Ran a data campaign last month for a home insurance brand, survey of 2,000 renters about landlord repairs. Honestly it did well: 22 articles, two nationals, a bunch of regionals picked it up from the syndication.
Then I went through the list. 6 followed links. 4 nofollow. 12 with no link at all, just “according to research by [brand]”.
I’ve emailed the journalists on the no-link ones with the usual polite “would you mind citing the source page so readers can see the methodology” note. Got 2 added so far out of 12 over a week. Nationals just don’t reply.
Questions for other PR people:
1. Do you follow up on unlinked coverage at all or just count it as brand exposure?
2. Does putting the full methodology on a dedicated page actually make journalists more likely to link, or is that a myth?
3. Anyone had luck going to the section editor instead of the writer?
Client is asking why the link count is so much lower than the coverage count and I need a better answer than “that’s how it is”.
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