Digital PR activity without a guiding strategy is like going on an expedition for buried treasure without a map, or starting an investment portfolio with zero research. It's not to say you won't stumble across a win, but the chances are much slimmer - and in 2026, the competition is more fierce than ever. 

This article covers what a digital PR strategy is, why it matters more in 2026, the inputs that make one robust, and how to keep it effective over time. Each section also includes the questions a budget holder should be asking the team leading the work, to ensure their strategy is as strong as possible.

What is a digital PR strategy?

A digital PR strategy is the piece of work that guides all of your activity so it's designed to have maximum impact for the brand. It's not about earning links and mentions anywhere. It's about how you build trust and authority for the right topics, so you're visible in the spaces where your customers are actually researching their decisions.

As digital PR supports building brand strength and increasing visibility in search, this strategy can’t be produced in a silo. It needs to be informed by brand and SEO, and essentially be an extension of their strategies. 

A robust digital PR strategy should therefore be produced from: 

• Brand goals and key target persona insights
• SEO strategy insights and priorities 
• In-depth competitor analysis 
• Media and AI landscape research 

As search is evolving at an incredible rate with the adoption of AI, and with the media landscape continually adapting to the climate at the time (to target their own readers' wants, needs and desires), this shouldn’t be a one-off static document. The digital PR strategy needs to be revisited regularly to make sure digital PR activity stays aligned to changes brand-side, with target audiences, in the media or the wider search landscape. 

Why a digital PR strategy matters more in 2026 than it ever did

There's a lot moving in search and media at the moment, but two shifts in particular are landing at the same time, and digital PR is having to adapt to both. 

The first is the rise of AI search (and everything that comes with it): 

• ChatGPT has surpassed 1 billion weekly active users (as of August 2026) - more than double the 400 million of February 2025.
• Google AI Overviews now appear on 43% of searches, according to Similarweb - nearly triple the 15% of a year ago. The feature spans more than 200 countries and territories in over 40 languages.
• Around two-thirds of American adults (65%) and roughly one in three Brits (35%) use AI weekly.
• Over half of British adults (55%) now use AI to find out information or research a topic.

If your brand isn't visible in these spaces during the purchase journey, you're essentially absent from consideration. And with this channel only growing, that could have a big impact on your bottom line.

The second force is competition - which has likely increased because of the above shift. Average worldwide search interest in digital PR over the past 12 months is up 168% on the year before, and more brands are investing in quality earned media than ever before. Alongside this, the media industry is regularly making cuts to employee numbers, so the fight for journalist attention and editorial space is at an all-time high. Doing digital PR and trying to cut through the noise without a strategy in this environment isn't just inefficient, it'll be expensive.

What the rise of AI search has changed about the signals that matter 

Brand strength and authority (which are supported by digital PR) have always influenced visibility. AI search has made them the dominant signal, not a supporting one - and the data behind that shift is now hard to argue with.

Ahrefs’ 2025 analysis of the top brand visibility factors in ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews, which looked at 75,000 brands, revealed that ‘branded web mentions’ has one of the strongest correlations with brand visibility in these spaces. With an average Spearman correlation of 0.676 vs 0.218 for backlinks, that’s roughly a 3:1 advantage. 

In addition, Muck Rack’s Generative AI report 2025 analysed more than one million links cited by Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and ChatGPT, and found that 82% of AI citations come from earned media rather than brand-owned content, with journalism alone accounting for around 20-30%. Digital PR tool BuzzStream analysed 4 million citations (April 2026) and found that 14% came from news publications specifically - second only to blog content (53%). 

What we've always treated as hints for Google are now being shouted from the rooftops in this AI search/GEO era: brand strength and authority are the key focuses. Digital PR could influence brand strength to increase overall brand visibility in AI, or earn coverage which itself is cited. 

So ‘more links equals better performance' is the old equation. And whilst it still has some weight, with relevant links supporting traditional search performance, which in turn does correlate with AI visibility - it’s not the only, or dominant factor, for visibility in AI. A digital PR strategy built purely around link acquisition (and volume) will therefore be working harder for less over time, because what 'better performance' actually looks like is the thing that’s changing.

So digital PR isn't a purely link building strategy, and it isn't a traditional PR strategy either. It sits between the two, earning coverage that builds both search authority and AI visibility, with brand positioning and commercial goals shaping all activity.

The inputs: what a robust strategy is built on

A digital PR strategy doesn't start with campaign ideas, it starts with data, insights and understanding. This information pieces together to form a strategy and plan, which maximise chances of success - like uncovering buried treasure, or seeing a healthy return on your investment portfolio. 

I covered the core steps of this process in a recent Whiteboard Friday on Moz if you'd prefer a short video walk-through.

Brand knowledge and goals

The first, and arguably most important place to start, is brand understanding. The digital PR team, and especially the person leading the strategy, need an in-depth understanding of the brand. That includes:

• The goals for the next 12, 24, even 36 months if they're available. 
• Direction, key products or services (and why those are the priorities)
• The core target audience. 

If possible, having the target audience split by persona - taking into account demographics and psychographics - is beneficial, as activity needs to be tailored towards these to make sure it’s tied to their wants, needs and desires, and will therefore resonate with them and key press. Many digital PRs will be able to help develop these if they don't exist yet, but having that clarity from the outset shapes everything that follows.

If the brand (and the way you want to be perceived) isn't at the core of the stories and topics, the digital PR activity won't be building authority against the right areas. You might earn coverage, but it won't compound in the direction that supports commercial growth. It’s important to remember that activity and impact aren't the same thing.

It's also worth identifying internal experts early on. These spokespeople who can add unique, credible insight on specific topics are increasingly valuable, particularly as journalists lean more heavily on experts to provide a human narrative to set their stories apart from AI-produced content. 

SEO strategy integration

As mentioned before, the digital PR strategy should be an extension of the SEO strategy, not a separate focus. After all, it's feeding into the same goal of increasing visibility in key search spaces, including generative AI. 

The digital PR team needs a clear understanding of:

• The key SEO focuses for the next 12 months, including focus keywords and queries, clusters or themes.
• Any technical issues being worked on that could hold digital PR performance back - and the timescales for resolving them.

This goes both ways. SEO doesn’t need to just feed into the PR strategy and activity, PR can also feed into the SEO work to maximise performance. 

For example, if there's an SEO content plan, having visibility of it and being able to work with the person leading that stream of work, could open up additional earned coverage opportunities. Especially if the roadmap allows time for content input from a digital PR, with the ability to add unique data or expert commentary - this can also help increase organic pickup of helpful content. 

The more connected the two workstreams are, the more each one can complement and benefit the other - leading to a greater impact for the brand.

Competitor analysis

This part of the strategy process is crucial to help inform understanding on what’s supporting performance and visibility in your specific niche, at that moment in time. Whilst you don’t want to just copy your competitors, or you’ll only ever be as good as them, it helps to show what’s working as a starting point, to help ground your approach - and provide justification to anyone who needs it.

The goal of this competitor analysis is to understand how the brands winning in organic and AI search are actually earning their coverage, and therefore building brand authority. First, you need to narrow down which competitors are worth digging into. 

To do this, we'd recommend looking at a top-level overview of organic performance first. You'll never be able to split digital PR activity out definitively - link or referring domain volumes, or volume of mentions, don't necessarily mean better performance on their own. But combining several signals gives you a good idea of who’s performing well in search, and therefore who you should take note of. 

No single metric is conclusive. Combined, they uncover who you should take a closer look at.

These are the types of metrics we look at to determine which competitors are the ones we want to dig further into:

• Estimates of organic traffic - this includes trajectory over time, so you can see if there are any competitors seeing significant rises.
• Keyword rankings - volume and those in top positions for your target topics.
• Referring domain profile - not just volume, but quality and relevancy.
• Brand mention volume - this is increasingly important given the relationship with AI visibility, but do be aware that some brands share names with other things, therefore making this hard to analyse.
• AI visibility - share of voice, where and how competitors are being cited by LLMs, and for which prompts or topics.

AI visibility is a relatively new addition to this process. It's no longer enough to only benchmark against who's ranking well in traditional search. You need to understand which competitors are being cited by LLMs (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini) and Google's AI Overviews - where your target audience might be sitting early in their purchase journey. 

Once the top-performing brands are identified, the real investigative work begins. You're looking at how those brands are earning coverage - both mentions and links - in authoritative titles and relevant spaces. 

Start by looking at what the coverage is:

• The type of approach or tactic - for example is it a data-led campaign, a thought leadership piece, expert commentary within a wider story, or a brand story?
• The topic/theme
• Perceived target persona/audience
• If it includes data, what kind of data is it? Proprietary data, free publicly available data or something else.

Then dig into why the story landed coverage:

• What’s new? - any unique data or insight they're bringing
• The timing - is it reactive to a key moment in time?
• Any cultural hooks - is it jumping on the back of a current trend or something specific happening?

Analysing this across the top performing competitors helps to uncover trends in what's actually landing brands coverage in the right places - and likely influencing visibility and overall performance. A side note: You could also take note of the specific journalists covering competitors so you know who to target when you get to outreach. 

It’s also helpful to start looking at how these brands are using owned channels - like social media and email marketing - to maximise reach and performance of digital PR stories. This can help shape your approach for additional amplification, which although not a key focus, can help to support PR and therefore SEO and GEO. 

I put together a free Digital PR Competitor Audit template to help with this process. It covers the key metrics and gives you a structure to work from.

Media landscape analysis

As well as looking at how competitors are earning coverage, a media landscape analysis should be conducted to understand the topics being covered in your sector, and any potential gaps you could fill. This is where the strategy starts to move from replicating what competitors are doing, to finding opportunities to stand out and set the brand apart. 

Narrowing down which publications to analyse, it’s important to remember that the publications worth targeting aren't just those with high domain authority. They're the relevant ones for the brand’s industry and core topics, where the brand’s target audiences are, as well as the ones regularly cited or trusted by LLMs. This could take the focus from purely national publications, to all the topically relevant websites which could have a positive impact on brand strength and topical authority if they covered you. 

Once you have your publication and website list, some questions to ask could be:

• What topics are regularly being covered?
• In what way are they being covered? Is this something you could add a unique perspective on?
• Is there any specific timing around the topics being covered? Are they likely to crop up every year, or tied to specific moments?
• Are there any gaps in the topics and content which you could suggest? These need to be relevant and important to the publication or website’s target audience now.

Bringing it together: building the strategic output

Once you have all of the insight to fuel the strategy, the story starts to come together. There's no single prescribed way to do this, which is part of what makes it interesting. It’s a bit like piecing together a puzzle, or building a case where every piece of evidence has to earn its place.

You're bringing together brand knowledge and key focuses, target audience insights (their wants, needs, desires), the priorities from the SEO strategy, competitor intelligence, and the media landscape analysis. With all of these pieces, you're compiling a data-backed case for what you should do over the next 6, 12, or 24 months to compete in search.

KPIs should be set alongside the strategy. They give the strategy accountability and without them, you're measuring activity rather than impact. We tend to split ours into:

• Lead metrics - things we’re able to control (to some extent) like coverage outputs
• Lag metrics - wider benefits (which correlate with digital PR activity), such as AI visibility, rankings, traffic and revenue. 

When you're reviewing the strategy output, step back, put yourself in a senior stakeholder's shoes, and ask:

• If this were presented to me, would I be asking extra questions? 
• Would I challenge why we're not considering a particular route?
• If I were the budget holder, would I be happy with what's being suggested if it were my budget? 

That kind of honest interrogation is what helps get a strategy approved. If you can’t answer these questions confidently, your senior stakeholders are likely to pull you up, and either delay activity, or not buy into it.

What should a good brief to a digital PR agency in 2026 include?

For anyone briefing a digital PR agency or team for SEO and GEO support, there are several key things to include to fuel an effective strategy and maximise performance of subsequent digital PR activity.

These are:

• Your brand goals, positioning and any key focuses for the business over the next 12-24 months.
• Target audience - ideally at a persona level, so research and strategy can be tailored towards these.
• SEO strategy - especially the priorities and any technical constraints.
• A list of your direct competitors, and any other brands you monitor.
• What success looks like commercially, not just in terms of links or coverage volume - so the strategy can be tailored towards this focus.

If your agency isn't asking for most of these before they start, that's also worth paying attention to.

Keeping the strategy alive

This is the point that tends to get glossed over in strategy guides, but it's one of the most important things: a digital PR strategy is not a one-time deliverable, it needs to be revisited and evolve to adapt to changes brand-side or in the wider landscape. Competitors (usually) aren’t standing still, AI search is evolving rapidly, and brand priorities can change too - such as when a new product is launched. A strategy document from 12 months ago may already be misaligned with the current state of play. 

How often you need to revisit your digital PR strategy depends on your industry and how fast-paced it is. It could need revisiting every 6 months for a fast-moving industry like travel or finance, or every 12-18 months could work for a slower industry like many B2B spaces. 

Revisiting could mean re-running competitor analysis, checking whether the media landscape has shifted, reviewing whether the KPIs still align with commercial goals, and adjusting the activity pipeline accordingly. In between major revisits, it’s worth checking back in and ensuring the activity pipeline is continuing to align to the strategy and goals.

To audit your current digital PR strategy, start by asking: 

• Are the competitor benchmarks still the right ones? 
• Has the AI search landscape changed which should be your target publications? 
• Are the keyword clusters from the SEO strategy still the priority? 

Use the questions in each section to audit your own digital PR strategy. You can see how we approach digital PR at Aira if you want a point of comparison, or get in touch if you’d rather speak to one of our Digital PR Leads about how to approach it for your brand. 

Your pitch might never be read. Not because the journalist ignored it - which does happen, especially if your subject line doesn't show relevance to the topics they cover or areas of interest at that moment in time. But because an AI summarised it first, got it wrong, and the journalist moved on without ever seeing what you actually wrote.

AI is already embedded in how journalists on the receiving end of your pitches work. And in our analysis of 628 emails, up to a third of AI summaries misrepresented the original - the data, the information, or the expert commentary inside it.

We collaborated with digital PR tool BuzzStream to look at how AI inside the three largest email providers - Google, Apple and Microsoft - is summarising pitch emails: which elements of the original email carry the most weight, and what that means for how PRs should structure pitches from here.

Why AI email summaries matter now

According to Gallop's Workplace Panel in Q4 2025, 26% of US employees use AI a few times a week and 12% use it daily; in the UK, the 2026 GOV.UK Survey on AI Skills highlighted that 21% say AI has increased their productivity at work.

Muck Rack's 'The State of Journalism 2026' report uncovered that among journalists specifically, AI adoption has climbed to 82%, with ChatGPT and Gemini leading the way. So AI is already embedded in the daily workflow of the people you're pitching to.

The same report found that 29% of journalists now receive 6-10 PR pitches on a normal work day, up from 25% the year before - and 14% of journalists record getting more than 20 pitches a day! At the same time, understaffing and time constraints worry 20% of the profession, and disinformation and misinformation was cited as one of the biggest issues of concern to 32% of journalists.

So journalists are inbox-heavy, concerned about misinformation, and already finding ways to increase productivity and efficiency - meaning the question is not whether AI is summarising your pitches, but how, and if those summaries are accurate or being classed as misinformation.

What 628 emails (and their AI summaries) reveal

We analysed emails for 13 different campaigns. Each campaign had 4-11 email templates, with each template isolating individual variables like subject lines, formatting, data placement and links. Every email was sent to two addresses per email platform (Google, Apple and Microsoft), and summaries were recorded and analysed to determine which variables had influence over the summary output.

Three findings stood out: platforms produce wildly different summaries, roughly one in three summaries misrepresents the original, and bullet points were most likely to influence what AI surfaces. Each has practical consequences for how a pitch should be written moving forward.

AI email summaries are dramatically different across platforms

The platforms don't just summarise differently, they produce fundamentally different outputs. So which email provider the journalist uses could impact how they receive your email.

AI email summary length varies dramatically by platform

Average words per AI-generated email summary, across 628 emails

Average AI email summary length by platform

Google	29 words
Apple	50 words
Microsoft	157 words

Analysis of 628 AI email summaries, Aira × BuzzStream, 2026

Google (Gmail's Gemini) produces the shortest AI email summaries at just 29 words on average - meaning your entire pitch is being compressed into roughly two sentences. There's almost no margin for error when the summary is that compressed.

Apple sits in the middle at around 50 words. Whereas Microsoft (Copilot) generates the longest AI email summaries at an average of 157 words, giving it room to capture more detail but also more room to deviate from the original.

Microsoft Copilot was the only tool we saw pulling in information that wasn't in the email itself. Its built-in web-search capability grounds responses in Bing results - which can include the campaign you're pitching - unless an admin switches it off at organisation or group level. In practice, that means Copilot will sometimes summarise your pitch using context you never sent.

PRs and marketers need to think about the possibility of having emails both being summarised in brief, or with a longer summary.

One in three emails is misrepresented

AI summaries misrepresented information in up to one in three emails.

Up to 1 in 3 emails is misrepresented by AI summaries

% of AI email summaries that misrepresented the original content

Misrepresentation rate of AI email summaries by platform

Google	11%
Microsoft	30%
Apple	33%

Analysis of 628 AI email summaries, Aira × BuzzStream, 2026

Apple had the highest error rate at 33%. Microsoft followed at 30%. Google was the most accurate at 11% of emails being misrepresented by the summaries - but even that means one in nine summaries contains something that wasn't quite what the email said.

The types of errors matter too. We saw:

• Overgeneralisation - some summaries make the email sound like it's just focused on one area, when it covers a broader range of data and hooks.
• Data misinterpretation - one example being confusion between similar data sets, where the AI conflated two distinct statistics into one misleading statement.
• Misrepresentation of expert commentary - one example being that an expert recommended "keeping your vehicle as charged as possible - around 40-80% is ideal", but the email summary surfaced "charging to 40-80%", which reads as only charging the battery by that amount. Very different and not something we'd want journalists to think our 'expert' would recommend.
• Misinterpretation of context - for example, the AI read the heading row of a city-ranking table and reported the top-ranked city as 'best for everything', when the table actually ranked separate categories (cost, commute, schools) independently.

These aren't dramatic fabrications, but they're subtle distortions, the kind that could make a journalist question your expert or if you're giving misinformation - and you'd never know it happened.

Bullet points are doing more work than ever

Bullet points are the most influential formatting element

% of AI email summaries that included bulleted content from the original pitch

Bullet point inclusion rate in AI email summaries by platform

Apple	64%
Google	65%
Microsoft	92%

Analysis of 628 AI email summaries, Aira × BuzzStream, 2026

Of every formatting trick we tested bullet points were the most likely to influence the AI email summary output, being included in at least 64% of summaries across every platform:

• Microsoft Copilot - the heaviest influence at 92% inclusion.
• Apple Intelligence - pulled bulleted content 64% of the time.
• Google Gemini - 65% inclusion rate. Notably, it's the only platform that appears to have a preference over bullet point position, most often pulling from the first bullet.

Bullet points have always been useful for pitch emails - they break up a wall of text and let a busy journalist scan the key facts of your story quickly. But if journalists are starting to lean on AI email summaries to speed up reviewing their inbox, those bullets are doing more than just helping a human skim, they're actively shaping what AI flags as the important points of your pitch.

If AI is doing the first read of your email for a journalist, your bullet points are doing the first selling for you.

Platform by platform: how Google, Apple and Microsoft handle your pitch

The table below shows the average summary length, and the percentage of AI summaries, per platform, that featured specific variables from the pitch emails.

Four secondary findings round out the picture:

• AI email summarisation pulls disproportionately from the first half of the message. This isn't surprising if you think about how these models are designed to work - but it has real implications for anyone crafting pitches.
• Subject lines play a role too. Keywords like "new," "data," and the expert's position are pulled into summaries more frequently when used in subject lines vs only in the body of the email, with Microsoft Copilot email summary generation showing the strongest subject-line influence.
• Bold text has a weaker effect than you might expect, influencing only 25-48% of summaries depending on the platform.
• Tables have minimal impact - perhaps because they're usually further down the email.
• Graphics or attachments are essentially invisible to all three systems.

What this means for how PRs should write pitches

This isn't about gaming an algorithm, there's no set formula or way around AI email summaries. It's about understanding a new layer between your email and the person you're trying to reach, and writing with that layer in mind to increase the chances of the right things being surfaced and emails not being misinterpreted.

Five key tips for writing PR pitches with AI email summaries in mind

How to structure your outreach so the right things get surfaced

1. 1
   Front-load your most important information
   AI pulls 82-87% of summary content from the first half of your email. Put your best material first.
2. 2
   Use bullet points deliberately
   Bullet points appear in 64-92% of AI summaries. Lead with your strongest data point in the first bullet.
3. 3
   Keep data clear and contextualised
   AI misrepresents 1 in 3 emails. Keep every figure standalone, with context in the same line.
4. 4
   Craft your subject line carefully
   Keywords like 'new', 'data' and the expert's position pull through more often when in the subject line.
5. 5
   Don't rely on tables, graphics or links for key information
   Tables are cited in <50% of summaries and graphics don't appear to have an influence. Keep key info in the body of your email.

Analysis of 628 AI email summaries, Aira × BuzzStream, 2026

1. Front-load your most important information

It's always been crucial for PRs to get to the point right at the top of an email, so the journalist can easily see who, what and why - including why it's relevant right now. It's now even more essential to have anything you want surfaced in summaries at the top.

If your strongest data point, your most relevant hook, or your expert credentials sit in the second half of the email, there's a chance the AI email summary will never surface them.

2. Use bullet points deliberately

Bullet points have always been useful for pitch emails - they let a busy journalist scan the key facts quickly - now, they're actively shaping what AI flags as the important points of your pitch.

The findings make two things crucial:

• Lead with your strongest data point or information in the first bullet point.
• Keep bullet points as simple as possible. Make sure each bullet is phrased really clearly with context, and can be understood on its own, so it can't be confused or misinterpreted by AI.

This might sound like obvious advice, but complex bullet points can lead to the misinterpretation we're trying to avoid.

3. Keep data clear and contextualised

With AI misrepresenting data in roughly one in three emails, the way you present statistics matters more than it used to. Some key things to keep in mind:

• Include the context immediately alongside the figure, so every data point can be understood on its own - like a standalone point.
• Avoid layering multiple comparisons, or if you need them ensure they have clarified in the most simple way possible.

4. Craft your subject lines carefully and include key words

Whilst subject lines influenced under half of AI email summaries, key words like "new" and "data" appeared significantly more often in email summaries when it was included in the subject line than when it was just in the body of the email.

Including key words like these, that simply and clearly demonstrate what you're offering can help ensure the journalist receives that in their summary. Plus, remember the subject line is what gets the email opened in the first place.

If you're pitching expert commentary, we'd recommend using their position in the subject line too, to help sell their expertise. This also appeared more often in email summaries when used in subject lines than when solely used in the body of the email.

5. Don't rely on tables, graphics, or links to carry crucial information

Information and data from tables is included in fewer than half of AI email summaries, which could be because tables often sit slightly lower down emails too. They're not completely redundant though, and it appears the top 1-3 entries in a table are most favoured. But don't hide crucial information you want to highlight to the journalist in the first instance in tables, or it might get left out.

In addition, information from graphics and attachments don't appear to be included in summaries at all, and only Microsoft Copilot mentions links - even then, full URLs are cited just 3% of the time. This further emphasises the importance of including key selling points at the top of the email, yet still including these elements for those journalists who want to explore the story further.

In summary, PRs are now writing for three readers, not one

PR professionals have always written for two audiences - the journalist and their readers. Now there's a third, the AI that sits between the send button and the journalist's attention. And unlike a human reader, it doesn't ask for clarification when something is ambiguous. It just summarises - sometimes accurately, sometimes not - and moves on.

The good news is that this is a solvable problem. Our research gives us clear signals about what these systems prioritise and where they fail.

The shift isn't dramatic, it's structural. Front-load your strongest material, format for clarity rather than visual appeal, and accept that roughly a third of the time an AI is going to get something wrong - so write in a way that minimises the damage when it does. 

Ultimately, these are the same techniques that make for good PR pitching anyway - being clear, being relevant, putting the strongest material first. The AI layer just raises the stakes on getting it right.

If you want to dig deeper into how aira as a digital PR agency approaches outreach strategy, or if this research has raised questions about your own pitch structure, we're always happy to talk through it - just get in touch.

Methodology

We tested 13 digital PR campaigns, creating 4-11 outreach email templates per campaign. Each template varied one element at a time to isolate its effect on email summaries. Variables tested included subject lines, bold key points, bullet points, tables, tailored introductions, graphics, press releases, and links to full campaign content, expert LinkedIn profiles, or About Us pages.

Every template was sent to two email addresses across each of the three major providers (Google, Apple, and Microsoft), allowing us to also assess whether the same provider generated different summaries for identical emails. All summaries were recorded on receipt.

Summaries were analysed against a set of research questions to identify the key factors shaping them and to assess whether they accurately represented the original emails. Claude AI supported part of the analysis, but methodology and raw outputs were manually reviewed to validate conclusions. Manual review also covered most research questions directly - including the impact of bold points, bullets, and tables, and any cases of misrepresentation.

Data was collected and analysed across March and April 2026. The complete collaborative study, with all data, can be found at https://www.buzzstream.com/blog/ai-generated-email-summary/. 

55% of businesses are now using AI to create PPC (pay-per-click) ad copy. AI can create thousands of ad variations, so we should all be using AI to write Google ad copy, right? 

Where is AI used when creating ad copy?

AI can be handy for brainstorming when you feel a bit stuck for ideas and there are two distinct times in an ad account where you can feel like you don’t know where to start:

• Starting with a new client
• Building ads on an old account

New accounts

When you haven’t worked on the account yet, you don’t know what ad text will resonate best with that audience. Buyer personas and competitor research can help here, but for a dash of inspiration, AI can be a good tool. Once you’ve defined your target persona, you can feed that into AI with a prompt to generate ad text ideas from this and build on them based on the competitor research you’ve done.

Old accounts

On the opposite side of the spectrum is a client you’ve been working with for years. We are very lucky to have clients who have been with us for 5+ years. The trust this shows in the work we’re doing is amazing. However, when you’ve been working on an account for so long, a little inspiration is never a bad thing.

In this instance, your ad text might feel stale, or you may have run out of ideas for the target personas. Using AI can help shift your thought process and help you see things differently. It can sometimes give you a fresh perspective and maybe find another angle for your ads that you hadn’t thought of before.

The best AI prompt for creating Google Ads

The prompt is incredibly important when using AI. Asking AI to create 15 headlines and 4 descriptions has varying levels of success, with the majority of headlines sounding too similar to be used.

However, it gives a starting point. Here’s something to get the wheels going and the cogs turning: 

If you put this into your preferred AI tool, you’ll notice that the headings and description are really generic. This is fantastic news. Now we know which headlines and descriptions are too generic, not attention-grabbing enough or too similar to use in these campaigns. 

With refinement of the prompt, there’s a chance you might get some usable bits and pieces. However, we actually use it to find out which headlines and descriptions aren’t good enough, so that we can skip thinking about these and start producing the best ones for our ad campaigns.

The limitations of using AI for ad copy

01Keyword integration and intelligence

Google Ads keywords are given a score out of 10. This is known as your quality score, which is made up of 3 metrics: 

Ad relevance is ⅓ of your quality score, meaning it’s very important that your ad text matches your keywords. These keywords need to be woven into your ad copy effectively so it doesn’t read like the keywords have been forced into it. 

Our experience with AI is that keywords aren’t cleverly woven into ad copy, but rather, hammered in wherever possible, making them glaring and unnatural. This may not bring your quality score down in the eyes of Google much, but it can bring the quality down in the eyes of the humans you’re trying to reach.

02Distinguishing between types of campaigns and platforms

There are so many avenues that ad copy can go down, depending on whether your ads are for brand awareness, remarketing, or if they’re conversion-focused. From our experience with AI, it’s difficult for it to distinguish between the three. This means that ads are generic, and generic ads do not perform well with a human audience.

This goes further, though. Each ad will vary depending on the advertising platform used and the outcome expected from that ad. People expect different language on different platforms, and with AI, it’s very difficult to customise ads for each platform and audience.

03Pulling the right information

In a perfect world, the landing page we’re sending people to would mention everything you need to include in the ad, and it would be easy to feed this into AI to get a better output. 

In reality, a lot of our clients run paid ads while we work with them to develop their landing pages for paid and SEO. This means the page we’re sending ads to may not be the perfect environment for AI to pull from at the beginning of a campaign. Without this context, it’s very likely that AI will miss crucial elements. While you can provide AI with context, it’s often easier to do the thinking yourself.

04Built-in AI test

Google Ads recently added Gemini into the ad creator, which pulls headlines and descriptions into your ad based on the URL you’re sending to. This sounds like a great time-saver, but as we mentioned above, if the landing page isn’t perfect, the ad text won’t be. Gemini doesn’t target these towards your brand, focus product or audience. Instead, it pulls what it thinks are relevant headlines from the page. As you can see, it’s hit and miss:

It’s important to create an ad that includes all the key points the client needs, not just include what’s on the page - like AI did above. Yes, this client uses cookies, but as you can probably guess from the other keywords, that isn’t really relevant for an ad.

Without refinement, the campaign above will miss the key points the client needs it to hit, resulting in missed opportunities and wasted ad spend. Creating a truly effective campaign requires an understanding of the client, the audience and what is trying to be achieved. 

So far, AI cannot replace human creativity in any of these aspects.

Is AI actually faster for creating ad copy?

One of the biggest misconceptions of AI is that it’s fast. In reality, it’s only fast if you have a very specific and detailed prompt. A prompt that needs to be different for every client, campaign,  product and target persona. If not, your ad copy won’t hit the mark.

If a new campaign needs to be created or a new client is coming on board, AI is great for ideas and is a brilliant place to start getting insights and inspiration. For those initial ideas, AI is faster, especially if you haven’t worked in that sector before.

But as we’ve demonstrated above, it’s never perfect and always needs creative input from an ad specialist.

Most of our work as ad specialists goes into refining an ad. After you’ve written a full ad with 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, some ad text will work and some won’t. Our job is to refine and replace poorly performing ad text with a variation of the best-performing ad text. At this point, you have a good understanding of the client, their business, their goals and audience, so it’s easier to write this yourself while you are in the ads interface.

So, where does AI fit into ad creation?

We started this piece by saying that 55% of people are now using AI to create ad copy, and then spent most of it explaining why we aren’t using it as much as most. 

The fact that AI can create thousands of variations for ad text and even images, in seconds, means it’s undoubtedly faster than any human. However, from our tests, it cannot replicate the human element needed to drive the right results for our clients. No matter the prompt you use, at the moment, AI doesn’t understand your campaign goals, your client’s business goals and their audience as well as a human. 

For this reason, we’ll stick to using AI for inspiration and use human creativity to research, refine and reach our target audience. Want to chat about paid some more? Get in touch!

There’s no set formula for creating the perfect viral social media campaign. And this is reflected in the crazy, heartwarming, inspiring and hilarious brand stunts that hold the top spots for best social media campaigns of all time.

The most viral social media campaigns ever

1. ALS Ice Bucket Challenge (2014)

• Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram.
• Impact: Raised over $115 million for ALS research.
• Why it worked: Participatory, simple, celebrity-backed, highly shareable

In the summer of 2014, the ice bucket challenge took over the internet to help raise awareness for ALS (a disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord).

It all started when three guys living with ALS (Anthony Senerchia, Pete Frates, and Pat Quinn) took the Ice Bucket Challenge and launched a global campaign that over 17 million people took part in.

People across the world copied, posting their attempts on social media and challenging their own friends and family to do the same. With big stars such as Taylor Swift, Eminem and David Beckham also taking part, the social media trend made a huge impact, as over $115 million was raised for ALS research. 

We’re even betting there’s a grainy old video of you doing this challenge somewhere on social media, but how was this campaign so successful? It was a simple concept which had full support from celebrities and the press. Not only that, but it was as easy to participate in as it was to share on social media.

2. #ShareACoke by Coca-Cola (2011-ongoing)

• Platforms: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube
• Impact: Personalised bottles created a social sharing frenzy
• Why it worked: Customisation + nostalgia + user-generated content.

The ongoing #ShareACoke campaign replaces the traditional Coca-Cola logo with popular names and nicknames adapted for a range of cultures. The brand encourages consumers to not only look for their own name but share the personalised bottles with their friends and loved ones. 

Remember when these bottles first hit the shelves? The chaos? You couldn’t get to refrigerators in shops to look for your name on the label, let alone find it! It was pandemonium - for a bottle that we’d all seen before, but this time it had our names on it. 

This simple yet genius use of marketing shows that a bit of customisation goes a long way. It drives user-generated content for the brand, fosters a sense of community amongst audiences and makes you billions of dollars!

3. Nike – ‘Dream Crazy’ (2018) featuring Colin Kaepernick

• Platforms: Twitter, YouTube, Instagram.
• Impact: Huge engagement and polarised debate; boosted Nike's sales.
• Why it worked: Bold stance on social justice; emotionally charged storytelling.

Nike’s 2018 ‘Dream Crazy’ campaign was fronted by American civil rights activist and former professional American football quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who caused a national debate by kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice. The use of the athlete sparked debate across social media, with some people posting photos and videos of themselves burning their Nike merchandise. 

The campaign was a huge success due to its emotionally charged storytelling and the brand's commitment to sharing its stance on social justice. Overall, the ‘Dream Crazy’ campaign encouraged audiences to reflect on their own beliefs surrounding injustice and didn’t do too badly for Nike’s bank balance either.

4. Spotify Wrapped (Launched 2016, viral every December)

• Platforms: Instagram Stories, Twitter.
• Impact: Drives mass UGC and app re-engagement.
• Why it worked: Personalised data + aesthetic shareable content + viral gold

Despite only starting in 2016, Spotify Wrapped has quickly become a well-loved tradition for many on social media in the lead up to the new year. Every December without fail, Spotify goes viral with users sharing their most listened to music on the platform. 

In 2024, Spotify managed to go double viral when it delayed the release of Wrapped. This got people talking and made audiences even more eager to reveal their listening habits, as Wrapped playlists were shared over 30 million times across Instagram, TikTok and X! 

This level of user-generated content is unheard of normally and is driven by the use of personalised data and aesthetically pleasing shareable content. And us being very nosy about what other people listen to.

Following its major success, it is clear that many other brands are attempting to follow in the footsteps of Spotify by creating their own version of “Wrapped”, such as Letterboxd and Monzo. But I don’t think that any of these can replace the original, and we can’t wait to welcome it back for years to come!

5. Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches (2013)

• Platforms: YouTube, Facebook.
• Impact: One of the most viewed video ads ever, reshaped brand perception.
• Why it worked: Emotionally resonant, focused on self-perception.

This influential social media campaign was a short film produced by Dove in 2013. It featured a forensic sketch artist drawing illustrations of women who had described themselves, followed by sketching the same face but from descriptions of a stranger who had just met them. 

Overall, the campaign is deeply moving and emotional, showing how we are overly critical of our looks. A trait that would resonate with a large number of audiences. The campaign became one of the most viewed video ads of all time and helped to redefine the conventions of marketing in the beauty industry. 

6. #LikeAGirl by Always (2014)

• Platforms: YouTube, Twitter.
• Impact: Challenged gender stereotypes; Emmy and Cannes Lion winner.
• Why it worked: Empowering, deeply emotional, socially conscious.

This female empowerment campaign challenged the negative connotations that come with the phrase “Like a girl” and highlighted the drop in confidence that occurs for girls after they have experienced puberty. 

Always produced an emotional, socially conscious campaign that resonated with a large audience globally - this resulted in it becoming an Emmy and Cannes Lion winner as well as tripling their following on Twitter in the first three months. 

The #LikeAGirl campaign proves that marketing can make a long-lasting impact on society's perception of people and how capturing real emotions helps a brand to build stronger connections with audiences.

7. Red Bull Stratos (2012)

• Platforms: YouTube, Facebook.
• Impact: 8 million concurrent viewers, broke livestream records.
• Why it worked: A man jumped from space, Need we say more?

Red Bull is known to love an adrenaline rush, often sponsoring or hosting events for extreme sports. However, nothing is more extreme than Stratos. For Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner, the brand's famous slogan “Red Bull Gives You Wings” really was the case. In 2012, the brand supported a space-diving mission, in which Baumgartner made a record-breaking freefall jump from the stratosphere! 

This daring campaign got the audience's hearts pounding as the brand broke livestream records with 8 million concurrent viewers and now has over 1 billion views on YouTube. But what made it so successful? Well, a dude jumped from space and reached terminal velocity! Need we say more?

8. #ThisGirlCan by Sport England (2015)

• Platforms: Twitter, Instagram, Youtube.
• Impact: Inspired over 2.8 million women to be more active.
• Why it worked: Body-positive, inclusive, real-life stories.

Sport England’s #ThisGirlCan campaign celebrated real women getting active - sweating, moving and pushing past stereotypes. It defied the conventions of traditional fitness marketing by featuring women of all shapes, sizes and backgrounds, creating a body-positive message that inspired over 2.8 million women to be more physically active. 

It’s not tricky to see why this campaign went crazy viral. It gave women who weren’t used to being represented a voice. It’s inclusive and life-like storytelling influenced a social media movement of empowerment and health across YouTube, Instagram and Twitter for women across the world.

9. KFC's Twitter Stunt (2017)

• Platform: Twitter.
• Campaign: They followed only 11 people - 5 Spice Girls + 6 guys named Herb.
• Why it worked: Humorous and genius-level brand play.

In 2017, Twitter users began to notice that the brand KFC only followed 11 people. Which 11 people? 5 Spice Girls and 6 guys named Herb. This playful campaign was a genius nod to their famously secret recipe, which uses 11 herbs and spices. 

However, what we love most about this campaign is how under-the-radar it was. It was a Twitter user who noticed it; KFC didn’t have to lift a finger. Well, other than to follow the spice girls and some herbs.

The initial tweet from the user who first spotted this has generated over 320,000 reposts and 700,000 likes. KFC’s campaign, that was never really a campaign, has proven that even the simplest of details combined with humour can create the perfect trending social media campaign.

10. Wendy's Twitter Roasts (Ongoing)

• Platform: Twitter
• Impact: Reinvented brand voice for fast food
• Why it worked: Bold, savage, ultra-memable - reshaped how brands behave on social

From beefing with McDonald’s to their witty puns, Wendy’s has used humour to capture the attention of millions of Twitter users. Their savage tweets have reinvented how brands communicate with their audiences on social media, showing that total professionalism isn’t always a way to win customers! By creating memorable yet consistent content, this fast food chain has engaged younger audiences and repeatedly earned viral status.

Now, many have tried and failed to replicate Wendy’s Twitter roasting. So be very careful trying to roast your own customers; it could just backfire. If anything, though, that’s why it’s this campaign is so impressive; it somehow worked without anyone getting too angry.

The takeaways from these viral moments

Whether it’s a global movement that encourages audience participation like the Ice Bucket Challenge or creating a playful brand voice that breaks industry stereotypes like Wendy’s viral tweets, each of these campaigns shares some common traits; they evoke emotion, from simply making people laugh or inspiring change. 

These campaigns are centred around their target audiences' experiences and emotions. They are packed full of sass, in some cases, and are never afraid to be bold. Were they lucky or were they strategic, though? That’s probably a discussion best saved for another day. 

Well, other than Mr Baumgartner falling from the edge of space! There had to have been some luck involved in that one!

Executive summary

The online landscape is changing rapidly, with AI-powered search, evolving trust signals and a change in consumer behaviours transforming how people find information and make decisions online. The travel industry in particular has been affected by these changes, with consumers increasingly relying on AI tools to research and plan their trips. 

This means that travel brands must rethink how they earn visibility online in this increasingly competitive, fast-moving environment. As a result, understanding how to use digital PR effectively has never been more important. 

The state of digital PR in the travel industry report brings together insights from senior digital PR professionals, in-house travel marketers and travel journalists to explore how digital PR is used across the travel industry and why it’s set to become even more important in 2026.

Key findings from the report

• There's a rising demand for digital PR from travel brands, which is set to make the space more competitive: 81% of travel marketers believe digital PR will become even more important in the next 2-3 years
• Data-led campaigns are still the most popular tactic for earning coverage and links, but are becoming harder to execute: There is now more emphasis on unique and robust data, originality and stronger methodologies. Seasonality is also key with data-led campaigns.
• Reactive PR is becoming increasingly relied upon: Reactive PR and timely expert commentary are key to securing coverage in a fast-paced, competitive travel media landscape.
• Personalised pitching is now essential: Journalists expect pitches tailored to their area of expertise, their audience and the publication.
• The biggest challenge for digital PRs in the travel space is landing coverage: AI is helping to alleviate some of this through inspiring outreach angles and sense-checking emails.
• Digital PRs aim for quality over quantity with coverage: Almost half of travel digital PRs consider a campaign successful if it secures 0-9 pieces of coverage, and relevance of coverage is the most popular reporting metric, used by 90% of digital PRs.
• Digital PR coverage is being tied to wider benefits by only half of travel marketers: These travel marketers are mostly focusing on ranking improvements, increase in traffic to site and search visibility. A minority are tying digital PR coverage to revenue. However, there is a shared agreement that digital PR is highly effective for SEO and GEO.
• The top predictions for travel digital PR in 2026 include:
  • A transition from destination hype to value and relevance: Answering real consumer concerns this year, including convenience, affordability, safety and value
  • A need to reflect the consumer's desire for more personalised experiences: It will be crucial for digital PRs to fully understand the different target audience segments and create tailored, targeted stories
  • Human-led, story-first PR: To stand out in a world of AI-written content
  • Hyper-relevance and targeted outreach will be even more important: To land coverage on key, relevant publications

Introduction: the state of digital PR in the travel industry 2026

Travel brands are operating in a rapidly changing competitive environment, with AI-powered search, zero-click results, and evolving trust signals redefining how brands earn visibility and credibility online. At the same time, the search landscape has evolved the way consumers find their travel related inspiration, plan their trips and make their bookings or purchases. 

With these changes already underway, the need to understand digital PR’s impact and evolving role has never been more important to support online business growth.

The state of digital PR in the travel industry 2026 report brings together insights from experienced digital PR professionals, travel journalists and seasoned in-house marketers working across one of the fastest moving sectors in search marketing. It explores how digital PR is currently delivered across the travel industry, and how those approaches should shift in 2026. 

Why digital PR in travel matters now

Digital PR has come back into the spotlight over the past 18 months or so, thanks to the rise of generative AI. Alongside a solid technical foundation and fantastic content, brands need digital PR to support GEO - strengthening visibility in AIOs and LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini - as well as still supporting traditional SEO. This is because digital PR helps build brand mentions and links which are used as a measure of trust and topical authority by these systems.

This is particularly important for the travel industry because 84% of people globally are planning to use AI when preparing for trips in the future. That said, it does appear to still be the younger generations who are most comfortable with AI. The same YouGov survey found they are using it for a range of travel planning tasks from helping choose destinations, activities and places to stay through to full personalised itineraries. 

This highlights that AI is going to be a key part of the buyer’s and search journey moving forward, and therefore where travel brands need to be visible if they want to compete. 

In fact, the vast majority of digital PR professionals expect digital PR to become even more critical for travel brands over the next 2 to 3 years, with 81% of survey respondents believing its importance will grow. Only 14% expect the importance to remain the same, which suggests that even those not predicting growth, still see digital PR as an essential part of marketing. This also demonstrates that there’s minimal concern about the long term relevance of digital PR. 

What do you think about the importance of digital PR for the travel industry over the next 2-3 years?

81%

of travel marketers believe digital PR will become more important in the next 2-3 years

One of the main challenges over the past year has been adapting rapidly for visibility in Search. AI has also shaped the way users think, the intent behind the search and as a consequence, their queries, in a much more conversational way. The PR and digital PR world has a huge importance for a brand showing up in Search and Google News and on other websites alike. We have to keep in mind that digital PR is a pillar, for the trust of a website, and for increasing referrals and, in turn, uplifting financial revenue.

We’re seeing a shared understanding that digital PR is no longer just about links. Brand mentions, trust signals and earned visibility across search and AI platforms are becoming key to long-term growth for travel brands.

Rising demand for digital PR is making the travel space more demanding

Worldwide search interest in digital PR has increased by 34% since 2020, with the UK up 49% and the US up 32% over the same period. Demand for digital PR in the travel sector is just as strong, with 57% of respondents reporting an increase in demand over the past 12 months. 

In your experience, how has the demand for digital PR from travel brands changed over the past 12 months?

In your experience, how has the demand for digital PR from travel brands changed over the past 12 months?

Increased	57%
Stayed the same	33%
Decreased	10%

This suggests that travel brands are already becoming increasingly driven by the need for high-quality coverage and increased visibility, due to an intense competitive online landscape. 

But what tactics are digital PRs using to drive this high-quality coverage and which are most effective?

Data-led content campaigns still dominate

Data-led content campaigns are the most popular tactic for earning coverage and links in the travel sector, with 95% of respondents using them. This highlights the value of credible, data-backed stories when it comes to securing high-quality media coverage. 

When asked to select the most effective tactics for earning coverage and links, respondents also prioritised data-led content campaigns, with 67% choosing it as their top choice and a further 33% selecting it as their second choice, further reinforcing its role as the most impactful approach when it comes to gaining coverage. 

Other common tactics and techniques include newsjacking/reactive PR and responding to journalist requests (e.g. HARO, Qwoted etc), with 71% of respondents using these approaches to earn coverage and links. This could reflect the travel media’s need for expert insight for relevant stories, such as travel trends. But tighter budgets have also led to a shift in priorities, with many now relying more on reactive and newsjacking tactics, with high-budget data-led campaigns often executed on an ad-hoc basis rather than part of the retainer.  

Thought leadership campaigns are used by 62%, while other tactics like link reclamation, resource outreach, and long-form guides are less common. 

What digital PR tactics and techniques do you use for earning coverage and/or links?

What digital PR tactics and techniques do you use for earning coverage and/or links?

Data-led campaigns	95%
Newsjacking / reactive PR	71%
Journalist requests	71%
Thought leadership campaigns	62%
Data & thought leadership on category pages	52%
Link reclamation	24%
Resource page / blog outreach	19%
Data & thought leadership stories tied to products	14%
Long-form guides	14%
Brand news / profiling	10%
Guest posts	10%
Press releases	10%
Product swaps / free services for coverage	10%
Social media promotion of stories	10%
Product or 'experience' placement	5%
PR stunts	0%
Influencer outreach	0%
Other	0%

Traditional stunts and influencer outreach were not selected as being used at all. This indicates that data or thought leadership stories, or those that are less risky in delivering an ROI like reactive/newsjacking, are more likely to be chosen by digital PRs today. At the same time brand authority is playing a bigger role, particularly as AI search engines increasingly prioritise trusted sources - so the choice of tactics are likely reflecting this shift too. 

One of the most notable themes to emerge is that while data-led content remains the most effective digital PR tactic, it is becoming harder to execute well. 

There is now more emphasis on unique and robust data, originality and stronger methodologies. At the same time, the travel sector has become increasingly oversaturated with data-led campaigns, making other tactics often easier to place.

Data-led campaigns can still be really effective, but only when they genuinely reveal something new. Journalists are looking for originality and credibility. They’re asking tougher questions about where the data comes from and what it actually shows, which makes a robust methodology more important than ever.

As search increasingly favours authoritative, trusted sources, questionable datasets and methodologies will quickly lose traction. The strongest travel campaigns today combine solid data with a clear methodology, and answer one key question: why this matters to the travel audience.

Content-led campaigns follow a defined delivery cycle

When it comes to turnaround times for data-led or thought leadership campaigns, 81% of PRs deliver to the client within four weeks, with over half (52%) working to a 3-4 week turnaround. Only a small minority deliver in under a week or over five weeks, suggesting there’s a well-established planning cycle for content-led campaigns across the industry.

These findings suggest that while demand for these types of campaigns continues to grow, PRs that can deliver consistently within a refined delivery cycle will be better positioned to achieve results in an increasingly crowded landscape. 

Seasonality continues to influence how travel PR campaigns are planned

Seasonality continues to influence how travel PR campaigns are planned and executed, with clear patterns emerging around both timing and tactics. 

PRs tend to align their campaigns with seasonal travel trends and consumer behaviours. For example, wellness and trend-led content in January, family and beach holidays in summer, and winter sun and skiing towards the end of the year. However, for evergreen campaigns, in order to be more timely, seasonality is often reflected in the pitch email and angles used rather than changes to the content itself. 

Others note that reactive opportunities spike during the peak travel months with more media requests, so in quieter off-peak seasons, smart planning and looking ahead at emerging trends is important to maintain relevance and consistency in coverage. 

Overall these findings highlight that while travel PR is needed throughout the year, it needs to adapt to seasonal trends and reactive opportunities to ensure campaigns remain timely and relevant. 

But what techniques are PRs using to ensure their stories gain traction with journalists?

PRs are prioritising tailored, personalised pitches when reaching out to press

When pitching to journalists, most PR professionals opt for a personalised approach, with 67% of respondents sending lightly tailored pitches, which include the journalist’s name and small details about their publication. 

A further 24% go beyond this, with heavily tailored pitches including suggested headlines and angles specific to the journalist’s audience. Only 10% use a wider, generic approach. This highlights a widespread belief that customising pitches can increase the chances of coverage.

Which of the following best describes how you usually send your journalist pitch emails?

Which of the following best describes how you usually send your journalist pitch emails?

Lightly tailored to each journalist	67%
Heavily tailored to each journalist	24%
Wide net / generic approach	10%
Press release or wire blast	0%

These findings are also reinforced by Buzzstream's 'Spray and Pray Study', which analysed over 31 million emails. The study discovered that personalised, more focused outreach dramatically outperforms generic pitching, with higher engagement and links, while ‘spray and pray’ campaigns see lower open rates and significantly fewer links. 

Some of the travel journalists we spoke to reinforced the need for more heavily tailored pitches, showing an understanding of the publication and the journalist’s area of expertise:

Most of the emails I receive from travel PRs go straight to my trash because they aren’t remotely relevant to my areas of expertise. The ones that don’t go to trash come from PRs who know what I write about and the titles that I write for. It would be great to see more brands sharpening their focus and cultivating more meaningful relationships.

He also added that “An exclusive, or an inside line” could help - reinforcing the need for PRs to do their homework and suggest an exclusive story which could work for the specific journalist. 

Most PRs also include additional materials alongside their pitches, with approximately half including a press release (52%), and expert profiles (48%). 

Visual assets are also common, with 38% including brand imagery, 33% including infographics, and 19% including stock imagery. 

Do you send anything to accompany a pitch?

Do you send anything to accompany a pitch?

Press release	52%
Expert profile	48%
Brand imagery	38%
Infographics	33%
Stock imagery	19%
Other	19%
N/A - I don't send anything	5%

Hayley Minn, Deputy Travel Editor at the Daily Mail, added that “Great pictures” can help alongside a strong PR story. 

However, despite them being widely shared, journalists are using them less than in the past, with over half of PRs (52%) reporting that journalists use their imagery less than before, and a further 29% note that journalists used to use them but no longer do. This suggests that journalists are increasingly selective over what they actually use, reinforcing the need for relevance, quality, and editorial value.

We’ve found that large portions of the budget go toward design-led collateral that journalists rarely reference or link to. While creative assets can be valuable, they don’t always justify the level of investment allocated to them. A more balanced approach, with costs tied more closely to what actually drives coverage and links, would be welcomed.

Speed is critical for reactive PR opportunities

When responding to journalist requests or reactive opportunities, speed is a clear priority. 

The majority of respondents (71%) typically respond within half a day, with 43% responding within 2 hours or less. This tells us that most PRs recognise the fast paced nature when it comes to reactive news stories and the need for timely responses for the best chances of securing coverage. 

We know journalists are busy. We also know that when a breaking news story drops, it’s all hands on deck to provide the best value content to an audience. As PRs, we have access to experts who can supply commentary or data that elevates a story. After all, journalists are looking to make their stories the most credible and helpful too. If we have this information to hand within a few hours, our chances of landing coverage greatly increases. We recommend having a bank of quotes, across a range of topics, that can be tweaked here and there towards the story, to add a unique spin, speeding up response time.

In addition to supplying expert commentary, speed is also critical for other aspects of the PR-journalist relationship. Speaking to James Wong, Freelance Travel Journalist, he highlighted that “Fast turnaround for fact checking is always appreciated.” 

This implies that when an opportunity arises, travel PRs do need to be extremely agile to be able to focus on speed to land the opportunity. But what other blockers and challenges are there when it comes to digital PR in the travel industry?

Approvals remain the biggest blocker to moving faster with digital PR

With a strict delivery cycle when it comes to campaign production, it’s often internal decision making that slows down campaign delivery the most. More than three-quarters of PRs cite approvals from senior stakeholders as the biggest blocker when it comes to moving faster. This is followed by the time needed to source thought leadership input from senior stakeholders (52%), complex data analysis (43%), and coordination with design/development and content teams (38%). 

If you think you could move faster, what blockers are holding you back?

If you think you could move faster, what blockers are holding you back?

Brand / senior stakeholder approvals	76%
Sourcing senior thought leadership input	52%
Complex data analysis	43%
Design, dev, or content lead times	38%
Lead times for uploads and campaign prioritisation	24%
Competing priorities / workload	14%
Freelance lead times	0%
No blockers	0%

These findings suggest that travel brands that can streamline their approval process earlier in the production phase will ultimately help PRs work more efficiently, respond quickly to media opportunities and stay ahead in an increasingly fast-moving market. 

Securing coverage remains the biggest overall challenge 

When asked what the most challenging parts of the digital PR process are, securing coverage came out on top, selected by 43% of respondents. 

Sean agreed with how unpredictable results have become: 

One of the biggest challenges this year has been inconsistency in digital PR results. A number of campaigns that looked extremely strong on paper unfortunately failed to gain the breakthrough we expected in terms of coverage. Conversely, other campaigns, sometimes the ones we had lower expectations for, ended up landing links at a much faster and more successful rate. It’s been a reminder that even well-researched ideas don’t always align with journalist priorities or timing, and that adaptability is essential.

This inconsistency is likely due to a number of factors including the way the media landscape has changed, an increasingly crowded space and increasing pressure on journalists who receive a high volume of pitches every day. If a story doesn’t immediately add clear value or align closely with their specific needs, reflecting a topic which is of importance to their target audience at that moment in time too, it is unlikely to be considered. This is only set to get harder, especially if digital PRs don’t do their homework before going into ideation.

This is echoed by journalists themselves.

Legacy media brands are in many ways returning to their original business models - cultivating loyal readerships and taking them behind paywalls, rather than competing for clicks and diminishing ad revenues. Successful ones will gain a better insight into their readers, develop relationships with those readers and produce richer, more relevant content for them. That’s the idea, anyway. Digital PRs will need to respond to that trend, gaining a better understanding of those publications, the journalists and editors who work on them, and their readers.

Additionally, finding enough relevant journalists and their contact details was also a significant challenge, selected by 29% of respondents. This highlights that challenges are not only external, but internal too, media database challenges can cause setbacks. 

AI is helping Digital PRs alleviate some of their challenges 

It’s little surprise that AI is being adopted by travel PRs, but its use remains largely to support tasks. The most common use of AI for digital PRs is insight for ideation, selected by 71% of respondents. This suggests that AI is being used to support, refine and validate ideas rather than generate them - something that used to be a challenge for 20% of PRs and SEOs who did content-led link building.

Another main use of AI among PRs is to sense check data that forms part of an idea, selected by 43% of respondents. A further 38% leverage it to inspire outreach angles and 33% use it to sense-check outreach emails. 

How are you using AI for digital PR in the travel space?

How are you using AI for digital PR in the travel space?

Insight for ideation	71%
To sense check data which is part of an idea	43%
To sense check and help inspire angles for outreach	38%
To sense check outreach emails	33%
To monitor the media for relevant news	24%
To come up with my ideas	19%
To proof copy	19%
To review an idea (AI as the target audience)	14%
To monitor the web for coverage	10%
To create my media list	5%
To create my content	5%
To write press releases	5%
To draft expert commentary	5%
To create imagery	5%
Other	5%
To outreach	0%
N/A - I don't use AI	0%

These findings show that rather than replacing PRs, AI is being used to help enhance campaigns and sharpen outreach angles, while creativity and journalist relationships remain firmly in human hands. This shows a clear understanding of where AI adds value in travel digital PR, and where human insight and trust remain critical to success.

Reporting: Coverage expectations tend to prioritise quality over quantity

In the past, digital PR focused on the quantity of links rather than their quality, with the assumption that the more links meant better visibility. Fast forward to today, however, and the emphasis has shifted, where a handful of high-quality relevant pieces of coverage can move the needle far more effectively than dozens of low value, irrelevant links. 

This shift is reflected in the survey results. Coverage expectations in travel digital PR clearly prioritise quality over quantity. Almost half of respondents (47%) consider a campaign successful if it secures 0–9 pieces of coverage. Around 24% expect 10–19 pieces of coverage, while some measure success over longer periods rather than per campaign.

Looking back over the past 12 months, PRs show the range of coverage actually secured, with the majority achieving between 10-19 pieces of coverage per campaign (82%).

Thinking back over the past 12 months, how many pieces of coverage have your digital PR stories generated?

Thinking back over the past 12 months, how many pieces of coverage have your digital PR stories generated?

0	41%
0-9	77%
10-19	82%
20-29	59%
30-39	41%
40-49	35%
50-59	24%
60-69	6%
70-79	6%
80-89	6%
90-99	6%
100-149	12%
Over 150	18%

This highlights that while some campaigns can achieve a lot of coverage, most campaigns generate a modest number, and this is deemed a success by those in the industry.

When it comes to setting coverage and link targets, it varies widely among PRs. Only 14% set coverage targets for each activity, whereas 43% set an overall coverage target for the partnership. Almost a quarter (24%) do not set coverage or link targets at all. The low emphasis on link targets suggests that PR teams now prioritise coverage quality over link metrics. 

Digital PR lead metrics go beyond just link or coverage counts

Measuring and reporting on digital PR in the travel industry goes beyond just link counts or coverage volume. The survey highlights a clear set of metrics that agencies and freelancers look upon when assessing the success of a partnership. 

The most widely used measure is the relevance of coverage or links, cited by 90% of respondents, again, highlighting that a few high-quality, relevant pieces can be far more effective than a large volume of mentions when it comes to driving meaningful results. This is reported on more than volume of mentions (86%) and volume of links (81%).

When measuring the quality of coverage, DA or DR continues to be the leading metric, used by 81% of PR professionals. 

How do you measure the quality of your coverage?

81%

of travel marketers rank DR or DA as the most important metric when evaluating coverage

Internal relevancy scores (38%) and audience insights (24%) are also used quite widely to ensure the coverage is relevant to the campaign and reaches the right audience. Traffic to host sites (19%) and occasional manual grading/tier lists or other methods are applied in select cases.

This highlights that while coverage volume and link volume remain core KPIs, there is a growing emphasis on relevance, impact and audience value. 

Lag metrics: Digital PRs are trying to tie activity to wider benefits

Whilst they’re not as commonly used as the coverage lead metrics, we uncovered that roughly half of travel PRs are trying to piece together how their activity is supporting SEO, and helping drive business growth - something that’s always been a challenge in the industry.

48% of digital PRs are looking at and reporting on ranking improvements and search visibility, whilst slightly less monitor increases in branded search volume (43%) and traffic to content pages (38%). 

How do you measure and report on your digital PR activity?

How do you measure and report on your digital PR activity?

Relevancy of coverage / links	90%
Volume of coverage	86%
Volume of links	81%
Site authority (DA / DR)	76%
Average DR or DA	62%
Ranking improvements	48%
Increase in traffic to site	48%
Search visibility	48%
Branded search growth	43%
Traffic to content page	38%
Increase in traffic to sections of site / listing	29%
Increase in branded search traffic	29%
Brand messages included	24%
Revenue	19%
DR or DA of brand / client site over time	14%
Goal completions	14%
Other	14%

Jolie Hoang, Digital Marketing Manager at Cabin Zero highlighted that “Further understanding effectiveness is key to understanding where we can invest our budget moving forward.”

Attribution is one of those tricky things in Digital Marketing. What’s even harder is attributing the value of Digital PR coverage to the bottom line.

Lead metrics are clear - and really valuable - but it’s important not to overclaim impact and attempt to give Digital PR full credit for, say, ranking improvements, increased brand visibility etc when there may well be other factors at play.

Digital PR, though, can certainly help with these metrics and using things like Causal Impact we can help show that more concretely.

Travel digital PR is believed to be highly effective for organic search

On a scale of 1-10, respondents gave it a median score of 8, with the majority (67%) rating its effectiveness 8 or higher. This indicates digital PR is seen as a key part of the SEO and GEO strategy for travel brands, with activity not only to gain coverage, but also improve rankings and traffic to a travel brand’s site. 

In terms of timings when it comes to seeing the impact of digital PR on rankings and traffic, most see a result within 1-6 months, with 38% citing 1-3 months and a further 38% citing 3-6 months. This suggests that digital PR is not just a short-term tactic. Campaigns require careful planning, but results are effective within half a year for most brands.

How travel PR has changed in recent years

Over the past 12 months industry experts have witnessed a saturation in travel data campaigns, which has led to a greater demand for solid, unique data, to help brands stand out from the crowd. 

However, these data-led campaigns are increasingly being run as ad-hoc projects, especially for those with tighter budgets, where “always on” reactive and thought leadership activity delivers a better ROI than fewer, larger activities. 

In fact, compared to 3-5 years ago, travel digital PR experts have highlighted that newsjacking has become significantly more important, especially in peak seasons and with the shift toward expert commentary helping to improve topical authority. 

Digital PRs need to ensure they’re providing plenty of value with their thought leadership though, with it being highlighted that simpler thought leadership is now less effective than it used to be. 

But what does this mean for where digital PR is headed for the travel industry?

The future of digital PR in travel is set to become even more critical 

These findings suggest digital PR is set to become even more critical for travel brands in the future. Travel marketers are now working in an increasingly competitive landscape driven by changes in consumer behaviour, AI-driven search, and an increasing need for trust, relevancy and authority. 

Travel brands today need to appear in trusted online environments, with high quality relevant coverage, expert insights and mentions all essential for AI-driven search - and this is where digital PR can support. 

Digital PR will continue to sit at the heart of our SEO activity in 2026. High-quality, authoritative coverage remains a core driver of our organic performance.

But how will digital PR need to evolve in 2026?

The top predictions shaping travel digital PR in 2026 

Digital PR will continue to be shaped both by;

• What in-house marketers need to help build visibility for SEO and GEO, and drive business growth online
• What journalists are looking for, how they work and how they’re measured

After all, we operate in the space between these, devising strategies, tactics and stories to land brand coverage with journalists, to ultimately help drive real commercial impact for brands. 

Delving into our interviews with senior in-house marketers and travel journalists, we’ve pulled out four top predictions for digital PR in 2026. 

Top predictions for digital PR in 2026

1. 1From destination hype to value and relevance
2. 2More personalised experiences
3. 3Human-led, story-first PR
4. 4Hyper-relevance and targeted outreach

1. A transition from destination hype, to value and relevance

Over the years digital PR has become more focused on the target audience, their needs, wants and desires - and in 2026, this appears set to become even more important. 

Both our in-house marketers and travel journalists have highlighted that successful marketing, including digital PR, will lean more on answering real consumer concerns and needs, such as convenience, affordability, safety and other tangible value, rather than just promoting destinations. 

Whilst this might not mean the end to all of the fluffier stories like the prettiest destinations using the golden ratio and campaigns based on colour palettes, it might mean these are less likely to be as successful as more value-driven stories - especially as the media is looking to provide value too.

Jolie Hoang highlighted that: “Convenience and saving money are going to be big trends in 2026. We’ve seen these themes continue to grow through what our customers are looking for in our products, and I think these messages will need to shine through all marketing too.” Whilst from the media perspective, Hayley Minn shared that: “Finding more affordable and less crowded alternatives to well-known destinations (destination dupes)... and a focus on value for money rather than luxury” are going to be key trends and editorial focuses this year. 

Gavin Haines reinforced this with his predictions noting that: “Rising unemployment and the ongoing squeeze on living costs will narrow the horizons of many British travellers, likely benefitting short-haul and domestic destinations.”

Digital PRs will need to really understand their target audience, their concerns and what’s considered of value to them this year, to be able to shape stories that will resonate. On top of this, they will need a solid grasp on the readership of target publications, to be able to uncover where there is overlap, and which stories are best designed to land in the places that will drive brand impact.

2. Digital PR will need to reflect the consumer’s desire for more personalised experiences

“Travel Marketing will be counting more on personalised experiences and extremely tailor-made itineraries” predicts Franco Lucchetti, who went on to state that travellers are “more aware of what they want”.

Rob Gaige, Head of Global Insights at Reddit is quoted within Skyscanner’s 2026 travel trends report highlighting that “rather than selecting the destination and then assembling activities, today’s travellers begin their search with individual passions, hobbies and interests, leading to more meaningful trips.” 

Sean Walsh let us in on the insight that “interest in activities such as trail running, cycling holidays, hiking routes, water-sports and general “challenge-based” trips has been climbing for the past few years, and we only anticipate that demand accelerating into 2026. UK travellers are increasingly looking for trips with purpose, physical engagement and unique, story-worthy experiences rather than passive holidays.”

Within Skyscanner’s 2026 trends report Rob Gaige further highlighted that there is “more time being spent on researching specific activities.”

Alongside hobbies and interests, Gavin Haines highlighted several economic and real-world factors that could influence personal travel and holiday decisions this year, such as “the reluctant return to the office five days a week for many workers … set to re-harden the boundaries between work and play, signalling an end perhaps to the longer hybrid holidays many enjoyed before.” 

Together these insights show how crucial it’s going to be for digital PRs to fully understand not just the overall target audience, but different segments of the audience and their interests. Brands with multiple target personas will need to have activity designed for each one to be able to target them effectively through tying into these key areas of interest and the economic and real-world factors which might influence their holiday or travel plans. It’s likely digital PRs will no longer be able to plan all activity to cover as many target personas as possible, as it just won’t be as effective in landing coverage or driving business impact.  

Looking ahead, Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will offer an opportunity to bring these personalised experiences to life. Franco Lucchetti highlighted that while VR may not be mainstream yet, AI can already help travellers make the most of their time by offering “best-of” experiences before they travel. 

3. Human-led, story-first PR will stand out in a world of AI-written content

The word of the year in 2025 was “AI slop” - we think that sums up where a lot of content production has been heading. In this new era, real human stories are becoming more valuable in setting content apart as these are the elements AI isn't mimicking, and a key way readers can tell human-written narratives apart.

Across the travel journalists and in-house marketers we interviewed, there was a strong agreement that authentic, experience-led storytelling will be the differentiator in 2026.

Franco Lucchetti highlighted that “authentic stories are pure marketing!” and added that “user-generated content” and “deeply personalised narratives” will be key trends this year.

Journalists strongly echo this. James Wong notes a clear editorial move “As we battle with AI, I’ve already noticed a shift from generic guides to much more personal travel stories. The kind of stories that cannot be imitated by an algorithm.” 

Gavin Haines added that he foresees “a greater embrace of rich, human-led travel narratives from more discerning outlets” while Hayley Minn highlighted that these stories are “more interesting to read about, as they’re more relatable so are great for the paper, and do well online.”

As our survey results suggest, AI might support digital PRs in areas such as ideation and outreach strategies/approaches, but digital PR stories need a clearly visible human touch. 

The key way to achieve this is by including first-hand human experiences, i.e. using case studies and real people to surface untold angles, personal insights and give behind-the-scenes access. This can be applied within ideation and the concepts taken into production, or through thought leadership. This not only helps set content apart for a reader and the media, but it also strengthens E-E-A-T for the content itself. 

We expect this to become more prominent within digital PR stories. These human narratives are likely to be much more effective in driving coverage and therefore topical authority. 

4. Hyper-relevance and targeted outreach will be even more important

Our survey results show that the majority of digital PRs already tailor outreach, and a quarter heavily tailor pitches with suggested headlines. However, insights from the travel journalists and editors we spoke to lean towards preferring a heavily tailored approach, signalling the end of “spray and pray” - especially for those who want to land coverage in key travel titles. 

Hayley Minn, Gavin Haines and James Wong all emphasised the importance of digital PRs understanding the writers they’re pitching to, their audience, editorial styles and topics of interest or expertise. 

Hayley Minn added that digital PRs should “ Think about headline first, and what actually draws a reader to click … Trying your hand at writing a headline in the Mail’s style at the top of a press release/when offering a press trip always makes me more likely to run the story, as it means I don’t need to find the story within the press release.”

Travel writers and editors have KPIs too, ranging from page views and engagement to how their content helps drive subscriptions. When they read digital PR pitches, they likely have these in mind to determine if a story is worth being one of the 2-20 stories they, or their team, plan to write that day. This is key to keep in mind, as it helps keep focus on what’s going to drive those results for the publication, the writer, and how digital PRs can help. 

Gavin Haines added “I don’t have many relationships with travel PRs but the ones I do have work brilliantly because they understand my approach, the outlets I write for and how they can work within that.”

When asked about relationships for expert commentary both James Wong and Gavin Haines highlighted that they usually source their own experts through their connections to ensure they have unique insight for their stories. This demonstrates how important it is to build relationships with key writers and editors, to increase the chances of being called upon for expert commentary. 

Digital PRs doing their research on the publication and specific writer is only set to get more important. As Gavin Haines highlighted, legacy media brands are returning to their original business models, strengthening their relationships with their readers, and digital PRs will need to respond to this trend if they hope to land coverage in these places.

Conclusion: what this means for travel brands in 2026

As AI-powered search and zero-click results become the new way travellers plan their trips, travel brands can’t rely on rankings alone. Visibility is now also driven by authority, brand mentions and being cited by trusted sources - which is exactly where Digital PR comes in. 

While links do still play a part, brand mentions, expert commentary and credible insights are becoming increasingly important trust signals for both search engines and AI-driven platforms. Travel brands that ignore this risk not being seen where their audience is actually searching. 

Reactive PR and expert commentary are proving crucial ways for brands to gain traction - but only if they can move quickly. Data-led campaigns are still implemented by most travel digital PRs, even if on a more ad-hoc basis. However, long approval processes and slow sign-offs are holding a lot of brands back. Those that can streamline decision-making and who have spokespeople on-hand will be much better placed to take advantage of opportunities as they happen.

Human stories are also becoming more valuable than ever. In a landscape increasingly crowded with AI-generated content, journalists and readers are searching for real experiences and stories. Travel brands that can bring human insight and expertise together, will stand out in ways where AI can’t. 

We’re also seeing a shift around the volume of coverage needed. A handful of high-quality, relevant pieces of coverage that actually address the traveller's needs can far outweigh lots of low-value mentions. For brands, this means focusing less on how many pieces of coverage they earn and more on where the coverage appears. 

Overall, digital PR in travel for 2026 is about setting brands apart from AI written content, creating stories which demonstrate value to the consumer, and resonate with key audience interests. It’s also about doing the research to heavily tailor journalist pitches and maximise chances of exposure. The brands that get this right will earn visibility where it matters most - in front of the traveller. 

We’ve specialised in travel digital PR since 2016, helping brands build long-term organic growth in a constantly evolving search landscape. With over a decade of experience, we know what it takes to secure high-quality coverage, build trust and drive real impact for travel brands. Take a look at our travel digital PR case studies to see our work in action and the results we’ve achieved. 

Want to see how we can help support your travel brand with digital PR in 2026 and beyond? Visit our travel digital PR service page to discover what we can do. 

Methodology

We conducted a survey of 21 senior digital PR practitioners, with long-term, hands-on experience across digital PR and SEO in the travel industry. Respondents represented a mix of agencies and freelancers supporting travel brands including booking platforms, accommodation providers, holiday companies and transport providers. 

Alongside this, we conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with in-house travel marketers and travel journalists and editors to provide insight into both the brand perspective and what the media is predicting and looking for in 2026. 

The survey and interviews took place between November 2025 and January 2026. 

SEO is dead… again! 

The narrative that SEO is dead is nothing new; it's practically as old as the internet itself! Each "death" has been less a funeral and more a dramatic costume change for SEO, forcing it to shed its outdated outfits and embrace something more sophisticated.

As SEO is now “dead” again, we thought we’d take a trip down memory lane and have a look at every time SEO has died. 

SEO - the back story 

SEO began in the mid-90s as the first search engines attempted to start cataloguing the early web. However, the term “SEO” came about in 1997 when it was tied to the efforts of optimising websites to rank higher in search results. 

Back then, SEO was less about sophisticated algorithms and more about stuffing meta keyword tags like a Christmas turkey and hiding text on pages with the same colour background. Ah, simpler, shadier times!

Every Time SEO Has Died (But Didn't, Obviously)

1997: The Original "Search is Dead" Party Pooper

The very first notable eulogy for SEO came from Richard Hoy in 1997. That’s right, in the same year the term was first coined. 

He genuinely believed search engines were a "dead-end technology," too complex and full of misleading info. He basically told his clients to set their meta tags and then "forget it." 

Granted, Richard wasn’t saying “SEO is dead” in 97, he was saying that search engines were. To say Richard was slightly incorrect is a bit of an understatement.

2003-2004: The Algorithm Antics Begin (Florida, Cassandra, Austin)

Next, Google decided it was time to clean house with updates like Florida, Cassandra, and Austin. These updates swooped in like digital sheriffs, penalising keyword stuffing, hidden text, and shady link schemes. 

Suddenly, the Wild West of SEO got some rules, and many who thrived on "by any means necessary" tactics now fell short. All of a sudden, black hats at the top of the SERPs were replaced with white hats heroes.

This, again, wasn't the death of SEO, but it was the death of SEO as many knew it. It was the end of its rebellious phase, pushing it towards valuing helpful content.

2005: "ShoeMoney" Predicts the End of the "Tricks"

Web entrepreneur Jeremy "ShoeMoney" Schoemaker declared SEO dead in 2005. His fear? That manipulative tactics wouldn't work anymore because search engines were getting too smart. He saw "short-term top rankings" as a fleeting dream. Jeremy's prophecy was a sign that SEO needed to grow up and move past its "trick-based" antics towards something more sustainable.

Jezza was right. SEO needed to change. It had to move away from certain tactics, just like it had before. But this wasn’t the final nail in the coffin for SEO; something else was looming in the distance.

2009-2010: The Caffeine Jolt 

Google's Caffeine update, rolled out in 2010 (with early testing in 2009). It was a massive infrastructure change that left some, like Robert Scoble, saying “SEO isn’t important any more”.

This update wasn't about penalising specific tactics, like so many before it, but about improving Google's ability to crawl and index the web much, much faster. This meant fresher results and a huge increase in the sheer volume of information Google could process. 

For some, the faster indexing felt like a chaotic jolt, with new content appearing and disappearing quicker than ever. It wasn't a "death," but certainly caused some caffeine-induced heart palpitations for SEOs, reminding everyone that speed and fresh content were becoming paramount.

2011: Panda Pounces on Poor Content

The Google Panda update in 2011 was a big one. It specifically targeted low-quality, spammy, and duplicate content. Suddenly, quantity wasn't king; quality was. Many "black hat SEOs" who relied on content farms let out a collective gasp. For them, SEO nearly did die.

However, this was a stern telling off from Google. The search engine was letting shady characters know they need to change their ways. For white hat SEOs, they did what they always have done, pivoted. 

Until the next update.

2012: Penguin Swims in and Cleans Up Links

Right on Panda's heels came the Penguin update in 2012, which took aim at manipulative link building. Link farms and dodgy blog networks were out. This sparked another wave of "SEO is dead" declarations, notably from Ken Krogue in Forbes. 

The truth, Penguin just pushed SEOs to build stronger, healthier links. It taught us that quality and ethical link building were the way forward. Crazy, right?

2015 & 2019: AI Arrives (RankBrain & BERT)

The mid-to-late 2010s brought the brainiacs to the party: RankBrain (2015) and BERT (2019). These machine learning algorithms helped Google understand user intent and conversational queries better than ever. Which, of course, created panicked whispers in the SEO world: "Keywords are dead! SEO is dead!" 

The truth? It just meant SEO had to get smarter, again, focusing on understanding what users really wanted, not just the exact words they typed. It became about providing comprehensive, helpful answers, making E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) the new cool kid on the block.

2023-Present: The AI Revolution (Helpful Content & SGE)

And now, the latest "death" rattle comes with the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT and Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE). The fear? That AI-generated answers will replace organic listings entirely, leading to the "Crocodile Effect" (lots of impressions, few clicks). "SEO is finally dead for real this time!" they cry.

But is it? If SEO has taught us anything over the years, it’s the plucky underdog that just wants to please search engines and will evolve in order to so.

So, Is SEO Dead in 2026?

Spoiler alert: No. Absolutely not.

Just like every time before, the current "death" of SEO is simply another evolution. At least, that’s how we’re thinking about SEO right now. SEO is slowly but surely becoming what it should be about: building a great brand that search engines want to rank. So, it’s goodbye to tricks and black hat tactics and hello to brand growth.

For our SEOs, not much has changed. They’re still optimising on-site and off-site trust signals, just for AI instead of organic search results. They’re busy optimising for AI-assisted search, focusing on clear, expert-written answers that AI models can confidently cite. This means structured data, multimedia, and an even deeper dive into user intent.

The future of SEO is about brand. Building brand trust signals on and off websites to reach new audiences, appear in search results and AI overviews. Here’s how: 

• Focusing on E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness are more vital than ever.
• High-quality, expert-driven content: Google wants real human expertise, especially in crucial areas like health and finance.
• Top-notch user experience (UX): A fast, mobile-friendly, easy-to-navigate site is non-negotiable.
• Embracing AI as a tool: SEOs are using AI for topic research and content optimisation, not letting it replace their brains.
• Diversifying traffic sources: Relying solely on traditional organic search is out; social media, PR, owned channels, like email, for example, are in.
• Visibility: Top of funnel is moving towards zero click, and that won't change, so this is about visibility/brand recognition.
• Optimisation: Bottom of funnel is where we still win. Optimising commercial pages is more important than ever.

SEO has always been a marathon, not a sprint, and it requires constant adaptation. Every "death" has simply been a push towards a more user-centric, ethical, and valuable approach. So, next time you hear someone declare SEO dead, just remember, people are already working on its next evolution!

Want to discuss how we’re evolving SEO at Aira? Well, we call it Blended Search, and it’s pretty cool. Let’s have a chat about it. 

Today (in 2026), digital PR is a marketing strategy designed to earn brands coverage and links in the right places, to increase online visibility and topical authority. It plays an essential role in SEO and GEO. 

But digital PR has been on its own journey over the years, evolving and adapting to the ever-changing online landscape and Google updates. How it looked in 2016 (and before that) is very different to how it looks today, and why digital PR matters has changed over time too. 

Intrigued by where digital PR came from and how it’s changed over time to become what it is today? Read on to find out more and see some of our own examples of activity over the years too. 

Over the years: From traditional PR to link building to digital PR

Public relations (PR) has been around for a very long time, since the early 1900s - with mixed reports on when the first PR department or consultancy was established. 

Fast forward to the dawn of the internet in the 1990s, once access was available to households, online PR was born. This type of PR focused on building brand awareness via online media, blogs and any other online space where you could get your brand featured. 

This was still a form of traditional PR, in objectives and how it was measured, just conducted online. 

But with the dawn of the internet saw the rise of SEO, with the term "officially" being used from around 1997, and with it, link building. Once SEOs uncovered the power of links and anchor text as ranking signals, a range of link building techniques emerged to drive volume. 

Link building has its own long history (which if you’re interested, it's covered in a section of the Link Building Book). Over time, key Google updates like Panda and Penguin which focused on reducing spammy practices and sites, encouraged the industry to evolve and move away from tactics like link exchanges, directory link building and guest posting to tactics which focused on earning links from higher quality websites. 

And so Digital PR was born; a crossover between traditional PR and link building, designed to build links through earning coverage from creative stories. 2016 saw the first agencies to specialise in digital PR start to shape the landscape that we know today, and that included Aira's Digital PR team. And yes, it is the same Laura still here today - she’s helping to shape what and how we do it in the new age of GEO too!

Digital PR: 2016 to 2026

2016 was the year Pokemon Go became a summer obsession, “One Dance” by Drake was everywhere and “post-truth” was coined word of the year. It was the age of photo-sharing, before the dawn of short form video, and “doom scrolling” became a common habit.  And just like the stars in season one of Stranger Things, digital PR was very young. 

The main focus for digital PR in 2016 was building links. Volume of links was still at the center of strategies, but the spotlight was on earning coverage in the media, through creative stories, to build this volume. Publishers didn’t really have linking policies back then, and earning links was much easier. There was some focus on quality, with the national media being a priority, but relevancy was often pushed aside in the desire to go ‘viral’ and drive that volume. 

Many of the campaigns we launched in 2016 and 2017 still maintained topical/brand relevance, but the insights powering the creative were often much simpler. That’s not to say the team didn’t also create more complex data pieces, but the simple but creative approach, using design or interactivity, worked really well in landing coverage and links to support SEO. 

Google search interest in the term “digital PR” started rising steadily from 2017.

Other agencies were also focusing on using influencer marketing tactics, such as events and gifting to build links. But these started fading out in 2018-2019, as they weren’t providing the same return on investment from an SEO point of view. With the introduction of the “sponsored” link tag in 2019, this pretty much brought this focus to an end, with media outreach being favoured to drive ROI. 

Over the years different tactics became popular or “fashionable”. From brain teasers, to colour palettes and swab experiments to dream jobs, every digital PR had a favourite. Some more quick to activate than others, and some more likely to achieve virality - but all still designed to build links. 

Digital PRs were also using thought leadership. But during this time it was more interviews and profiling, than newsjacking which didn’t become big until some time between 2018 and 2020 - it’s difficult to specifically pinpoint the moment it became a key tactic for the digital PR industry.

As the media became more and more inundated with digital PR stories, it got harder to land coverage in key titles. To get around this, insights and data behind creative stories became more complex, to provide something journalists couldn’t create themselves. There was a big rise in indexes. At Aira we also worked with a data journalist to ensure our ideas and methodologies were robust and told great stories for the media to use. 

Then it hit 2020, the year everyone had to stay home. It was the year we wore “business on top, comfy on bottom”, the sourdough and banana bread craze had taken hold, and Joe Exotic hit Netflix. As we couldn’t go anywhere, the digital business landscape excelled and the SEO industry, including Digital PR, boomed. For the industries that weren’t impacted by the pandemic, like travel. 

By this point in the timeline, more emphasis was placed on relevance of the creative content stories and publications being targeted. This was further cemented when John Mueller said in one of Google’s Office Hours episodes, the now famous line “there could be one really good link from a really good website out there that is for us a really important sign that we should treat this website as something that is relevant because it has that one link.”

If you wanted to land relevant coverage (and links), you needed relevant stories. Many of the tactics were the same (campaigns, reactive newsjacking, thought leadership and stunts), but with relevancy at its core. Links were still a focus, but digital PRs were trying to suggest NoFollow links and brand mentions still had an impact on visibility. 

Then it hit 2024; the year 1.4 million fans went wild for ‘Oasis reunion’ tickets (for the tour in 2025), Simone Biles had a triumphant return at the Olympics in Paris and people were debating which job roles were most at risk from AI. It was the year AI overviews launched, and ChatGPT weekly active users hit ~200m and continued climbing. 

More people were using AI and LLMs as part of their buyer and search journey - helping them to solve their every day problems - and so studies started emerging on how to ensure your brand appeared in these new search spaces too. Something SEOs started coining GEO (generative engine optimisation). 

In early 2025, Ahrefs released a brand visibility study which looked at 75,000 brands. It revealed that ‘branded web mentions’ had the strongest correlation with AI overview brand visibility. This presented a much greater spearman correlation than backlinks, and nine other factors including domain rating and branded search volume. 

Other AI monitoring tools also launched studies too (like this one from Profound), on the most cited/trusted sources by LLMs - highlighting the need to appear in these top publications to increase chances of being cited. 

All of this brought Digital PR back into the spotlight. But not just for links anymore, for brand mentions too. Finally they were being given the attention they deserved. 

We’re yet to see what 2026 brings from pop culture to microtrends, but one thing that’s certain - digital PR is fundamental to a strong SEO and GEO strategy, to help drive visibility and ultimately business performance. 

We’re still seeing many of the same core tactics being used effectively, but now with brand relevance really being at the heart, robust data, unique insight and speed being key;

• The content campaigns that deliver the best results are more complex, with a strong focus on robust, legitimate data sets and methodologies. We need to be creating something that’s helpful or inspiring for the target audience, that journalists couldn’t create on their own.
• Newsjacking is a huge focus with taking an “always on” approach, and landing quick wins - you need to be quick to react though as the news moves fast. Having an internal expert who can help provide unique commentary that adds something to the story is crucial here, and you need to be able to prove they’re real. AI produced experts and quotes aren’t going to provide value, and will be spotted - these are more likely to be detrimental for the brand with some studies even calling them out. 
• Planned reactive - getting quotes or data-led stories ready ahead of time - is also a great way to build topical authority and visibility of an expert.
• Interesting brand news/launches can also be an effective way to land relevant, quality coverage - capitalising on something that’s already going on. As long as it is genuinely newsworthy. 
• Stunts are becoming less of a focus in the digital PR industry - with relevancy being essential, many of the stunt styles of the past might not drive the same ROI. Equally, budgets are still being more restricted, so digital PRs are less likely to take risks, and opt for tactics which have a greater chance of driving success. 

Wrapping it up: why digital PR matters

2016 saw the dawn of digital PR as we know it today, evolving from a combination of traditional PR and SEO link building. But it’s been on a transformative journey over the past decade. Comparing 2016 vs 2026 shows just how far it has come. 

From the initial focus on volume of links to support visibility in traditional search spaces, to relevancy of stories being at the core of driving the right types of links. To now in 2026, branded web mentions also having a fundamental role in GEO, supporting visibility in AI search spaces. It’s clear to see that digital PR has continued to evolve to play a key role in driving online performance over the years, including the tactics and how they’re implemented to gain traction with the media. 

If you're looking into the potential of digital PR, or working with a digital PR agency to help you achieve your brand goals, we'd be more than happy to chat - just get in touch.

References:

• Search Engine Journal (2021) - 20+ years of SEO history
• Google Search Central via YouTube (2021) - Google SEO office-hours from February 19, 2021
• Backlinko (2025) - ChatGPT / OpenAI Statistics
• Ahrefs (2025) -  AI Overview brand visibility factors study
• Profound (2025) - AI Platform Citation Patterns

What is digital PR? 

Digital PR (digital public relations), or sometimes known as online PR, is a marketing strategy designed to earn brand coverage and links in the right places; where your target audience sits online, i.e. key authoritative publications and websites in your niche. With consistency, over time this serves to boost brand awareness, and improve topical authority and online visibility - supporting SEO. 

It therefore sits under the umbrella of SEO. This includes AEO, GEO and any other terminology you wish to use for the digital search space. It's all essentially the same thing, where people go to search for answers to problems (or their ‘wants’ or ‘desires’). 

Digital PR layers on top of a strong technical foundation, and strategic content strategy, to help build and grow online brands and ultimately, drive increased revenue.

Digital PR

Off-page
optimisation

Content

On-page &
technical optimisation

Factors that influence the ranking of a web page that are not controlled by the coding or content of the website.

The generation of rich, engaging content on a regular basis that can influence both on-page and off-page optimisation.

The production of content and code on a web page that positively influences search engine ranking.

The search space has evolved over the past few years (hello AIOs, ChatGPT, Gemini and all your favourite LLMs), and with it, digital PR has become even more important. It’s an exciting time for digital PRs as brand mentions have been highlighted as just as important as links for boosting brand visibility in digital search spaces. Something we’ve always talked about as being hints for Google are now actively being shouted about as key focuses for the new AI era. 

Digital PR and the rise of Generative AI

Generative AI is everywhere and is being used at many different points of the buyer's journey - from initial problem solving through to now pulling tailored shopping options, and even checking local stores for stock levels - making it important to businesses to appear within the results there too. 

To showcase the current scale of generative AI:

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced in October 2025 that ChatGPT had reached 800m weekly active users globally, a 60% increase in just over six months.
• Ahrefs’ 2024 study of AI Overview triggers, which looked at 146 million SERPs, found that Google’s AI overviews currently appear for approximately 20% of searches - with some categories having as high as a 60% chance of triggering an AI overview. 

Since the launch of Google’s AI overviews and the increase in use of LLMS (such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and many more) there have been several studies and articles on the factors which correlate with brands being mentioned or brand content being pulled into AI responses.  

Ahrefs’ 2025 analysis of AI Overview brand visibility factors, which looked at 75,000 brands, revealed that ‘branded web mentions’ has the strongest correlation with AI overview brand visibility. 

It found that: 

• Branded web mentions showed the strongest correlation with AI Overview visibility (Spearman: 0.664)
• This was significantly higher than backlinks and nine other tested factors, including DR and branded search volume.

This shows correlation, not causation, but the strength of the pattern indicates that earning high-quality brand mentions should now be treated as a primary lever for AI visibility. 

Factors that correlate with brand appearance in AI Overviews

Spearman correlation: the higher the score, the stronger the link to AI Overview brand visibility.

Factors that correlate with brand appearance in AI Overviews, ranked by Spearman correlation.

Brand web mentions	0.664
Branded anchors	0.527
Branded search volume	0.392
DR	0.326
Number of ref. domains	0.295
Branded traffic	0.274
Number of backlinks	0.218
Ad traffic	0.216
Ad cost	0.215
URL rating	0.180
Number of site pages	0.170

Source: Ahrefs (2025), based on a study of ~75,000 brands.

This, among other studies, have re-highlighted the importance of digital PR for visibility in generative AI, and not just for links, but for earning brand mentions from key websites and publications to build trust and authority too. 

While mentions are getting their time in the spotlight, digital PR shouldn’t however just ignore links all together. We know LLMs conduct searches (“queries”) to pull together a response for a user, therefore ranking on traditional search engines is important too - which is where links still come in. Therefore traditional SEO best practices aren’t going anywhere - we’re just evolving!

Digital PR vs link building

Digital PR is a form of link building, but not like in the early 2000s sense of the word - or like the ‘questionable’ tactics we still see today. Digital PR is strategic, targeted and tailored, using storytelling and content to help build links from relevant, authoritative websites (i.e. the ones you want linking to you to make a difference) over time. 

Digital PR doesn’t just focus on building a volume of links, from any website in existence - as it’s been highlighted many times by Google that this doesn't move the needle anymore. Google updates over the years have refined what the crawlers consider ‘authority signals’. 

Gary Illyes, analyst at Google, was quoted at a search conference in 2024 stating that they need few links to rank pages. 

Alongside this, Google’s internal API documentation which surfaced in the 2024 algorithm leak, suggested that the algorithm now scores inbound links based on quality, relevance, and overall trustworthiness. It also suggested that the algorithm seeks contextual relevance from links, and brand mentions - we should mention those too as the documentation highlighted that unlinked brand mentions contribute to search relevance and trust signals, something we’ve believed to be true for a while. Whilst we can’t take the leaked document as definitive, several factors do align with what we’ve seen in organic search over the years. 

This highlights that organic visibility is now driven by a blend of signals (not just links alone) which help Google assess trust and authority. To simplify this, we can break this down into a model that reflects how Google increasingly evaluates a brand.

Off-Site trust signals include: 

1. High-quality links – Links from relevant, authoritative, trustworthy sources
2. High-quality mentions – Unlinked but credible references that reinforce your brand’s identity and topical expertise
3. Contextual relevance – Coverage from publications within your target niche, demonstrating that your brand is part of the right conversations online
4. Entity consistency – Consistent spelling, naming, and context for your brand across all mentions and citations - further highlighting relevance of the content as well as the publication
5. Expert attribution – Quotes, commentary, and insights tied to real individuals supporting E-E-A-T and strengthening your brand entities.

To earn these trust signals consistently, we'd recommend sitting on the left of this scale:

Brand buildingLess links per activity

Link buildingMore links per activity

Aligned to Google’s updates and direction: aim to sit toward brand building (the left of the scale).

Building the brand’s topical authority, high focus on relevance

Outputs

• Greater brand & site relevance
• More relevant coverage (& links)
• More relevant traffic

Increasing link profile, usually a large focus on volume

Outputs

• Reduced brand & site relevance
• Less relevant links
• Less relevant traffic

By earning both coverage and mentions from authoritative sources, you’re building trust signals for both traditional search and AI-driven visibility. 

Digital PR vs traditional PR

There are many similarities between digital PR and traditional PR. After all, digital PR was born from traditional PR, and they’re both about building brand awareness and reputation. But they do differ.

Digital PR focuses predominantly on online channels, or opportunities which eventually influence online coverage, as it’s this coverage that will support SEO and benefit website performance. 

The traditional PR focuses of print coverage, events and activations aren’t usually priorities for digital PRs - because of effort vs reward, where the reward is focused on benefitting SEO, and being able to measure that. 

So, what online channels does digital PR focus on?

The main focus of digital PR is media outreach to secure brand mentions and links. Digital PR strategies for media outreach should target quality, relevant websites and publications in the brand’s niche. These will be key places that the target audience is sat online, and have the best impact in terms of building trust and authority signals to support SEO.

These could be uncovered from an analysis into which publications are writing about, and linking to, competitors, or from research into the target audience and media landscape. 

That said, a brand’s target audience is likely to sit in other places online too, such as forums, social media, on emails, etc. Therefore, wherever possible and relevant, amplifying stories through other channels where the target audience sits should also be a consideration. This can lead to further coverage or have an influence on user behaviour, which further supports SEO. 

What are the benefits of digital PR? 

Digital PR coverage (earned mentions and links) can have many benefits. At Aira we predominantly focus on the SEO side of those benefits;

• Improve topical authority and brand awareness (in Google’s/Generative AI eyes)
• Supports E-E-A-T signals - used by Google to assess quality content
• Can increase branded search - as users search for you after reading coverage
• Improves search engine rankings
• Increases visibility in generative AI
• When part of a holistic digital marketing strategy, these all lead to increased traffic, and revenue. 

At Aira, we’ve seen these benefits of digital PR, when part of a holistic strategy, on clients across a range of industries from finance and ecommerce, to travel and even B2B tech/SaaS. 

But there are brand benefits to implementing digital PR which we can’t forget too. Especially as digital PR coverage is designed to reach the target audience;

• Boosts brand awareness 
• Increases brand reputation and affiliation - helping consumers feel connected to your brand
• Can increase branded search 

These brand benefits can just be harder (or more costly) to measure, and sometimes harder to separate from other ATL activity. And it’s important to remember that without being able to separate it, we can’t claim correlation is causation. 

How do I know digital PR is right for me?

No matter your industry, you’ll know that increasing brand awareness and visibility is key. If you own or lead an online business, digital PR, and more broadly SEO, should be considered.

A number of industries, like insurance, money saving, healthcare and travel are incredibly noisy, and move quickly. If you operate in a buzzy, competitive online space, the chances are you will need to implement digital PR to be able to compete with active competitors long term. 

Some B2B industries can be quieter, with fewer relevant coverage opportunities - so even competitors aren’t featured in key titles that often. If your brand competes in this type of space, it doesn’t mean you don’t need digital PR, it just means the scale of activity will be very different.

Digital PR tends to work best for businesses that;

• Have a strong, technically sound website as a foundation. 
• Are in a position to provide expertise on a subject - this could be through data we help source or commentary (which we can guide), and should always be from a named expert.
• Have some creative freedom - we’ll always stay relevant to the brand and target audience, but if our content campaigns and stories are too branded, it’ll limit earned coverage opportunities due to being seen as advertorial. We need some creative freedom to allow innovation and to be able to create a buzz with the target audience. 
• Have limited internal restrictions around outreach - due to the speed of the news agenda and opportunities, we’re a very agile team and work quickly to capitalise on all opportunities. That said, we have worked with a number of businesses with internal red tape and legal approval processes, and helped shape internal processes too! So it can work if your internal team is willing to try something new!

If you’re still unsure, we’re always up for an initial conversation where we can help you decide if Digital PR, or perhaps one of our other services is right for you - just get in touch.  

What’s the best strategy and approach for digital PR?

There isn’t a one size fits all approach when it comes to digital PR; it highly depends on the industry, websites you want to target and your target audience.

At Aira we will run an audit of your brand website and competitors, including any challenger brands new on the scene. We will dig into your target audience (using any insights and personas you have too!), and conduct a media and cultural landscape analysis to help determine what’s being spoken about, topic gaps, and what might impact relevant opportunities i.e. seasonal or cultural hooks. 

All of this insight should be analysed to pull out the target websites, key topics for storytelling, and the tactics which are most likely to be effective. This shapes a tailored strategy and approach for each brand, which is taken into ideation sessions. 

The strongest ideas from our sessions are run through a rigorous concepting process which has been evolved over the years, to ensure only the most robust ideas move ahead to client approval. We’ll manage the production from end-to-end, producing copy and design if required, and following approval, will outreach to target online media to secure coverage. We’ll also work with relevant teams to further amplify the story across owned media.

We’ll always keep the brand up-to-date on outreach and earned media coverage. We’ll regularly review activity and feed any learnings back into the ideas and approach. 

Therefore a framework for a typical approach looks like this;

Research & auditing → Insights → Ideation → Production → Outreach → Reporting & Evaluation

Continually feeding learnings back into the insights fuelling approach and ideas

• Research and auditing - competitors and industry, target audience, media and cultural landscape 
• Analysis & Insights - Pulling out the key focuses for tactics, topics and target websites
• Ideation - Ideas which align to the findings
• Production - Storytelling, including the right elements, and ensuring the brand is positioned as an authority
• Outreach - Tailored and targeted
• Reporting and evaluation - feeding learnings back into the strategy

Which digital PR tactic is most effective for 2026?

Just like the strategy, there isn’t one leading tactic for everyone - it depends on the industry and space you’re operating in. 

However, there are several tactics we tend to rely on at Aira. And it always works best when you combine these throughout the year, and scale up and down, reacting to the landscape and what’s currently happening.

These are the tactics we tend to use most often, alongside what each tactic is and some of our favourite examples to bring these to life. 

How do you measure digital PR? What are digital PR KPIs?

PR measurement has always been a challenge. Looking back over the years, traditional PR metrics have often been criticised, from claims of having billions of eyeballs on a story/brand message, to different calculations for an equivalent cost in advertising value. 

It’s always crucial to stay as close to tangible outputs as possible, especially when looking at lead digital PR metrics and KPIs - i.e. results we know we impacted/can impact. 

For digital PR this should always be direct outputs, which are, coverage (brand mentions or links), including the quality (domain authority/rating) and relevancy scores, as well as reporting on new referring domains. Relevancy scores could also include territory/country of coverage. 

By sitting under the umbrella of SEO, Digital PR has a slightly easier job with reporting on longer term benefits. But it can still be an obstacle we need to tailor an approach to, and overcome together with the brand - to also ensure we’re delivering reporting that the brand needs internally. 

Metrics which could be reported on as longer term measures of digital PR success include;

• Search rankings and share of voice
• Brand search volumes and clicks
• Other traffic, such as referral and direct - as noreferrer link clicks can show here. You can also create a custom group channel to show traffic from AI sources. 
• Mentions or share of voice in generative AI
• Conversions/leads
• Revenue

It’s key to note, when looking at longer term reporting for digital PR and wider benefits, a lot of the time we’re discussing correlations and not causation. These should only be included if it can be confidently discussed that there’s a correlation, and there was no other big marketing activity which could have impacted this. 

How much does digital PR cost?

Packages are tailored, and therefore costs, based on your budget and/or recommended on what you need to compete in your industry space. Some brands/industries will need less activity and therefore less budget, whereas others are highly competitive, so there is no specific cost that works for all. 

At Aira, we generally work best with clients who can invest at least £3,000 a month. That said, the more you have to work with, the faster we can move, and the more we can tackle for you to help move the needle.

When we start discussing a proposal, we can suggest a couple of cost options so you can see the difference in scale. 

If you don’t quite have that much, we might still be able to help or point you in the right direction, so do still get in touch. 

To summarise on what digital PR is…

Digital PR is a marketing strategy that sits under SEO. It uses tactics to secure earned brand mentions and links, to grow brand awareness, topical authority and visibility, supporting search engine rankings and visibility in generative AI. 

With the rise of generative AI, Digital PR has become even more important as it’s a fundamental way of earning brand mentions (as well as links) in the right places, which correlates with increased visibility in these new search spaces.

Digital PR differs to traditional PR and link building, with its focus on benefitting more areas which support online performance in today’s evolved search space. 

It’s important to note that there isn’t a one size fits all approach when it comes to digital PR, or one tactic that would work for every brand; it highly depends on the industry, websites you want to target and your target audience. All digital PR strategies and approaches should therefore be tailored, and utilise a number of tactics across the year to maximise coverage opportunities.

Measuring digital PR, and the wider benefits specifically, can be challenging. We recommend sticking to tangible outputs, like coverage, quality and relevancy, as lead metrics and KPIs. Then, working together on an agreed approach to reporting on wider benefits. 

If you still have questions or would like further clarity on how a digital PR agency could support your brand, drop us a message and we’d be more than happy to chat. 

References:

• Ahrefs (2024) - AI Overview triggers study 
• Techcrunch (Oct, 2025) - ‘Sam Altman says ChatGPT has hit 800M weekly active users’ 
• Ahrefs (2025) -  AI Overview brand visibility factors study
• Google API Documentation (2024 leak) - ‘Secrets from the Algorithm: Google Search’s Internal Engineering Documentation Has Leaked’
• Search Engine Journal (April, 2024) - ‘Google Confirms Links Are Not That Important’

Frequently asked questions

A few weeks ago, I headed down to one of the biggest marketing events in the UK, brightonSEO and it made one thing very clear - the world of search is evolving faster than ever. With the sudden development and growing popularity of AI impacting the way people search, how can we continue to meet our marketing goals, and how should we be measuring success? 

After a day of note-taking and visiting as many talks as possible, I feel a lot closer to understanding what the future of search looks like. Here are some of the insights that I have taken away from the day: 

1. Limited data doesn’t have to hold you back.

When you’re running new PPC campaigns with very limited data, it can be tricky to predict what to expect, and sometimes it can feel like you only have your gut instincts to rely on and trust. But gut instincts aren’t led by useful, reliable data. In a talk by Alex Van Der Pol about how to make smarter PPC decisions using data and pattern-spotting, I learned that by analysing performance patterns from similar campaigns, you can create data-backed benchmarks instead of relying on guesswork.

To decide which campaigns to use as a comparison to the one you want to predict the outcome of, you should pick an existing or historical campaign that advertises a similar product or service that followed a similar budget, strategy and timeline.

2. ChatGPT doesn’t run ads (yet), but what happens when this time comes for paid search?

Whilst Google generates 14 billion searches a day, ChatGPT is slowly but surely catching up with a giant 2.5 billion searches. ChatGPT still has some way to go before it becomes the world's most popular search engine, but it is safe to say that it’s capturing the attention of audiences globally and creating a buzz in the marketing world. 

During his talk, Ashley Fletcher gave us an insight into how ChatGPT generates its results, and it is entirely reliant on content relevancy. And to create more of a challenge for marketers, every search result is completely unique. Looking forward, we should all be thinking - how can we optimise for an experience that is different every time?

3. Understanding the way audiences use search platforms is key to investing in the right channels. 

One of my favourite insights that I took away from Brighton SEO was from Becky Simms’ talk on the psychology of search behaviour. We often decide which platforms to optimise based on the demographics of our audience and their needs, but we need to start putting as much focus into the intent of the search. Why did they search on this platform, and what do they expect from the results? For example, audiences may search on TikTok or Instagram to get quick results that they don’t need to spend time researching, or they are simply looking for inspiration. However, audiences who are searching for answers on platforms such as Tripadvisor or Reddit are expecting to take more time to research and are often seeking validation from other users. 

Overall, the takeaway here is that we cannot force one platform to do it all. Each platform serves its own purpose, and brands that can show up for each of these purposes on the appropriate platforms will win the audience's attention and trust.

4. Users aren’t just sticking to one platform. So neither should we when creating a marketing campaign. 

Following on from the point above, when listening to the talk on the psychology of search, I also learned that most web users under the age of 44 are using around 5 platforms to collect information on their queries. And over 55s are using 2 platforms. Meaning your audience isn’t solely “on Google”, they’re everywhere. Brands are missing out on opportunities by only prioritising one platform.

This talk highlighted that audiences will subconsciously develop a preference for things, people, or ideas that they are more exposed to as they become more familiar with them. So all in all, the more exposure and brand awareness you can gain, the more you will maximise your performance. 

5. It’s time to rethink our lead forms.

During my day in Brighton, there were only a handful of talks that didn’t mention AI. Most of these talks focused instead on the classic lead form. We all know that most users don’t enjoy filling out online forms, which means that we need to make their journey as easy as possible to get them to complete the form and to decrease our form abandonment rates. 

Charlie Marchant’s talk gave me some great tips on how we can improve our conversion rates on forms; one of these was that having a multi-step form can make complex offers feel much less overwhelming for users.

Another great tip was to include the more difficult questions at the end of the form. This makes users less likely to abandon the form as they aren’t intimidated by them at the start of the form, making them less likely to complete all the steps. 

Lastly, the talk made clear from case studies that relevancy drives conversions. So we should be tailoring both forms and landing pages to the types of leads that we are aiming to generate. 

The Big Picture:

This year, brightonSEO really proved that AI is changing the way people search and how we marketers need to adapt to these changes if we want to continue seeing successful results, whether that’s in SEO, PPC or CRO.  We can change our key performance indicators, we can optimise our content relevancy to suit AI platforms, and we can build a larger brand presence across multiple platforms instead of just prioritising one. Algorithms and search platforms will continue to evolve. But one thing will always stay the same - we need to cater to our audience’s needs first and remember the user behind the search. 

When you're trying to coax the maximum number of "right" eyeballs to your website, pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO) are often treated as estranged cousins at a family reunion. Big mistake. Combining PPC and SEO efforts is far more effective and creates a cohesive marketing strategy that accelerates results by leaning on each other. We call it Blended Search. Here's how it works.

Why PPC and SEO strategies are a powerful combination

Boost search engine results page (SERP) visibility

Achieving high search engine visibility for your website is always the goal, right? Yet, Google is perpetually updating the search engine results pages experience. This means your hard-won organic keyword rankings are increasingly nudged downwards by Google’s latest obsession. That could be:

• AI overviews 
• Featured snippets 
• Knowledge graphs 
• "People Also Ask" boxes 
• Images 
• Videos
• News results
• Shopping results
• Maps

Oh, and who could forget those rather prominent paid search ads? Hint, hint.

Google’s consistent updates are changing the way we think about SEO. Because to truly maximise your website's visibility, it needs to be unmissable in the SERPs - which is becoming increasingly difficult.

However, by integrating PPC and SEO, you don’t just increase your brand’s prominence; you give it the best possible chance of appearing at the top of the search engine results pages.

How PPC and SEO data inform each other

Here's where the magic truly happens. Data from both PPC and SEO tools, when fused, creates a richer, more focused search marketing strategy. It allows you to attract the right users at the right time.

Let’s take the search terms report from Google Ads as an example. It’s a juicy list of relevant search terms that triggered a PPC ad and resulted in clicks through to your website. This information is invaluable for informing your SEO keyword priorities and gives you a head start in understanding what users are actually searching for. The PPC data gleaned here is, to put it mildly, invaluable to your SEO strategy.

Google Ads also allows for the kind of multivariate testing of PPC keywords, titles, and descriptions that would make an SEO specialist weep with joy at its speed, quickly revealing which variations drive higher click-through rates and conversions.

You can use PPC campaigns to test potential organic keyword targets to see if they're worth the long-term SEO investment. This is a much faster method than traditional SEO split testing. The insights from both SEO and PPC data are truly invaluable to both teams. This harmonious exchange of PPC and SEO data is what makes combined PPC and SEO strategies so potent.

Focus on effective strategies and eliminate digital duplication

The data gleaned from your PPC campaigns provides a valuable head start for your SEO strategy. You can instantly pivot to focus on topic areas that are already driving clicks and conversions, then expand on them with clever content clusters and targeted pages.

Prioritising relevant keywords and ad copy that boast high click-through rates gives your team a clear indication of strong user engagement. What proves effective for PPC ads can directly guide your SEO efforts. While direct copying and pasting isn't recommended (we're not barbarians), do consider the tone, style, and PPC keywords that are attracting attention from potential users.

For example, your most effective ad copy from your PPC campaigns can inspire fresh title tags for organic content, and engaging PPC ad descriptions could form the basis of compelling meta descriptions. There's no need for your teams to reinvent the wheel. This integrated approach enhances your digital marketing strategy simply by adding an SEO spoke to the well-established paid search wheel.

Structure your strategy: the long game meets the immediate win

SEO often involves a delightful "slow burn," with results that build value over time. PPC, on the other hand, can provide immediate visibility at the very top of the search results page.

This means that PPC can strategically support your SEO efforts by quickly securing visibility for your target keywords while you work on producing content and optimising on-page elements to increase your organic search reach. 

SEO can also strategically support PPC campaigns by producing supporting organic content for long-tail cluster topics. These targets are more than likely not suitable for PPC campaigns due to their position in the customer journey, but still offer audiences important and valuable information before they make a purchase. 

Additional benefits of integrated SEO and PPC strategies – the unseen upsides

Enhanced remarketing opportunities: The art of the second chance

Combining PPC and SEO creates genuinely powerful efficiencies and remarketing opportunities. For example:

• PPC can target users who found your site through organic search but didn't convert: You can set up remarketing ad campaigns to re-engage users who visited specific pages via organic search results but, for whatever reason, didn't complete a desired action (e.g., a purchase, a sign-up).
• Organic content nurtures leads for PPC: Users who discover your brand through informative organic content might not be ready to convert immediately. Remarketing ads can then serve them targeted display ads later, pushing them (gently, of course) further down the sales funnel.

SEO builds the initial interest, and PPC capitalises on it, making your search marketing much more effective. This interplay is the hallmark of intelligent PPC and SEO strategies.

Complementary keyword strategy: the two sides of the same coin

PPC and SEO keywords truly complement each other with the right strategy; here's how:

• Protecting branded terms: PPC can act as a vigilant guard dog, protecting your branded relevant keywords from competitors bidding on them. This ensures your brand always appears at the top for its own search results, even if your organic rankings aren't always number one. 
• Filling in organic gaps: PPC can quickly target valuable PPC keywords where your organic rankings are a bit weaker or non-existent at the moment. It drives immediate traffic while your SEO strategy works to improve organic search results visibility for those terms. It's a strategic placeholder, ensuring no valuable traffic is lost.
• Discovering new opportunities: PPC testing can uncover new, high-converting long-tail relevant keywords that SEO can then build content around, expanding your overall organic search reach and boosting organic traffic. This combined approach is key for maximising your presence across the search engine.

Cost-effectiveness and ROI:

If you're thinking, "This marketing strategy sounds great, I bet it’s expensive", good news, it doesn't have to be. In fact, it can actually work out cheaper in the long run. Here’s how to make this strategy as cost-effective as possible: 

• • Optimising ad spend: Insights from SEO (e.g., knowing which organic keywords are already driving significant organic traffic) can help refine PPC campaigns, so you are not bidding on keywords that you already rank for organically. This smart use of data significantly improves budget efficiency.
  • Maximising lifetime value: The combined efforts of both SEO and paid search lead to more opportunities to reach your target audience, especially when you use remarketing ads for people who have reached you organically. This can result in better conversion rates and, crucially, a higher customer lifetime value. Ultimately, this dramatically improves overall ROI for your entire search marketing endeavour.
  • Long-term vs. short-term gains: While PPC ads offer immediate, gratifying results, SEO provides sustainable, long-term organic traffic. Using both SEO and paid search balances short-term gains with long-term growth.

• Marketing efficiency: With SEO and Paid teams working together, they will be communicating about what's working, what's not and where budget should be spent and where it shouldn't. So, rather than throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks, teams can work together to maximise results and spend budget where it will have the biggest impact.

The symphony of search: When paid search and SEO work together

Ultimately, treating PPC and SEO strategies as separate, siloed entities is a missed opportunity. Which is why we developed Blended Search. By integrating search marketing strategies and leveraging the insights from each, you can create a robust, resilient, and highly effective digital search engine ecosystem that consistently drives relevant traffic, enhances brand authority, and maximises return on investment.

As Matt, our humble leader, said on the Future of Search webinar recently, "it's not just about doing more; it's about doing more, smarter". This integrated PPC and SEO performance approach is the smarter strategy. We call it Blended Search, and it's the future of digital marketing.

To learn more about the Blended Search approach, get in touch.