How to Review and Analyse a Digital PR Agency

Deciding to take on a digital PR agency is an exciting time for any business—the potential for growth and increase in brand awareness can be dizzying. But when hiring a digital PR agency, it can be difficult to know which to choose and, once you have chosen one, how do you know they’re living up to expectations?

If you’re looking for ways to review a digital PR agency, then chances are you already know what a digital PR agency is. There are some traits great digital PR agencies share, from coming up with creative ideas that are outside of the box, to true innovations in data gathering.

You may be wondering at this point if it’s possible to do it all yourself, so we’ve created a guide that weighs up the pros and cons of digital PR agencies vs in-house digital PR teams.

There are also criteria to keep in mind and ways to review a digital PR agency to be sure they really, truly, know their stuff. This can happen before you even begin working with them, and can carry on well into the working relationship (and it should).

Evaluating a Potential Digital PR Agency Before Partnership

Every digital PR agency worth its salt will be shouting from the rooftops about how amazing they are, and they will have evidence to back it up. Scope out the agency’s social media and website, and see what their employees are sharing on LinkedIn. This is a great way to get a feel for the kind of work the agency does, the other businesses they work with, and their overall tone as a brand.

Now have a closer look at that website—most digital PR agencies will have a page devoted to campaign case studies they have run, or SEO experiments they have performed. These usually include data about the campaign, what went right, and what didn’t work for them. You can use this as a way to see their successes and how they learn from failures.

They should also have a blog, which is a great way for them to showcase their writer’s talent and expertise.

Digital PR agencies will also love telling you about their work. If you’re at the point where you’ve opened a dialogue with a company, ask your digital PR agency questions, such as; what their favourite campaign was in recent months, or their most unique data set.

How thrilled a digital PR agency is to talk about their work is a great barometer of whether they are worth your time at all—if they seem hesitant, or can’t think of anything to share, they might not be the best company to work with.

Measures of Success in Digital PR

Once you’ve taken the plunge and begun working with a digital PR agency, analysing and evaluating the impact the agency has had on your business will look a bit different. You’ll have access to different metrics, both from the agency and from your own internal business analyses.

The goal of a digital PR company, or indeed any link building agency, is to secure links. As simple as that. Though you, and they, will probably have some preference for what kind of links and where they are from, the goal is simple and deceptively straightforward.

It’s easy to think all links are created equal. But there is actually a huge variety, and they each have a unique impact. For example, “follow” links share authority from the website to the one it’s linking to, by telling Google that they rate it. “No follow” links don’t allow this sharing of authority.

What the links mean to your business is your business; it could be to improve your website’s authority or move up the search engine results page.

Your digital PR agency will agree with you ahead of time just what the KPI (key performance indicators) will be for their work, and this will be included in your digital PR contract. This could be a certain amount of links per month or quarter, or a certain number of campaigns released. Most good digital PR agencies will be flexible in their approach, to suit exactly what it is you want. This will be reflected in the pricing of your digital PR.

So for you to measure how successful a digital PR agency is, you must look at the data they will provide you; how many links they are getting for you, where these links are from, and the impact these links are having on your SEO and SERP position.

Then you can also look at your own metrics—if you’ve hired the agency to help with your SERP position, how do you find the page has landed? If you want to draw more customers to your eCommerce site, how are your sales doing? Maybe you want to improve your brand awareness generally, or countless other small improvements over time. Digital PR can help with all of that.

Remember, it’s crucial to give your digital PR campaigns time to work, and for the SERP to catch up before judging them. Most agencies advise that you allow six months to see any substantial and sustainable improvements.

Reboot Online for Your Digital PR Needs

You want to ensure your digital PR agency and SEO company is competent, confident, and flexible. So you’ll need a company that has been around the block a few times, has a long history of successes, and is packed full of knowledgeable and friendly staff.

If you want to learn more about just what Reboot Online can do for you, please don’t hesitate to reach out via our online contact form or email us at [email protected].