impression-based metrics can be distorted by bots, out-of-market audiences and inflated traffic estimates, while today’s fragmented media journey requires measurement across channels rather than in isolation. Her recommendation is to define success from management’s perspective first and then build metrics, benchmarks and reporting around that business outcome, with results presented as a clear narrative rather than complex tables.
