PR Metrics Are Broken but Performance PR Has the Tools to Fix Them
Plus, why we think owning affiliate strategy is becoming the new standard for proving your value.
PR Pros Are Measuring Everything… Except What Actually Matters
The 2025 State of PR Measurement report revealed something we’ve all felt but haven’t had the guts to say out loud: our reports suck.
PR teams are drowning in data (and substacks, sorry not sorry), but still struggling to prove what their clients actually care about ehhh emmm… revenue, authority, and impact.
According to Muck Rack’s report:
75% of PR teams say their metrics are only somewhat tied to business goals.
Only 17% track revenue, leads, or sales at all.
45% say their biggest challenge is proving impact to leadership.
If you’ve ever spent hours on an end-of-month report or campaign recap and your client was like oh, great… it sounds like you’re not alone!
And guys, THIS is exactly WHY affiliate-driven PR changes the game!
The Industry Is Still Relying on Metrics WE Don’t EVEN TRUST
PR pros overwhelmingly still measure:
Stories placed (86%)
Reach/impressions (79%)
No, 4.5M people did not read that story. So WHY are we reporting on it?
But here’s the real kicker, according to the report: Only 49% of PR pros actually believe impressions accurately reflect their work. We’ve got some work to do on the 49%, Kris!
But, for the other 51%, we think you’re here and that you’re reading this.
We’re reporting numbers that everyone knows are inflated, vanity-driven, and disconnected from conversion-driven decision making.
Meanwhile… affiliate gives PR the exact metrics that executives actually want:
Click-through behavior
Conversion rate
Revenue
AOV & EPC
Product-level data
Top-earning placements
Creator and publisher performance
This is the shift:
PR metrics tell a beautiful story. But it’s the affiliate metrics that close the loop. And why you should own this for your commerce brands.
LLM Visibility: The New PR Metric No One Is Ready For
The report’s most important trend:
67% of PR pros believe LLM visibility — how your brand appears in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity — will become a standard PR metric in the next 2–3 years.
But only 12–16% are tracking it today.
This is a seismic shift in search and one we have to learn and stay ahead of. We recently interviewed Sarah Evans of ZenMedia who created Published Monthly. I’d highly recommend going back to read that issue if you missed it. She laid out a 3 step framework for publicists on what to do right now to make an impact in AI.
Reread that here:
Because LLM visibility is directly influenced by affiliate readiness:
Publishers with strong affiliate revenue signals are more heavily cited in AI answers, according to this analysis.
Content with structured commerce data ranks higher.
Brands with affiliate-enabled links create more “authority breadcrumbs” that AI models pick up.
Affiliate isn’t just about getting into the Wirecutter anymore. It’s about teaching AI what your brand is, what it sells, and where it belongs in recommendation engines.
This is real life, honest to goodness GEO/AEO.
PR Wants Predictive Analytics — Affiliate Has Had Them for Years
PR pros say they want:
better categorization of coverage
predictive modeling
smarter automation
sentiment and theme clustering
Meanwhile, commerce publishers already run entire businesses using:
EPC forecasting
Category-level conversion prediction
Product-feed health analytics
Creator ranking and payout modeling
The affiliate strategy sessions are where we as publicists can FINALLY gets access to the type of data marketing teams that have led decisions behind the scenes for a decade. And, this is why PR teams who adopt affiliate strategy suddenly gain:
higher engagement, thanks to understanding what moves the needle at publishing houses
more placements, again thanks to understanding what moves the needle at publishing houses
budget protection from clients who are pulling back in every other area of their marketing
and most importantly, a seat at the table.
It’s not magic. It’s strategically aligning yourself with the tools of the trade that can help level up your work.
So What Should PR Pros Do Right Now?
A few high-value moves:
convince brands affiliate is not a nice to have
use affiliate revenue in your EOM reporting
Your PR wins are converting traffic and hopefully sales. Use this to prove your worth.
start tracking LLM visibility
anytime you pitch a new story, run keyword searches and see what niche blogs and mass media publishers rank, and add them to your media list.
Example, if you’re looking for the best travel gifts. Take a look at this real world example of Best Gifts for Frequent Traveler.
Then, do the same thing in Perplexity, Grok, Claude, etc. Yes, every time you pitch a new story angle. These niche publishers are finally getting their due!
Never in a million years would I have investigated the two niche publishers that popped up. And they won’t always be a perfect fit, but you’ll find gems of publishers that are updating their content and showing up in LLMs.
Tip: Try to use an incognito window so there is less bias in results.
Also apply this to the AI overview and see what sources are cited there.
The Results:
#1 - https://worktrips.com/en/the-best-gifts-for-business-travelers/
#2 - https://wheresjessieb.com/blog/travel-gift-guide
#3 - https://racheloffduty.com/blog/best-gifts-for-travelers/
Also, TRTL is showing up specifically from their Google reviews. This signals to me to ensure any travel pillow clients you may be working with focus in on getting customers to submit Google Reviews.
LEARN everything you can about the AI and affiliate landscape and network with people in the industry who are leveling up.
A great reminder for me to book my travel for Affiliate Summit West, January 12 - 14, 2026.
