Why your best PR can’t be measured (and why that’s actually fine)

Jacqueline Keidel Martinez is president & CCO at Digital HQ. 

I became a Dr. Bronner’s customer because of an Instagram Reel about their 5-to-1 salary cap.

I wasn’t won over by a discount code, a targeted ad or a review of their top-selling soap. They posted about their employe benefits and workplace philosophies, and I knew I had to try their products.

Since that day, I’ve become a loyal customer, using their soaps throughout my home. But here’s the kicker: their social media team will never be able to tie that single view to my customer lifetime value. The attribution is impossible.

And that Reel? It’s been viewed over 6 million times.

Similar posts about Dr. Bronner’s activism and employee benefits have hit nearly 9 million views. Meanwhile, marketing teams everywhere are struggling to justify reputation-building content to executives who demand measurable ROI from every dollar spent.

We’re measuring the wrong things.

The attribution trap that’s killing strategic communications

Every day, PR and marketing teams present reports filled with impressions, click-through rates, and direct conversions. Clean numbers that fit neatly into spreadsheets. But the most valuable work we do –building trust, shaping perception, creating the conditions for long-term customer loyalty — exists in the unmeasurable space between awareness and action.

American Eagle learned this lesson the expensive way with their recent Sydney Sweeney campaign disaster. They got plenty of “engagement,” the kind that destroys brand equity in real time. As I wrote previously, controversy does not equal engagement. While the controversy metrics looked impressive, once the dust settled, AE was left with unchanged market share, a stock price nowhere near its 52-week high, and the realization that they’d alienated their core Gen Z customers while attracting defenders who would never buy their jeans.

The real cost? Immeasurable reputation damage that no dashboard can capture.

Dr. Bronner’s understands what American Eagle missed: reputation isn’t just about being talked about. It’s about being trusted.

What we’re actually doing when we build reputation

Let’s get specific about what Dr. Bronner’s employee benefits actually include, because the details matter:

• Executive salaries capped at 5x the lowest paid position
• 10% salary contribution to retirement/profit-sharing
• 100% health premium coverage with no deductibles
• Daily organic vegan meals for all employees
• $7,500 childcare assistance per family
• $1,000 electric vehicle rebate

This isn’t just good HR policy. It’s strategic reputation architecture. When they post about these benefits, they’re not trying to drive immediate sales. They’re building a foundation of trust that influences every future purchasing decision their audience makes.

According to the 2024 PwC Trust in U.S. Business Survey, 93% of executives agree that earning and maintaining trust boosts their bottom line. The question isn’t whether reputation matters – it’s how to measure and justify the investment.

The measurement framework that actually captures reputation value

Brand lift studies: Track awareness and consideration shifts over time. Don’t just measure sales; measure whether values-based content increases purchase consideration across an entire product or service line.

Share of voice + sentiment analysis: Monitor not just how much you’re mentioned, but how you’re perceived compared to competitors. Quality of conversation matters more than quantity.

Customer lifetime value correlation: Track how reputation content exposure correlates with customer retention and spending. The customers who discover you through values-based content often become your most loyal advocates.

Executive visibility ROI: Measure speaking opportunities, partnership inquiries and talent acquisition that flows from thought leadership and authentic communication. These benefits compound over years, not quarters.

Crisis resilience metrics: Build reputation equity that protects you when things go wrong. Brands with strong reputations recover from crises faster and with less damage to customer relationships.

The case for the unmeasurable

The obsession with attribution is forcing brands into short-term thinking that undermines long-term success. When every activity needs to drive immediate, measurable results, we optimize for tactics that generate clicks rather than strategies that build trust.

But trust is what creates a sustainable competitive advantage. It’s what makes customers choose you when dozens of alternatives exist. It’s what makes employees want to work for you and partners want to collaborate with you.

Dr. Bronner’s gets this. Their Instagram content strategy isn’t built around driving soap sales. It’s built around reinforcing their reputation as a company that operates according to clear values. Sales follow naturally from trust (OK, OK, and a pretty fantastic product lineup I must say!).

What this means for your strategy

For marketing and PR professionals: Stop apologizing for reputation work that doesn’t have direct attribution. Start building business cases around long-term value creation. Use the measurement frameworks above to demonstrate impact, even when you can’t draw clean lines to revenue.

For executives: Understand that your most valuable investments might be the ones you can’t measure immediately. The activities that build genuine trust and connection often work in ways that exist outside traditional attribution models.

The businesses winning in the long term are the ones willing to invest in reputation even when they can’t track every dollar’s return. They understand that trust, once built, becomes a multiplier for everything else they do.

Your spreadsheet might not capture it, but your customers will.