A distribution report can look impressive and explain very little. Measurement becomes useful once you separate what was published, who could have seen it, and what happened as a result.
Three different things
- Placements: the pages where your release was published.
- Potential audience: how many people visit those sites, which is not how many read your release.
- Results: visits, enquiries, sign-ups, coverage, or whatever the announcement was meant to produce.
Start with the goal, not the report
Before the release goes out, write down what success looks like. A funding announcement might aim for investor enquiries. A product launch might aim for trial sign-ups. With the goal stated, it becomes clear which numbers matter and which are decoration.
Make your links measurable
Tag the links in your release so that your analytics can tell which visits came from it. Send readers to a page that continues the story rather than to a general homepage. Then you can count visitors, and also what those visitors did next.
Read placement reports critically
Open a sample of the placements. Check that the page exists, that the release is complete, and that the site is one your audience might actually visit. Ten relevant placements are worth more than a long list of pages nobody reads. Be cautious with large audience totals, which usually add together the whole readership of every site.
Report it in a paragraph
A useful summary is short: where the release ran, the notable placements, what traffic and enquiries followed, any independent coverage, and what you would change next time. If the summary needs a page of numbers to look good, the numbers are probably the wrong ones.
