Before diving into the KPIs every tech startup should track, it’s worth grounding ourselves in how we got here. In my first post in this series, I discussed our upcoming posts on PR measurement and how it’s evolved from success defined by clip counts and impressions to one characterized by context and impact.
But today, especially in tech, that shift matters more than ever. Startups don’t just need coverage; they need coverage that changes people’s behaviors, shapes markets, fuels growth, and aligns with business outcomes. Which brings us to the next part of the conversation: the 10 core KPIs every tech startup should use to understand whether their earned media strategy is actually working.
First, you have to start from the beginning to understand where we’re at today.
From AVE to Barcelona: A brief history of PR measurement
For decades, PR measurement died on the hill of narrowly set, legacy KPIs and metrics that changed very little over time. These “old-school” measures focused almost exclusively on outputs, including:
KPI: Coverage
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Metric: Counting clips
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Metric: Tallying potential impressions
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Metric: Tracking circulation or audience numbers
A particularly influential metric was Advertising Value Equivalents (AVE), which attempted to assign a dollar value to earned media by comparing it to the cost of equivalent advertising space or airtime. These approaches treated earned media as a proxy for paid advertising, focusing on column inches, airtime length, or estimated audience size.
Story counts, potential reach, and AVE are still used to measure PR today, despite AVE being heavily criticized as misleading and disconnected mainly from real business impact. In fact, the AMEC (International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication) explains that AVEs only measure media space cost and recently launched a “Say No to AVEs” campaign.
As journalism shifted from print to digital, and traditional news economics began a long decline, these metrics became even less effective. Digital advertising impressions were commoditized, affiliate models rose, and SEO began to reshape how content was discovered and valued. PR had to evolve alongside these changes.
From 2000-2020, U.S. newspaper weekday circulation dropped from 55.8 million to 24.2 million. Over the same period, newspaper-publisher revenue dropped by ~52 % (from ≈ $46.2 b billion in 2002 to ≈ $22.1 b billion in 2020). See “Internet Crushes Traditional Media: From Print to Digital” by US Census Bureau.
Another study found that in the U.S., employment in newspaper newsrooms was only ~40% of its 2006 level by 2020, while newspaper advertising revenue was only ~18% of its 2006 level. Researchers found that a print-edition newspaper’s advertising revenue decline was closely tied to the growth of digital platforms (e.g., Google/Facebook) which diluted pricing power for newspapers (Source).
The Barcelona Principles and the shift to outcomes
Around the 2010s, particularly following the introduction of the Barcelona Principles in 2010, PR measurement began moving from counting outputs to evaluating outcomes and impact. Modern frameworks started incorporating:
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KPI: Sentiment
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KPI: Message penetration/key message pull-through
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KPI: Quality of coverage/prominence
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KPI: Share of voice
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KPI: Digital engagement
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KPI: Referral traffic and behavior
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KPI: Business indicators, such as pipeline influence, hiring impact, or reputation lift
This shift from quantity to quality, and from impressions to impact, anchored a more strategic view of PR: that the function’s value lies not in how many articles are secured but in whether the right narratives land, shape perceptions, and support long-term business and reputation goals.
This historical progression sets the stage for the KPI framework many tech-focused PR programs use today.
Start with 5 core KPIs for tech startups and earned media
(Hopefully you’re already tracking these)
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