What does a good monthly PR report look like?
You can audit a good monthly PR report in five minutes. It names every reporter pitched, with send dates. It lists every reply, every placement with a live link, every conversation still open, and the angles queued for next month. Five sections, all countable. If you cannot click through to the coverage and count the pitches yourself, the report is not measurement.
PR activity is inherently countable. At full scale our agency sends 7,000+ targeted pitches a year to 2,500+ reporters, and every send, reply, and placement carries a name and a date. Your program is smaller. The evidence standard is the same.
| Section | What good looks like |
|---|---|
| Activity log | Reporters and outlets pitched this month, by name, with send dates |
| Replies | Who answered, who passed, who is interested but waiting on a hook |
| Placements | Live links to published coverage, with outlet names and dates |
| In progress | Open conversations and the catalyst each one needs to convert |
| Next month | Specific angles and announcements queued, tied to your calendar |
An honest report includes the misses. Most pitches do not land; that is normal. A month with twenty sends and one placement can be a good month if the one is the right outlet. A report whose numbers only go up is a warning sign.
Red flags:
- Impressions, "buzz," or awareness scores with no outlet names. The page on which PR metrics matter explains why these are vanity numbers.
- Any dollar figure labeled "ad value." That is AVE (advertising value equivalency, the discredited ad-rate metric), and the page on why AVE is discredited covers the full case.
- Your own blog post, a webinar, or a syndicated reprint counted as a media hit.
- A polished summary slide in place of the raw activity log you can audit.
- No clickable link to confirm the coverage exists.
The test: can you reconstruct the month from the report alone, without a call? If yes, you have measurement. If the report only makes sense once the account lead walks you through it, you do not.
Before you sign with any firm, ask to see a real report from a recent month, with client names redacted. A firm that reports this way will hand it over without flinching.