By James Calloway

84% of B2B technology marketing and communications leaders say earned media and content measurement sometimes or very often affects strategy or budget decisions. Only 49% say they're very confident in the accuracy and completeness of their communications data.

Those two figures come from 10Fold's 2026 Integrated Communications Survey of 400 B2B tech marketing and comms leaders. The gap between them is the story. Data is already moving budgets — and half the room isn't sure the data is right.

Susan Thomas, CEO at 10Fold, frames the stakes plainly: when a CEO asks whether PR deserves more investment, "the job is not to produce the biggest number we can find. It is to make the strongest claim that evidence can credibly support."

The industry's problem isn't a shortage of numbers. It's a connection problem.

What's broken in PR measurement?

Only 35% of leaders surveyed have fully integrated reporting across earned media, paid social, content and digital channels. Without that integration, teams can't follow what happens after someone encounters the company through an article, a social post or a piece of content.

What counts as meaningful also depends on the objective. A company entering a new category needs to know whether credible publications accurately explain its point of view. An established player cares more about whether communications drives engagement and inquiries from target buyers.

In both cases, Thomas argues, a placement is the beginning of the measurement story — not the end.

How far should the evidence go?

The recommended path runs from visibility to trust, action and, ultimately, business growth. A contributed article read by prospective buyers establishes visibility. Accurate treatment of the company's expertise provides third-party validation. Tagged website visits show an observable action. If those visitors later request information or enter a sales conversation, the evidence strengthens at each step.

But teams don't need a straight line to revenue before reporting anything meaningful. They need precision about what they know. Thomas's example: if an article generated 500 tracked visits, say exactly that. Don't automatically relabel those visits as "PR-generated pipeline."

Which methods are teams actually using?

The survey breaks down how leaders connect communications to outcomes:

• 43% use multi-touch attribution
• 25% use correlation or directional analysis
• 18% use first-touch attribution
• 8% rely on anecdotal or qualitative evidence

These methods aren't interchangeable, and each supports a different claim. A tagged link identifies the source of a tracked visit. First-touch attribution identifies the first recorded interaction. Multi-touch attribution shows communications played a role among several interactions.

Correlation deserves special care. If media coverage and branded search rise together, that pattern may point to a relationship worth investigating — it does not prove causation. And a buyer who says an article helped them understand the company offers context no dashboard can.

The discipline shows up in the wording. Take a typical quarterly-report line: "The PR program drove increased buyer demand and pipeline." If the evidence only shows earned coverage generated tracked website traffic while branded search increased, the defensible version reads: "Earned coverage generated tracked website visits during a period of increased branded search. Our next step is determining whether those visitors converted into inquiries from target buyers."

The second version sounds less dramatic. It's also far more credible — and more useful.

What should replace a new ROI formula?

Thomas's answer: not another universal ROI formula, but discipline around evidence. Before a result goes into an executive report, she says to ask four questions:

• What did we observe?
• How did we measure it?
• What conclusion does that evidence support?
• What remains uncertain?

Then use the answers to find the next link in the buyer journey.

The risk of skipping this is concrete. Overstate causation often enough, and the C-suite stops trusting the story. Match the claim to the evidence, and measurement becomes something more valuable: a guide to what the business should do next.