What Marketing Leaders Want From PR Agencies
Marketing leaders are sending a clear signal to PR agencies and integrated communications teams: results and proof matter more than ever, but budgets are not expanding to match expectations. A recent industry survey digs into what clients value when choosing an agency partner, what frustrates them, and where the agency-client relationship is headed next. The headline is stark for anyone selling PR services: proven track record and measurable results top the list, while high cost paired with unclear ROI is the number one complaint. For agencies, this is not just an uncomfortable data point, it is a roadmap for how to keep trust and retain accounts during marketing budget cuts.
The ROI problem in public relations measurement is not that PR has no value, it is that the value often gets told in the wrong language. Traditional PR metrics like impressions and ad value equivalency still show up because leadership teams want numbers they can plug into dashboards for CFOs and CEOs. But those numbers rarely capture what earned media does best: credibility, third-party endorsement, and reputation lift. A single trade publication hit may have modest reach, yet it can influence a highly targeted B2B audience and shorten sales cycles. Strong PR reporting blends baseline metrics with richer indicators like message pull-through, share of voice, placement quality tiers, time on page, web traffic spikes tied to coverage, and downstream signals such as meeting requests or inbound interest.
Clear expectations at the start of an engagement are the practical fix for “high cost, unclear ROI.” Agencies have to explain what success looks like, what inputs are required, what the reporting will include, and what the numbers can and cannot prove. That means making measurement a collaboration, not a cookie-cutter report. It also means being honest when market conditions shift and a strategy needs to pivot, whether due to industry sentiment changes, competitive moves, or missing client inputs. The ability to adjust quickly is part of PR’s core value, especially in regulated or fast-changing sectors like healthcare, where last year’s playbook can fail overnight.
The survey also points to structural change: more work moving in-house, agency roster consolidation, and more project-based work replacing retainers. This is less about agencies suddenly doing “bad work” and more about clients being forced to do more with less. The response for agencies is to stop acting like order takers and show up as thought partners who bring counsel, context, and fresh positioning ideas. When internal marketing teams are lean, clients need partners who can zoom out, connect PR to business goals, and help leadership tell a coherent story across earned, owned, social, and sales enablement channels.
AI in PR sits right in the middle of these pressures. Many marketing leaders are cautious about whether agencies can use AI responsibly and effectively, and they are quick to spot generic, AI-written pitches or social posts. The opportunity is real: large language models increasingly surface credible earned coverage, making high-quality placements even more valuable for discoverability beyond traditional search. But the rule is simple: use AI to speed up workflows and free humans for strategy, not to replace voice, judgment, or differentiation. Agencies that set AI guidelines, follow client contracts, and stay transparent about tool usage will earn trust, while those who hide it will lose it.
