Are your digital PR campaigns underdelivering? 5 things you might have missed

From unclear objectives to a mismatch between tactics and business needs, small oversights can hold digital PR campaigns back. Here are five questions to ask before pitching.

By Fran Johnson

Digital PR helps marketing teams earn online coverage, brand mentions, and backlinks, but even strong ideas can underperform when teams overlook key planning decisions.

I've identified five questions teams should consider before pitching to spot potential gaps and make better decisions.

These early decisions make it easier to choose the right approach and avoid pursuing tactics that don't suit the client's or business's needs.

1. Do stakeholders fully understand what they’re investing in?

Understanding the nuances of a digital PR strategy, from choosing the right tactics and helping the brand stand out to the tools, can feel overwhelming for internal teams and stakeholders. Clear communication about what digital PR involves and what you want it to achieve sets expectations from the start.

Outline exactly what your team can support internally and where external skills or expertise may be needed to manage expectations. When agencies and in-house teams work together, both sides should be clear on each other’s strengths, responsibilities and scope.

2. What is the brand realistically capable of?

Honest conversations that set clear parameters, such as required internal resources and external budgets, help define the strongest digital PR tactics that deliver the best results.

For example, responding reactively to journalist requests is often low-cost, but if your stakeholder can't respond quickly, you could waste time and money on the wrong tactic. Similarly, creating your own news through creative campaigns with multiple pitching angles can generate high levels of coverage, but it requires enough resources to see it through successfully.

Solidifying these parameters helps your team focus on the tactics that deliver the most value.

3. Is the entire team primed and ready?

Make it clear to the in-house team that the more context and information they can share, the better equipped you will be to support them. This may be the marketing point of contact for agency teams, while in-house specialists may need input from the wider marketing or brand team.

Helpful resources include goals and mission, audience information, and what the brand does and doesn't want to talk about. Try to access asset libraries, brand guidelines, style guides, and any existing content you can refresh and repurpose. This also shouldn’t stop once your digital PR activity is underway. Clear communication keeps digital PR aligned with internal goals and brand messaging.

4. Can the brand lead with expertise?

Thanks to AI, journalists are wary of being caught out by an expert who doesn’t really exist; the more proof you can provide that brand spokespeople are genuine, the better. This might be an on-site bio that encourages links and helps prove a spokesperson is employed by the company. It should clearly state specialities and be backed up with evidence as to why they are a credible source (background, experience, education, etc.).

Anything else that can prove this person is real is helpful – previous features and articles not on the company website, social media links (such as LinkedIn) and offering interviews are a few examples.

5. Is long-term commitment possible?

As many marketers know, digital PR is a long-term strategic investment, and success isn't always instant. Establishing clear expectations from the outset prevents reactive decision-making and ensures that all teams and stakeholders understand how digital PR delivers impact over time.

In some cases, we’ve seen major international news sites run stories months after they were first pitched – and we’ve also gained widespread success by re-pitching stories a year or more down the line in connection with a breaking news hook.

A campaign Candour worked on with Rehabs UK saw ranking improvements for related terms within its first few weeks, but its longer-term impact came from sustained activity. Over the course of a year, the foundational work, supported by a wider PR and content strategy, contributed to a 200x increase in organic traffic.

Without off-site PR coverage, content and technical work can never reach their full potential. Once you build the foundations through early outreach and wins, you must sustain results to help brands achieve consistent, long-term growth.