Over the past decade the blogosphere has grown exponentially and it’s not looking to stop anytime soon.
As influencers play a more significant role in integrated PR campaigns, the need to assess and gauge the campaign attribution i.e. delivering on KPIs and RoI, has also increased; especially where budget has been assigned.
To date, PRs and digital marketers have been confined to evaluating influence based upon limited metrics such as: social following, comment counts, or relying on the blogger to provide accurate and current data on blog performance. Unfortunately, this model of assessment is not as effective as you may think. Highlighted below are a few examples that can lead to a false representation of data:
- Blog comment contests
- Plugins that reward those who comment on posts
- Buying fake followers / engagements
- Participating in follow schemes
- Bot generated content / engagements
Such tactics render the blogger community somewhat of a minefield to navigate and this, in turn, poses a genuine problem for PRs and digital marketers; making it harder than ever to assess right-fit bloggers. For this, independent moderation is called for.
There are of course measures that can be employed with the assistance of Moz, Alexa or SimilarWeb.
If you’ve spent any time working with bloggers, it’s likely you’ve heard the term Domain Authority (DA) bandied about. DA is a score (on a 100-point scale) developed by Moz to predict how well a website will rank on search engines; the higher the DA, the better the perceived value of that website/blog in terms of SEO. However, there are flaws in its reliability, particularly when determining the suitability of an influencer – check out our post ‘Debunking DA’.
Alexa and SimilarWeb on the other hand both provide web traffic estimations. Each service utilises data from a panel of websites to enable them to draw assessment of website views and visits, whilst this is helpful it is still only an estimate nevertheless.
There is however some positive news… a unique tool exists that helps PRs assess influence with a higher degree of accuracy – Pitch Pack™. This feature is completely free to access and forms a part of Ace Media’s intuitive tools that help PRs work smarter. It aims to bring a level of transparency to the influencer community by displaying continually up-to-date web stats and social channel following, direct from source.
Why is this so important?
For the first time, PRs and digital marketers can view and easily compare a set of impartial, verified stats across all channels.
What is Pitch Pack™
Pitch Pack™ is a media kit for bloggers in which the data has been verified by a third-party (Ace Media) to present you with a continually up-to-date overview – from a blog backgrounder and awards, through to testimonials and costs. Everything you need to know in a single dynamic web page, accessible through a live, unique web-link.
Fair ranking
A further element of Pitch Pack™ is the unique ranking system which has been developed to be fairer to bloggers and of greater value to PRs / brands.
Rather than rely upon data aggregated from other ranking platforms, by utilising directly sourced data, influencers are assessed within a more pertinent set of parameters. Read more about our fair ranking model HERE.
How it helps
Using tools such as Pitch Pack™ in tandem with the three ‘Rs’ (highlighted below), it is now possible to perform blogger due diligence and align your client with truly ‘right-fit’ candidates.
Relevance – niche, style and content
Resonance – sentiment and allegiance
Reach – readers and engagement
Generating reports on blogger campaigns
Not only can you submit Pitch Pack™ live links to clients and team members for review, but you can also incorporate resulting activity into your Acebook coverage report. Simply by inputting the URL to a resulting blog post into your Acebook, an accurate assessment of the post’s performance from impact and visitor genders, through to social interactions and backlinks count will automatically collate. Remember, these figures are not estimates, but are based upon verified data!
How to attain a blogger’s Pitch Pack™
Simply look out for the following badges on blogsites or request that the blogger submits their Pitch Pack™ URL.
If the blogger doesn’t already have a Pitch Pack™, you can send them the link to our Pitch Pack request page:
https://ace.media/pitch-pack-request
[Be sure to save this link to your clipboard for future use]
It’s completely free for bloggers to complete and it’ll ensure that you are armed with the full facts, whilst providing you with the ability to accurately report on the outcomes of your future blogger campaigns.
Alternatively, tap into our Influencer Outreach feature – a quick and easy means to source right-fit bloggers for your upcoming campaigns.
Tips & Hints 
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