Beyond Measuring Outputs to Measuring Behavioral Outcomes: Program Recap and Takeaways

By Robin Schell, APR, Fellow PRSA

The Yankee Chapter PRSA Professional Development committee, in partnership with the Maine PR Council, held its first virtual lunch and learn of 2026 entitled, “Beyond Measuring Outputs To Measuring Behavioral Outcomes: The Latest Trends In Measurement and Evaluation,” on March 11. Nearly 40 communications and public relations professionals attended the program, moderated by Katie Delahaye Paine, Yankee Chapter’s own “Measurement Queen” and CEO of Paine Publishing. Special thanks to Katie and our esteemed panelists Angela Dwyer, VP of Insights at Fullintel; Tricia Brooks, Research Professor at the Center for Children and Families (CCF), part of the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University; and Anthony DeBery, Partner/COO of GarrandMoehlenkamp.

Key takeaways:

PR practitioners need to look beyond measuring outputs to measuring impact and outcomes. Impressions and other output measures don’t mean anything if you can’t connect them to driving impact or helping to achieve outcomes. “Instead of counting articles, look at the scientific factors that make it more likely that content reaches and influences the right audiences,” said Angela Dwyer. Tricia Brooks gave examples from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). “We moved beyond the vanity metrics to what we really wanted to know: are people enrolling? Are they re-enrolling? Accessing care? Changing risky behaviors?” Anthony DeBery told us it is “all about the bottom line” — can we show the connection to sales and the revenue generated? Dwyer pointed out we can also look at the “likelihood of behavior” as we examine trends — “over time, if X happens, then Y is the result.”
Achieving buy-in on measurement best practices from senior leadership is important, but it can be a challenge. Despite the knowledge our field has about what is important to measure, some leaders still want reports on AVE (Advertising Value Equivalency) and other antiquated measures. How do we persuade them otherwise? “I use storytelling as a technique — I find when I tell a (measurement) story about a competitor, leaders start to listen,” said Dwyer. Repeating persuasive facts also helps.
It is PR’s responsibility to have the conversation about what we are really trying to measure. Katie Paine gave the example of a financial institution that wanted to be the “most credible source of financial information.” The financial institution defined credibility as “followers on social media, customers downloading and sharing their information, and coming to their meetings.” The real question is, how do their key audiences define credibility? Is it reputation? Brand trust? Third-party endorsements?
Making a direct link to PR’s impact on the bottom line can be a challenge — because so many factors come into play that there is “no one magic metric,” said DeBery. Paine points to click-through rates and putting unique tags on communications to help make the link between PR activities and sales. She gave the example of the Atlantic City Travel Marketing Group, which had determined a correlation between downloads if its visitor guide and actual visits to Atlantic City. “We were able to put a unique tag on the PR-driven communication to see how often those communications led to a download.” She added that often PR needs to settle for “contribution” not “attribution.”
When analyzing social media impact, look at quality vs quantity. “We were analyzing the impact of social influencers to determine which ones were a better deal. Instead of looking strictly at follower numbers, we looked at comments on the posts that generated behavior — how many people said things like, “I just bought some of this (lotion) and it’s fantastic” or “I’m going out to buy some now.”
AI offers an assist, but human beings are still needed to get the job done. “AI helps us get to places faster and more efficiently and effectively,” said DeBery. “It takes us from broad places to tight places in terms of data, but then we still require human intervention. Computers don’t develop insight, but they can help you get to insights more quickly.” Brooks added that in the healthcare world, AI can help to mine large administrative data sets by listening to navigator transcripts and identifying administrative barriers and concerns that might prevent a behavior like enrollment. “In healthcare, we still need to think about things like data privacy, and equity. We need to look not just at what we’re getting out of AI, but what we’re not getting. We need to think about how to reach the disenfranchised groups that continue to stay out of the mix.”
Research is a key ingredient to really knowing your audiences. With so many potential news sources out there, PR needs to help organizations figure out “who or what is the trusted resource on this issue?” Brooks talked about targeting older, lower-income, and non-English speaking audiences — “their trusted messengers might be nurses or people that work at the food bank vs TikTok.” Even if these groups are not on social media, she points out, you still have to monitor what people are saying there, for a handle on what disinformation is out there.
Earned media still matters, but there are some new trends. According to Dwyer, “clicks are down, but news content is still cited. Content with fewer links performs better. Reach doesn’t matter, but topic prominence and content that answers questions does. PageRank still matters.” Dwyer said her own research has shown that human visuals — particularly when combined with a brand — increase engagement time. “Human visuals also make an impact with AI.” She said that the trust levels and usage levels on AI are up from even a year ago.
Relationships and trust still matter, and people still trust other people. The ability of Reddit to identify “what do people think about this” resonates. Dwyer pointed to the newsletter as a trusted resource, particularly because people have asked for that information as opposed to having it foisted upon them.
Brand equity, trust, and consistency of brand are critical. “It’s on us to show the power of building brand equity and its impact.” There are non-scientific, but behavioral ways, to show “irrational loyalty.” “It’s when a driver passes two Starbucks on the right-hand side of the road and takes a left-hand turn to get to the Dunkin Donuts on the left side,” said DeBery.

Beyond Measuring Outputs to Measuring Behavioral Outcomes: Program Recap and Takeaways

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