Digital PR Statistics 2025

The digital PR industry is developing faster than ever. From near constant search algorithm updates to the rise of AI which is drastically reshaping how we work, it’s never been more important for PR professionals to stay up to date.

In this blog, we unpack the key digital PR statistics for 2025. The reports and data cover industry growth, link building trends, and why relevancy and smart outreach are crucial for earning the coverage and links that matter.

What’s in this article:

PR industry growth and key trend statistics
Statistics that show why link building still matters in 2025
Statistics about digital PR budgets and tools
Statistics on the best digital PR tactics in 2025
Statistics on how to nail your pitch and outreach
Statistics on AI, tools, and the future of digital PR
Key takeaways

PR industry growth and key trend statistics:

The PR industry is growing steadily, and digital PR in particular is becoming more crucial for brands looking to stand out online. Over the past few years, brands have recognised the value of digital PR as an online marketing strategy and invested heavily to give them an edge over their competitors. These numbers show how the industry is growing:

The PR market size has grown by 6.1% in the past year, from $106.48 billion in 2024 to $112.98 billion in 2025. (The Business Research Company)
By 2032, the global digital PR service market could be worth $25.4 billion - more than double (+106.5%) compared to 2023 estimates. (Reboot Online)
Interest in digital PR is growing, with a 71% increase in the search term “digital PR” over the past 5 years worldwide. (Embryo)
Based on current trends, ‘digital PR’ will be the most searched digital PR term in the UK and the US throughout 2025, with average monthly searches of 74 and 84, respectively. (Reboot Online)

Statistics that show why link building still matters in 2025:

Building backlinks is a vital part of any SEO strategy and helps to improve your site’s visibility, credibility, and overall rankings in search results.

Around 67.5% of businesses recognise that link building significantly impacts their search engine results page (SERP) rankings. (uSERP)
A majority of SEOs (58.1%) recognise the significant impact of backlinks on search engine rankings. (SEO.AI)
93.8% of SEO experts emphasise the importance of acquiring quality links. (Demandsage)

But that’s not to say it’s a simple process. For many SEO and PR professionals it’s one of the biggest challenges - and a huge amount of online content fails to gain any backlinks at all, as these stats reveal:

94% of online content fails to gain any external backlinks, and only 2.2% successfully secures links from multiple domains. (Backlinko)
29.79% of websites have fewer than three backlinks, while a significant 55.24% lack any backlinks entirely. (Authority Hacker)
More than half of digital marketers (52.3%) find link building to be the most challenging aspect of SEO. (Authority Hacker)
Experienced link builders consistently outperform beginners, generating approximately 3.57 times more backlinks. (SEO.AI)

But when your linking strategy pays off, the results can be highly rewarding and can improve the visibility of your brand in search engine result pages (SERP), as the following statistics show:

For 90% of marketers, content pieces are the main strategy for generating more backlinks. (Moz)
The goal of building links drives content production for 89% of marketers. (Aira)
Content over 3,000 words gets 3.5 times more backlinks than shorter articles. (Backlinko)
The top-ranking page on Google typically has an average of 3.8 times more backlinks compared to pages ranking in positions 2-10. (Backlinko)
46.6% of link builders observe the influence of links on search rankings within 1-3 months. On average, it takes around 3.1 months for the impact of links on search rankings to become evident. (Authority Hacker)
Around 54% of marketers consider no-follow links valuable for their backlink profile. (uSERP)
Websites generally need 40-50 quality backlinks for moderately competitive keywords to improve rankings. (Stan Ventures)
Studies indicate that websites with a higher Domain Rating, as gauged by Ahrefs, Moz, or Semrush, typically secure higher search engine rankings. (Backlinko)
Approximately 92.3% of the top 100 ranking websites have at least one backlink, highlighting the crucial role backlinks play in achieving higher search engine rankings. (Semrush)
Nearly 94% of link builders emphasise that link quality outweighs link quantity. (Authority Hacker)
54% of businesses generate links through competitor analysis and link targeting (Aira)
Around 1 in 13 (7.83%) backlinks have a DR of 90 or above. This represented around a quarter (27.8%) more than those with a DR of less than 30. (Reboot Online)

Statistics about digital PR budgets and tools:

Behind every successful digital PR campaign is creativity, investment, and the right tools. These figures show just how much businesses are spending, and also offer a glimpse into where the digital PR landscape is heading and how AI is transforming traditional link building:

38.4% of businesses allocate $1,000 to $5,000 monthly for link building, making it the most common budget range. (uSERP)
On average, SEOs dedicate 28% of their SEO budget to link building. (Authority Hacker)
Ahrefs is the tool of choice for 55.5% of link builders. (Authority Hacker)
According to recent data, 44.2% of respondents already use AI-powered tools to enhance their link building strategies. (Editorial Link)
The adoption of AI tools in link building strategies is growing, with 47.33% of SEO professionals planning to incorporate them into their efforts over the next year. (Superlinks)
By automating competitor analysis and link monitoring, Hubspot achieved a remarkable 300% increase in link building efficiency. (AI Contentfy)

Statistics on the best digital PR tactics in 2025:

So what actually works when it comes to earning high-authority media coverage and links? These stats break down the most effective digital PR tactics and campaign approaches in 2025:

Data-led campaigns are the most popular digital PR tactic, according to 95% of industry professionals. (BuzzStream)
Expert commentary was the second most utilised PR tactic (93%). (BuzzStream)
68% of reporters prefer pitches backed by data. (Cision)

Data-led pieces and expert insights lead the way. Well-researched and authoritative statistics, figures, survey results and infographics can help press releases to stand out in journalists’ inboxes and can be the deciding factor between a press release that gets ignored and one that secures top-tier mainstream media coverage.

On average, digital PR campaigns earn links from 42 unique domains. (Digitaloft)
More than a fifth (20.62%) of backlinks acquired via digital PR sit between Ahrefs Domain Rating 70 and 79. (Reboot Online)
Almost half (48%) of backlinks analysed from 2024 generated a follow link, compared to around a third (33%) for syndicated ones. (Reboot Online)
By contrast, just under 1 in 5 (19%) backlinks gained throughout the year acquired a nofollow link. (Reboot Online)
Digital PR is the most common link building tactic used within the industry, with almost 1 in 6 (16%) specialists claiming this is their primary method of acquiring links. (uSERP)
1 In 5 (20%) industry specialists cited digital PR as their most successful link building strategy. (uSERP)
The most common industry to be represented in digital PR news across 2024 was business and the economy. This accounted for around 1 in 5 (22.2%) articles across selected English-speaking countries. (Reboot Online)

Statistics on how to nail your pitch and outreach:

Getting journalists to open, read, and run your story is a skill in itself. Journalists are extremely busy, receiving thousands of daily emails. With so much competition, your outreach needs to be effective. There can be plenty of different reasons why your pitch might get overlooked, ignored or unopened. A lengthy pitch, irrelevant content and poor subject lines can prevent a journalist from even bothering to take a look at what you’ve sent them. These numbers reveal just how competitive the inbox can be:

Only 8% of PR pitches result in media coverage. (PR Daily)
Over a quarter of PR pros pitch to journalists between 1 to 4 times a week. (Muckrack)
46% of journalists receive 6 or more pitches per day. (Muckrack)
49% of journalists rarely, or never, respond to pitches they receive. (Muckrack)
Digital PR subject lines with questions had a 13% lower open rate than those that didn’t. (Reboot Online)
Subject lines containing buzzwords had a 12% higher open rate, on average, than those that didn’t. (Reboot Online)

Relevancy is key. Taking the time to research a journalist’s previous work, and making sure the content you are pitching is appropriate, could be the difference between finding yourself blocked, or earning high-quality coverage.

73% of journalists said they only consider around 25% of pitches they receive to be relevant and valuable. (Cision)
73% of pitches are ignored as they’re not relevant to the journalist’s coverage area. (Muckrack)
64.2% of surveyed PRs confirmed that they verify a journalist’s fit by looking at recent articles. (BuzzStream)
Only 1 in 3 emails get opened by journalists. (BuzzStream)
Keep it snappy, 65% of journalists prefer pitches under 200 words. (Muckrack)
Monday is the most popular day of the week for PRs to send out pitches (24.67%). (Propel)
Pitches sent on Tuesday received the highest response rate (35.69%)‍. (Propel)
87% of journalists say they prefer receiving pitches through email. (Cision)
Approximately 4 in 5 (83%) digital PR professionals turn to media databases to find the right journalist to pitch to. (Superlinks)
(33%) of those working in digital PR believe getting a subject relevant to the journalist is the most important component when it comes to securing pitch coverage in the industry. (Superlinks)
89% of those working in digital PR believe that the most effective channel for pitching to journalists is on an individual 1:1 level and/or through email. (Superlinks)
90% of people working in digital PR will use online media to send out their campaign pitches to journalists. (Superlinks)
Just over half (54%) of digital PR employees send follow-up emails between 3-6 days after their initial outreach. (Superlinks)
60.7% said that finding relevant journalists for their campaigns has become harder in the last 12 months. (BuzzStream)
Most digital PRs (63%) follow up with journalists once, and 24.3% follow up two times. (BuzzStream)

Statistics on AI, tools, and the future of digital PR

AI is transforming how many different industries operate, and digital PR is no different. Keeping up with AI developments and staying ahead of the curve is more important than ever. Traditional tools are still playing a part, but many PR pros feel digital PR has now become more challenging, albeit more effective. We’re entering a new era of search - one where optimising for generative engines is just as important as ranking in traditional SERPs. AI powered tools like Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT are reshaping how people search for information.

Two-thirds (65%) of communications teams now use generative AI either regularly or infrequently, and 27% are considering starting to use it. (Root Digital)
57% of PRs who use AI say they use it to create the perfect campaign pitch. (Root Digital)
The most popular media list building tools are Muck Rack (39.9%), BuzzStream (38.2%), Roxhill (29.5%), Cision (26%), and BuzzSumo (24.3%). (BuzzStream)
The main problem users face (61.3%) with media list building tools is that the journalist’s information is outdated or incorrect. (BuzzStream)
In 2025, 48% of PR professionals agreed that digital PR has become even more effective. (Buzzstream)
The majority of digital PRs agree (71.7%) that digital PR is more challenging than it was 12 months ago. (BuzzStream)
Most digital PRs (70.5%) report unlinked mentions separately. (BuzzStream)
65.3% report nofollow links in their total links.(BuzzStream)
69% of marketing professionals feel excited about AI technology and its impact on their jobs. (SurveyMonkey)

While the challenges are real, the opportunity is bigger than ever for PR pros who combine creativity, technology and strategy.

Key takeaways:

Digital PR spend is rising. Brands are investing more in digital PR to boost online visibility.
Link building still works. High-quality backlinks remain crucial for SEO success.
Data-led campaigns win. Journalists want credible data and expert commentary.
AI is transforming PR. More pros are using AI tools for outreach and link building.
Relevancy is everything. Personalised, targeted pitches are key to securing coverage.

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