People also ask
In practice
Digital PR earns links as a by-product of coverage: a data story a journalist picks up, a founder quoted in an industry piece, a survey that lands in newsletters. The asset comes first (a study, a dataset, a strong opinion), then the pitching, then whatever coverage follows. Any links that come with it sit inside editorial articles, which is why the good ones are worth so much.
At its best, digital PR produces links that money cannot buy: top-tier media, genuine editorial context, and a mention that readers and search engines both treat as independent. At its worst it produces months of asset development, pitching and silence, with a handful of links on domains whose relevance to the product category is thin.
The variance is the defining trait. Outcomes depend on editorial interest, news cycles and timing, which makes them hard to promise, hard to price and hard to repeat on a schedule. That is the honest contrast with placement-based link building, where a specific page is chosen in advance, qualified and agreed with the publisher, and the result can be planned and checked.
For software companies the two approaches meet in one place: the pages that buyers and AI answer engines actually read. A quote in a well-read industry article is a brand mention, and a mention in a review roundup or an “alternatives to X” page does similar work. Brand mentions on those pages can be planned and measured, while coverage from a press campaign cannot be planned to the same degree.
If digital PR is part of a programme, measure it separately: coverage won, referring domains added, relevance of those domains, and whether the coverage lands on pages your buyers see. Treat volume as a by-product, never as the target.
See also: Data stories vs link placements, Editorial link vs paid placement, Editorial links.
