Digital PR

How it looks from the newsroom

Journalists do use pitches. In Muck Rack's 2026 survey of 897 journalists, 86% say at least some of their stories originate from PR pitches, but 88% immediately disregard pitches that miss their beat (Muck Rack, March 2026). Half of journalists receive more than 50 pitches a week, according to Cision's 2025 survey of more than 3,000 journalists, and a lack of relevance is the top reason for rejecting them (Cision, May 2025).

What SEOs say about it

It is the tactic SEO professionals rate highest. In Editorial.Link's survey of 518 SEO professionals, 48.6% name digital PR the most effective link-building tactic for 2026 (Editorial.Link). In Reporter Outreach's Q1 2026 survey of 500, 34% call it their best-performing tactic, and 55% once HARO and journalist sourcing are included (Reporter Outreach), as the figure below shows.

What it costs

In BuzzStream's survey of about 70 agencies and freelancers, the average digital PR contract was $5,458 a month, about half came in under $5,000, and the average cost per link was $597; agencies averaged $663 per link and freelancers $416 (BuzzStream). BuzzStream's author puts a link from top-tier and industry news sites at $1,250 to $1,500 from his own campaigns, and a typical campaign at $5,000 to $10,000 for six or seven unique linking domains, not counting syndicated copies (BuzzStream).

Coverage, links and AI answers

Not every piece of coverage carries a followed link: publishers often add nofollow or sponsored, and some mention a brand without linking at all, which is where link reclamation comes in. The mention still counts for something. Muck Rack's analysis of more than 25 million links cited by ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini found 84% of AI citations coming from earned media and 0.3% from paid or advertorial content (Muck Rack, May 2026).

How to run a campaign, from the asset to the pitch, is in the digital PR guide.