Today, you have better options.
Share of voice, sentiment scoring, custom coverage metrics, and spokespeople analysis all tell a more accurate story than a made-up number.
The gap between what PRs deliver and what boards understand is well-documented.
A 2023 study by VansonBourne and Champion Communications found that 82% of B2B CEOs consider the PR metrics their comms director or head of comms presents to be not useful.
AMEC, the body behind the Barcelona Principles, the global standard for PR measurement, identified closing that gap as a consistent industry challenge as recently as 2025.
This guide shows you what to use instead.
Quick answer
What replaces AVE in PR measurement?
- Share of voice - what proportion of earned media in your sector mentions your brand versus competitors
- Coverage sentiment - if media coverage is positive, neutral, or negative, tracked over time
- Key message visibility - if your core messages are appearing in coverage, not just your brand name
- Spokespeople analytics - which named experts are driving your relevant earned coverage and how that compares to competitors
Key takeaways
- A 2023 study found 82% of B2B CEOs consider the PR metrics their comms director, or head of comms presents to be not useful - the measurement gap is real and board-level.
- AVE measures advertising space cost, not PR impact. It does not account for sentiment, audience relevance, or business outcomes.
- The Barcelona Principles, now in their fourth iteration (AMEC, 2025), explicitly state that AVEs should not be used and set the global standard for outcome-based PR measurement.
- Share of voice, sentiment scoring, key message visibility, and spokespeople analysis give senior stakeholders comparable, trend-based data that AVE can never do.
- The right metrics depend on your reporting audience - board reporting needs direction and business context, whilst campaign reporting needs the details in your messaging.
What is AVE, and why did the industry move on?
You’ve probably been in a meeting where someone asks, “What was the value of all that coverage?” The answer comes back as one large number. That’s AVE.
AVE works by turning media coverage into an advertising cost – the bigger the article, the bigger the number. Sounds logical. But a crisis story in The Guardian would score higher than a positive expert profile in a leading trade title read by your exact audience. AVE has no mechanism to tell the difference.
That same 2023 study found 45% of senior B2B PRs still rely on instinct and anecdote to evaluate PR performance. AVE is part of why that gap exists. It produces a number that appears meaningful but provides no basis for making strategic decisions.
AVE cannot show audience trust, key message visibility, or whether the coverage you receive supports your business goals. That is why AMEC (the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication), the PRCA, and the CIPR have formally rejected it.
of B2B CEOs say the PR metrics their CMO, comms director, or head of comms presents are not useful to them
Champion Communications / VansonBourne, 2023of senior B2B marketers use “instinct and anecdote” to evaluate PR performance
Champion Communications / VansonBourne, 20234 core problems with AVE and why PR teams moved away from it
1. It measures space, not impact
AVE tells you how much column space your coverage occupies.
It says nothing about whether your messages landed, whether the right people saw it, or whether anything changed. For example, a £2m AVE figure and a £200k AVE figure can represent identical business outcomes.
2. It treats every piece of coverage the same
Under AVE, sentiment is invisible. A damaging investigation and a glowing profile score are identical. AMEC puts it simply, AVE “measures the cost of media space and does not measure the value of PR.”
3. The numbers are inconsistent
AVE calculations vary between agencies and tools. One PR team may apply a 3x multiplier for editorial versus advertising. Another doesn’t. Two brands with near-identical coverage in the same publications can produce completely different AVE scores. There is no agreed method, which means there will be every reason to question the numbers.
4. It weakens your credibility with senior stakeholders
A large number with no clear method behind it impresses no one, least of all your board.
AVE is a significant part of the problem, as it gives your board a number they can’t interrogate using a methodology they don’t trust.
This applies regardless if you’re presenting as a CMO, comms director, communications manager, or head of PR.
| AVE | Modern metrics | Roxhill feature | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Advertising space cost | Impact, sentiment, reach, share of voice | Custom Metrics, Media Monitoring |
| Accounts for sentiment | No - treats all coverage equally | Yes - positive, neutral, negative scoring | Sentiment analysis |
| Consistency | Low - calculations vary widely | High - standardised, auditable data | Bespoke Insights |
| Board-friendly | Rarely - dismissed by finance teams | Yes - tied to business outcomes and trends | Media Monitoring Workspaces, Smart Folders |
| Competitor context | None | Built-in benchmarking | Competitor Share of Voice |
| Spokesperson tracking | None | Named expert visibility in earned coverage | Spokespeople workspace |
| Industry standard | Rejected by AMEC, PRCA, CIPR | Aligned with Barcelona Principles v4.0 | - |
8 ways to measure PR that your board will trust
Here are the metrics that give you something AVE never could – an accurate, credible picture of what your coverage is actually achieving.
1. Share of voice
Share of voice (SOV) measures the proportion of earned media coverage in your sector that mentions your brand, compared to competitors. It tells you whether you’re winning or losing the media conversation – not just how much noise you’re making.
For a board that already thinks in terms of market share, SOV translates immediately. Roxhill’s Media Monitoring tracks it across UK and global sources, with built-in competitor benchmarking.
SOV = (your brand mentions ÷ total sector mentions) × 100
2. Coverage sentiment
Sentiment analysis tells you whether your coverage is positive, neutral, or negative – and how that shifts over time. Rising sentiment alongside growing SOV tells a very different story to high volume with a declining tone. AVE cannot show that distinction.
Tip: Don’t report on a single month. Rolling three-month or six-month sentiment trends give a far clearer picture of where your brand stands in the media.
3. Key message visibility
Your campaign might be generating significant coverage. But is that coverage actually relevant and saying what you need it to say? Key message visibility tracks whether your core themes, spokespeople, and strategic messages are appearing – not just your brand name.
This is where generic proxies fall down. Custom Metrics lets you define the exact keywords and topics that matter to your campaign and track them directly.
4. Coverage quality score
A coverage quality score weights each piece of coverage by outlet tier, audience size, and sentiment to produce a single comparable number.
A feature in the trade title your clients read every morning should score higher than a brief mention in a national paper with no sectoral relevance. That’s exactly what it delivers.
5. Reach and impressions
Reach estimates how many people could have seen your coverage. Impressions measure how many times it may have been viewed, including repeat views.
Together they give you a more grounded picture of visibility than column space ever could – particularly when drawn from verified data using Roxhill media intelligence.
6. PESO attribution
The PESO Model® (Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned), created by Gini Dietrich, provides a framework for demonstrating how your earned media works alongside other channels.
If you need to demonstrate how press coverage contributed to website traffic, social amplification, or lead generation, PESO attribution is your bridge between media results and business outcomes.
Ads, sponsored content, paid amplification
Press coverage, journalist-led stories, PR results
Social media, community, influencer
Website, blog, email, brand channels
7. Custom metrics
You don’t measure success the same way as every other comms team. You shouldn’t have to.
If your priority is national broadsheets, sector trade titles, executive visibility, or coverage in specific geographies, Custom Metrics lets you build reporting around your own goals, not generic defaults.
8. Spokespeople analytics
Tracking which experts are driving your earned coverage gives you something AVE never could – something you can actually act on.
Spokespeople analytics tells you who is being quoted, in which publications, with what sentiment, and how that compares to your competitors’ voices.
That means you can prove the value of thought leadership investment, identify which voices resonate with the right journalists, and show your executives exactly how their profiles are performing.
The Spokespeople workspace tracks this across UK and international coverage, with competitor benchmarking built in.
The Barcelona Principles: the global standard for PR measurement
The Barcelona Principles are seven voluntary measurement standards, originally agreed by practitioners from 33 countries at an AMEC summit in Barcelona in 2010. Updated most recently in July 2025, they set the global standard for how PR effectiveness should be measured.
Principle six is the one that matters most here. It states explicitly that “invalid measures such as advertising value equivalents (AVEs) should not be used” – and that you should measure the contribution of your communications by its outcome and impact instead.
AMEC - The seven Barcelona Principles
- Setting clear, measurable objectives is a prerequisite for effective communication planning and evaluation.
- Defining and understanding stakeholder audiences are essential steps in planning and measurement.
- Measuring communication outcomes is recommended, not just outputs.
- Outcomes and impact should be identified for stakeholders, society, and the organisation.
- Measurement and evaluation require both qualitative and quantitative methods.
- Invalid measures such as AVEs should not be used. Measure the contribution of communication by its outcome and impact instead.
- Measurement and evaluation should be transparent, consistent, and valid.
Source: AMEC Barcelona Principles v4.0, July 2025. Originally agreed by PR practitioners from 33 countries in 2010. Now in its fourth iteration.
How to choose the right metrics for your reporting level
Not every metric lands the same way at every level of your organisation. The table below matches the right metrics to the right audience – and shows the Roxhill feature that delivers each one.
| Reporting audience | Recommended metrics | Roxhill feature |
|---|---|---|
| Board / C-suite | Share of voice trend, sentiment shift, share of search, coverage quality score | Bespoke Insights, Competitor SOV |
| Campaign reporting | Key message visibility, reach, coverage by target title, spokesperson visibility | Custom Metrics, Spokespeople workspace |
| Agency / operational | Volume by outlet, SOV by campaign, sentiment by month, competitor benchmarking | Media Monitoring dashboards |
| Comms director/Head of PR | Share of voice trend, sentiment analysis, spokesperson visibility, coverage quality score | Media Monitoring dashboards, Spokespeople workspace, Bespoke Insights |
Your board cares about direction, not volume. They want to know whether your brand visibility and market presence are improving relative to competitors – not the number of pieces of coverage you secured last month.
Media intelligence tools that support modern PR measurement
Roxhill’s media intelligence platform is built for UK and international earned media measurement, with a focus on replacing AVE with metrics that actually reflect the impact of your work.
Custom Metrics let you define your own KPIs – tracking coverage in specific titles, by keyword, by campaign theme – rather than defaulting to generic proxies. Bespoke Insights goes beyond automation with human-led analysis from the Roxhill Insights team, delivering curated summaries, board-ready reports, and media advisories in one place.
Spokespeople Share of Voice shows you which of your executives and thought leaders are winning the media conversation – and how that compares to competitors. And because Roxhill connects measurement to journalist and outlet intelligence, your measurement and your media relations sit on the same platform.
If you’re a comms director, communications manager, head of PR, or part of an agency team, Roxhill media intelligence scales to the size and complexity of your reporting needs.
Other tools to consider
| Tool | Best suited to |
|---|---|
| Onclusive | Large enterprise teams needing automated global measurement at scale. |
| CoverageBook | Agencies producing visual coverage reports quickly with automated reach and domain authority data. |
| Releasd | Teams that need clean, client-facing coverage reports rather than deep analytics. |
| Cision | Global and enterprise teams needing an all-in-one platform combining media database, press release distribution via PR Newswire, and media monitoring. |
A simple measurement framework for PR and comms teams
Four metrics. No spreadsheets. No manual calculations. Each maps directly to a Roxhill feature – so you can pull the data, build the report, and walk into that meeting with confidence.
| # | Metric | What to report and how | Roxhill feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Share of voice | Your SOV % vs top 3 competitors - rolling 3-month trend, not a single snapshot | Competitor SOV |
| 2 | Sentiment score | % positive this period vs last - direction matters more than the absolute number | Sentiment analysis |
| 3 | Key message visibility | Proportion of coverage mentioning your core messages - not just your brand name | Custom Metrics |
| 4 | Spokesperson visibility | Named expert mentions in earned coverage vs competitors - who's being quoted? | Spokespeople Analytics |
Share of voice gives you volume in context. Sentiment gives you quality. Key message visibility gives you strategic relevance. Spokesperson visibility proves your thought leadership is working.
Together, they tell the complete story that AVE never can.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does AVE stand for in PR?
AVE stands for advertising value equivalency. It calculates the supposed value of earned media coverage by comparing the space it occupies to the cost of equivalent paid advertising. The fundamental problem is that AVE measures what coverage costs to replicate as an advert, not what it achieved – it cannot tell you whether the right audience saw it, whether your messages landed, or whether it changed perceptions. It has been formally rejected by the PRCA, the CIPR, and AMEC, and is explicitly excluded from the Barcelona Principles.
Why is AVE no longer considered a reliable PR metric?
What should replace AVE in PR reporting?
The right metrics depend on your reporting audience. Boards need share of voice trend against competitors, sentiment shift over rolling quarters, and coverage quality score. Campaign reporting needs key message visibility and reach by target publication. Operational teams need volume by outlet, SOV by campaign, and sentiment by month. Each metric should tie directly to a communication objective – which is precisely what the Barcelona Principles recommend.
How do UK comms teams measure PR without AVE?
Most UK comms teams now use media intelligence platforms to track their share of voice relative to competitors, monitor sentiment trends, and build custom metrics aligned with their specific objectives. In practice, the shift involves three steps: defining what success looks like for your organisation, identifying the metrics that measure those outcomes, and choosing a platform that consistently tracks them. Spokespeople analytics and custom KPI frameworks have become particularly common among UK teams looking to move board reporting away from volume and towards strategic impact.
What are the Barcelona Principles and why do they matter for PR measurement?
The Barcelona Principles are seven measurement standards agreed by PR practitioners from 33 countries in 2010 and maintained by AMEC. Updated most recently in July 2025 with version 4.0, they establish that PR value should be measured by outcomes and business impact – not media volume or advertising cost equivalencies. Principle six states explicitly that AVEs are invalid measures and should not be used. For UK comms teams, this means board reporting built around AVE is now out of step with the global industry standard.
What is share of voice in PR and how is it calculated?
Share of voice (SOV) measures the proportion of earned media coverage in a given sector that mentions your brand, compared to competitors. It is calculated as: your brand mentions divided by total sector mentions, multiplied by 100. What matters is direction – a rising SOV trend over three to six months indicates growing earned media presence relative to competitors, even if raw volume stays flat. Roxhill’s Media Monitoring tracks share of voice across UK and global sources with competitor benchmarking built in.
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MEDIA INTELLIGENCE YOU CAN TRUST
We’re with you, every step of the way
One login. Multiple solutions.
Roxhill’s all-in-one media intelligence platform will save you time, highlight your impact, and drive your business forward.
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