You are paying your PR agency $5,000 to $15,000 a month. They send you a monthly report full of numbers. They are always “working on things.” But deep down, you have a nagging feeling: is any of this actually doing anything for our business?
If that sounds familiar, you are not paranoid. You are probably right.
I have worked on both sides of PR — as the client paying agencies, and now running one. I have seen how the best agencies operate and how the worst ones hide behind jargon and vanity metrics. Here are the five signs that your money is going nowhere.
Sign 1: Their Reports Are Full of “Impressions” and “AVE”
If your agency’s monthly report leads with “potential impressions” or “advertising value equivalent,” run. These metrics are the PR industry’s dirty secret.
Potential impressions means: the publication’s total audience, not the people who actually saw your mention. If you get mentioned in a Yahoo article, they will report 900 million “impressions.” In reality, maybe 200 people read that specific article.
AVE (Advertising Value Equivalent) is even worse. It takes the publication’s ad rates and pretends your editorial mention is worth that much. This metric was debunked over a decade ago. Even the industry’s own standards bodies have rejected it.
What real reports should include:
- Actual placement URLs you can click and verify
- Domain Rating of each publication
- Whether the link is dofollow or nofollow
- Referral traffic from each placement
- Impact on your search rankings and branded search volume
If your agency cannot provide these, they either do not know how to measure real results or they do not want you to see them.
Sign 2: You Cannot Name a Single Specific Result
Quick test: without looking at any report, can you name one specific placement your agency earned you in the last 90 days? Not a vague “we got some coverage,” but a specific article in a specific publication with a link to your site?
If you cannot, that tells you everything. Good PR produces results you remember because they are significant — a feature in a major outlet, a backlink from a high-authority site, a journalist who became a regular source for your industry.
Agencies that produce real results do not need to bury them in 20-page reports. The results speak for themselves.
Sign 3: They Keep Talking About “Relationship Building” Without Results
Every PR agency talks about journalist relationships. And yes, relationships matter. But “relationship building” cannot be the excuse for months of zero placements.
Here is the timeline you should expect:
| Timeframe | What You Should See |
|---|---|
| Month 1 | Strategy defined, media lists built, first pitches sent |
| Month 2 | First 2-4 placements, journalist responses, angle refinement |
| Month 3 | 5-10 total placements, measurable SEO impact beginning |
| Month 6 | Consistent monthly placements, clear ROI metrics, search ranking improvements |
If you are at month 4 and still hearing “we are building relationships,” your agency is either incompetent or stalling. Real PR professionals can produce results within weeks when they have the right approach.
Sign 4: They Use the Same Approach for Every Client
Does your agency send press releases through a wire service? Do they use the same pitch template with your company name swapped in? Do their “strategies” look suspiciously similar regardless of your industry?
This is the factory model of PR, and it is what most agencies below the top tier actually do. They charge premium prices for a production-line service.
Effective PR requires:
- Custom data angles specific to your industry and audience
- Targeted journalist lists built around journalists who actually cover your space
- Reactive capabilities — the ability to jump on trending stories relevant to your brand within hours, not weeks
- Original research or data that gives journalists something new to write about
If your agency’s approach could be applied to any company in any industry without changing anything, it is not worth what you are paying.
Sign 5: You Are Locked Into a Long Retainer With No Performance Guarantees
The traditional PR model is a monthly retainer, typically $5,000 to $15,000, with a 6 to 12 month commitment. The agency promises “strategic communications” and “media outreach” but guarantees nothing specific.
Think about that. You are committing $60,000 to $180,000 per year with no guaranteed outcomes. In what other area of your business would you accept that?
The retainer model exists because it protects the agency, not you. It guarantees their revenue whether they produce results or not. And it creates a perverse incentive: why work harder this month if you are already locked in for six more?
Better models exist. Campaign-based pricing. Pay-per-placement. Performance bonuses. Any structure where the agency’s incentives are aligned with your results rather than your commitment.
What to Do If You Recognize These Signs
If three or more of these signs describe your current agency, here is what I would do:
- Request a meeting focused only on specific, verifiable results. Not impressions. Not AVE. Actual URLs of placements with domain ratings and traffic data.
- Ask for their journalist interaction log. Who exactly did they pitch? When? What was the response? Any agency doing real work will have this.
- Set a 60-day deadline. Clear, measurable goals. If they hit them, great. If not, you have your answer.
- Calculate your actual cost per placement. Take your total spend and divide by the number of meaningful placements (DR 40+). If it is over $2,000 per placement, you are overpaying.
The PR industry has a transparency problem. Too many agencies survive on long retainers and vague reporting because clients do not know what good PR actually looks like. Now you do.
Curious what results-driven PR looks like? At Presslei, we work on a campaign basis. 8 to 14 earned placements in 30 to 45 days. Every placement is a real URL you can verify. No retainers. No vanity metrics.
About the Author
Salvador Jovells
Founder of Presslei. 12+ years in ecommerce SEO across international markets. After a decade of link buying for Hockerty and Sumissura, I reverse-engineered 5,272 earned media placements and founded a reactive PR agency that builds authority through data-driven stories journalists actually want to publish. Based in Zurich.
