One of the many features of internet marketing is that most of what we do is highly measurable. We can tell you how many people visited your web site, how many people received your email, and how many people clicked on your advert. But how do you evaluate online PR? In traditional 'offline' PR, a simple formula based on the cost per column inch is used, but online, where you can't buy advertising by the column inch, it becomes more tricky. We've devised a formula for clients which calculates a rough Equivalent Media Value (EMV) for each campaign, allowing them to see what value we're achieving for them, and allowing them to compare one online PR campaign to the next.

And it's not just clients who've found it useful. We're now able to look at every piece of coverage we're getting for clients, and work out whether it's worth the effort, and going forward, to focus on those deals which give our clients the greatest overall value. Since we started using the PR Calculator, the average value of online campaigns we deliver for clients has more than doubled. We're the only online marketing company in the UK to evaluate our online PR activity in this way.