Hi there, and welcome to the issue #5 of the Outranked SEO newsletter.
In this issue, I’m shining a light on why cost-per-link is perhaps one of the worst metrics you could use to measure the success of investment into digital PR.
You’ll learn:
- Why cost-per-link is a misleading and dangerous KPI
- How to reframe your thinking around links and value
- Better ways to measure the real impact of digital PR on SEO success
Let’s get into it.
Digital PR ≠ link buying. So why are you still using cost-per-link as a KPI?
There’s a dangerous line of thinking that's too often taken when it comes to digital PR:
“We spent £10k on digital PR and got 20 links. That’s £500 per link. Was it worth it?”
If you measure digital PR success like this, I'm politely asking you to stop.
No, scrap that.
I'm screaming pretty loudly that you you're making a big mistake that's probably costing you growth.
Cost-per-link is always the wrong way to evaluate digital PR. It’s an attempt at applying some sort of a performance marketing mindset to a brand-building and authority-driving tactic.
It reduces the impact of a campaign down to a price-per-output number; with zero context of what the links and coverage earned actually do.
And here's the thing...
Nobody wants links or even coverage.
They might say they do. They might even think they do.
But what they actually want is the outcome that these things can bring. Things like:
- Increased brand awareness
- Referral traffic
- Increased rankings
- Sales
- Placements in sources that influence AI search
Measuring digital PR success by cost-per-link ignores the fact that a link isn't just a link.
Would you say a link from the BBC and a link from a low-traffic blog that nobody's ever heard of are of equal value just because they cost the same? Of course not. But cost-per-link makes them look identical.
It also ignores any wider impact from mentions on things like brand searches.
And don't even get me started on measuring digital PR success on things like 'cost-per-follow-link' ... that's even worse.
This is how you end up chasing volume over impact...
When you make cost-per-link your North Star, teams (whether that's in-house, an agency or a freelancer) end up optimising for the wrong outcome: more links.
Because when you focus on this, more links means cheaper links (assuming you're paying a campaign fee, monthly retainer or calculate based on the cost of your team).
That might sound efficient. But it leads to approaches that:
- Prioritise quantity over quality
- Avoid ambitious, brand-building stories in favour of “quick win” formats
- Encourage broader campaigns which are less relevant to your brand
- Don't deliver the impact you want (or need) to see
You'll end up with campaign reports that include lots of links; but likely few of which have an impact.
Meanwhile, the campaign that earned a handful of genuinely authoritative, on-brand and incredibly relevant links that also drove a shit tonne of referral traffic? That gets overlooked because the cost-per-link was “too high.”
And let's also not forget that the average number of links a campaign earns has dropped over the last few years ... but everyone's in the same boat.
Digital PR should never have been seen as a link buying tactic; it's about so much more than that.
The true value of a link is in the growth it drives, not what it cost...
Digital PR should be seen as a way to build brand signals that contribute to an increase in organic visibility, get more people searching for branded terms, drive referral traffic and more.
And this means that the right placements matter more than anything else.
But measuring success by cost-per-link isn't set up for this, at all. It's set up to reward more links, even if they do nothing.
And this then ends up giving the impression that digital PR doesn't work. When the real issue is that the wrong approach was taken, with a focus on things that don't stack up to growth.
Instead, measure what the links actually influence:
- Do they contribute to ranking improvements for target commercial terms?
- Are they contributing to an increase in brand searches?
- Are they placing your brand in front of new audiences who could become your next customer?
- Are they on sites that actually get traffic and that are topically related?
Digital PR should move the dial. But you’ll never know if you're only looking at the price tag.
The takeaway…
Cost-per-link is not a measure of value. At all.
It’s a distraction.
It tells you how much you paid, but not what you got back.
The best digital PR campaigns aren’t the ones with the lowest cost-per-link, they’re the ones that drive the highest impact on organic growth. And that comes from relevance, authority, and strategic alignment with your SEO goals.
You don’t need more links. You need better ones.
Let's move on from cost-per-link and start measuring what actually matters, yeah?
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If you learned something from this issue or it’s made you think about SEO a little differently, please consider forwarding it to someone else on your team.
I’m on a mission to make sure more SEO investment actually has an impact on real business metrics and that more SEOs master commercial awareness.
Appreciate you making it to the end; same time on Monday? Remember ... I'm doing twice-weekly sends for a few weeks as I launch Outranked!
- James Brockbank
P.S. If you ever need expert support with SEO or digital PR and want to drive results that actually matter, I’d love to chat. Let’s talk.
📌 This week’s bookmarks:
If I could only send three links to a fellow marketer this week, it’d be these…
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👋 Hi, I'm James...
Managing Director & Founder at Digitaloft.
I've spent the last 10 years building an agency that's perfectly positioned to help ambitious brands to drive real business growth from SEO and digital PR.
You might have seen me speaking at events like BrightonSEO, SMX and the International Search Summit.
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