The global PR market hit around $100 billion in 2024 and should reach $132 billion by 2029. That growth means more agencies chasing your business, all promising exceptional results. The hard part is figuring out who can actually deliver.

This guide covers what to consider, which questions to ask, and what should make you walk away.

Know What You Actually Need

Before researching agencies, get specific about your goals. Too many organisations show up saying they want "more press" or "better awareness" without defining what success means in practice.

Start with your business objectives. Launching a product? Building credibility for investors? Repositioning in a crowded market? Managing reputation damage? Each requires different skills, contacts, and approaches.

Think through your target audiences (consumers, investors, policymakers?), geographic scope, whether your sector demands specialist knowledge, your timeline, and how PR should connect to your existing marketing. The sharper your brief, the easier it becomes to judge whether an agency fits.

Set a Realistic Budget

PR pricing runs from a few thousand pounds monthly at boutique firms to six-figure retainers at global networks.

Monthly retainers are most common: a fixed fee for ongoing work, usually covering set hours or deliverables.

Project fees suit campaigns, launches, or time-limited work with clear endpoints.

Hourly billing is rarer, mostly for advisory or crisis support.

Watch out for agencies quoting suspiciously low prices. Good PR requires experienced people with real media relationships. Cut-rate fees usually mean junior staff or scattershot outreach that produces little meaningful coverage.

But expensive doesn't automatically mean better. A smaller specialist with deep expertise in your sector might outperform a generalist giant at twice the price.

Check Their Sector Experience

An agency that excels at consumer lifestyle work may flounder with B2B tech clients. A corporate comms firm might lack the edge a disruptive startup needs.

Ask for sector-specific case studies showing placements in publications your audience actually reads, work with organisations at your stage and scale, and measurable business outcomes rather than just clip counts.

Look past the wins they're proudest of. Any agency can show their best moments. Ask how they've handled challenges, shifted strategy mid-campaign, or supported clients through difficult patches. That tells you more about what working with them is actually like.

Talk to current or former clients if you can. A five-minute call often reveals things no case study will.

Find Out Who's Actually Doing the Work

The people in the pitch meeting may not be the people on your account. Agencies routinely send senior executives and their best presenters to win business, then hand accounts to junior staff once contracts are signed.

Junior team members can be talented and hardworking. But they usually lack the media relationships and strategic judgment you're paying for.

Ask directly: Who leads day-to-day? What's their background? How often will we see senior leadership? What's the team's current workload? Then request to meet the actual people who'll do the work. Chemistry with your day-to-day contacts matters more than chemistry with account directors who show up quarterly.

Assess Their Media Approach

Journalists are swamped. They receive hundreds of pitches daily. Blasting press releases to massive lists doesn't work anymore.

The best agencies build bespoke press lists for each client and story, identifying specific journalists likely to care. Ask how they research and target journalists, what their pitch process looks like, and how they maintain relationships with key contacts over time.

Be sceptical of agencies fixated on volume: releases distributed, database size, total impressions. Those numbers tell you nothing about whether coverage reached the right people or moved anyone to act.

Understand Modern PR

The landscape has shifted. Your agency should demonstrate fluency in these areas.

The creator economy. Influencers, newsletter writers, and independent creators have become legitimate PR channels. The creator economy reached $250 billion in 2024, and these voices often command more trust than traditional outlets with certain audiences. A good agency approaches creator relationships with the same strategic care as journalist relationships.

Generative engine optimisation. "Zero-click" search behaviour rose from 56% to 69% between 2024 and 2025. People increasingly get information about companies from AI-generated summaries without clicking through to sources. Forward-thinking agencies work on "narrative intelligence," shaping brand stories across digital touchpoints to influence how AI tools describe their clients. Ask how prospective agencies think about this.

Integration. PR doesn't exist in a vacuum. The strongest campaigns connect with content marketing, social media, paid advertising. Does the agency want to understand your full marketing picture? Will they collaborate with other agencies or internal teams? Can they show integrated work they've done?

Demand Real Measurement

The industry has moved past vanity metrics. Advertising Value Equivalency, which assigned monetary value to coverage based on ad rates, is dead. The AMEC Barcelona Principles explicitly state that AVEs are not the value of communication. Any agency still pushing AVEs is behind.

Look for focus on outcomes: share of voice against competitors, message penetration in coverage, audience quality, traceable website traffic and conversions, brand perception shifts, lead generation.

Discuss measurement early. A good agency should explain how they'll track progress, what benchmarks apply, and how reporting will connect PR work to your business goals.

Consider Crisis Readiness

Even if crisis comms isn't your primary need, ask about it. Reputation threats rarely announce themselves. Having a partner who knows your business and can respond fast is valuable.

Ask whether they have crisis experience in your sector, what their response process looks like, whether they offer round-the-clock support, and if they provide scenario planning or preparedness work. You don't need a crisis specialist on retainer. You just need confidence your agency can step up if something goes wrong.

Run a Proper Selection Process

Shortlist three to five agencies. More becomes unmanageable. Gather recommendations, check directories, research firms that have worked with similar organisations.

Issue a written brief covering your business, objectives, audiences, timeline, and budget range. Everyone responding to the same information makes comparison easier.

Evaluate proposals for substance, not polish. Does it show genuine understanding of your situation? Are strategies specific or boilerplate? Do they ask questions that reveal strategic thinking?

Meet in person or by video. Notice how they listen, whether they push back on your assumptions, whether you could imagine working closely with them for a year or more.

Check references. Ask about responsiveness, strategic input, results, and how challenges were handled. Look for patterns.

Clarify contracts before signing: notice periods, scope change processes, who owns relationships and content, what happens if key people leave.

Red Flags

Guaranteed coverage. No credible agency can promise specific placements. Journalists make editorial decisions, not PR people.

Obsession with vanity metrics. Agencies focused on impressions, distribution volume, or AVEs may be prioritising activity over impact.

Evasiveness about the team. If they won't say who's actually working on your account, worry.

Cookie-cutter strategies. Your approach should be tailored, not recycled from another client.

Slow responses during the pitch. If they're hard to reach when trying to win your business, imagine later.

Can't explain measurement. Agencies that can't articulate how they'll track success probably aren't focused on it.

Making the Call

After all the evaluation, the decision usually comes down to capability plus chemistry. The right agency should have relevant experience, strategic depth, the right team, and measurement that aligns with your goals.

But the human element matters just as much. You'll work closely with these people, share sensitive information, trust them to represent your brand. Pick an agency that feels like a partner, one that challenges your thinking, communicates openly, and cares about results as much as you do.

The time you invest now pays off across the entire relationship.