40% of PR Pros are Measuring More Post-COVID, Yet 70% Still Battle Measurement Roadblocks

In some ways, this year’s global observance of Communication Measurement Month should be a bigger celebration than normal. After all, considering the nearly two-year-old pandemic, any excuse for celebration is welcome.

More than that, there’s plenty of good measurement and analytics findings from the new PRNEWS survey of 150 communicators, fielded online last month. For example, there may be a small silver lining in COVID: 40 percent of PR pros are measuring more now than prior to the pandemic’s start in March 2020 (see Chart 1).

A possible explanation is that the pandemic posed an existential threat to business. As such, budgets and margins for error tightened. In turn, there was heightened interest in measuring everything, including communication.

Chart 2 contains more good news for advocates of measurement and analytics. 64 percent of respondents say they measure earned, paid and owned media all or most of the time.

“This makes my day. If 64 percent measure most or all of the time, I have a long career in front of me,” measurement guru Katie Paine says. Add the 28 percent who say they measure them sometimes and nearly everyone’s measuring.