THE DIGITAL PR OBSERVER NEWSLETTER ISSUE 85

Hey everyone. Welcome to Issue 85 of The Digital PR Observer Newsletter.

If you missed last week’s issue, or any others, you can always catch previous issues of The Digital PR Observer Newsletter here.

Here’s what you’ll get in this newsletter:

• The latest Digital PR news and resources

• 5 quick fire tips to enhance your Digital PR activity

• 5 data sources you can use for Digital PR campaigns

• 5 successful campaigns from the archives

If you're not already signed up, you can do so at using the button below.

The latest post on Digital PR Tips comes from Becky Green, Director at Aura PR - The Real Reason AI Search Is Rewriting PR Strategy

There’s also my roundup of The Best Halloween PR Campaigns

And the roundup of Digital PR Learning Resources You May Have Missed From September

Want to contribute a post of your own to the Digital PR Tips blog?

If you have an idea for a topic that you want to write about, please fill in this quick form here.

Here is the latest Digital PR news and resources from the last week that you might have missed.

Connective3: Digital PR and AI visibility: What 3,500 links tell us about brand visibility in AI

Get Featured: How to create and pitch great campaign ideas

The PR Insider: Behind the Brand: Courtney Rogers on building a global PR strategy at Hotel Chocolat

Go Fish Digital: What 4,599 ChatGPT Responses Reveal

Ahrefs: 69% of Marketers Are Publishing More AI Content Than Last Year (New Research Report)

Jack Nesbitt on LinkedIn: Most AI visibility tools test from a logged-out session, with no history and no memory, then report that answer as what your customers see. That isn't how most people use AI.

Shakira Sacks on LinkedIn: Before I sign off on or go ahead with pitching a PR campaign, there are a few questions I always come back to

Sean Fitzsimons on LinkedIn: ChatGPT doesn't cite the same page for long. The average page is cited 40% as often a week after it first appears in an answer.

Press Gazette: Fresh redundancies at Future as tech brands hurt by AI Overviews

The Verge: Judge dismisses antitrust lawsuits over Google’s AI Overviews

Google: How Search Quality Raters Define Page Quality

Distinctly Discuss Podcast: “Are stunt campaigns dead?” w/ Mark Rofe

BuzzStream Podcast: The Return of Traditional Marketing Tactics with Billy Wright

Digital PR Explained Podcast: Cabotage? That’s the Whole Subject Line w/ Alex Lockie

MerseySearch Event: Tuesday 3rd November 2026

Five quick fire Digital PR tips to help make you better and more efficient at getting SEO results via Digital PR:

1️⃣ Tracking brand metrics might be an important part of your reporting. If you're working with/for a big enough brand, you might be able to track brand metrics for them via YouGov - https://yougov.com/en-gb/business/products/brandindex

2️⃣ YouGov's brand index is also a great tool for getting audience demographic and behaviour data. This can also be used to research how your target audience feel about different topics to tailor your campaign ideas and strategy around these insights.

3️⃣ Getting brand metrics doesn't have to require an expensive tool like YouGov either. You can do your own surveys asking a representative sample size questions to measure brand awareness, perceptions, intent to purchase, etc.

4️⃣ Survey providers can be a great resource of campaign inspo. Many of them publish surveys they've conducted on their blogs, e.g. https://talkerresearch.com/newsroom/. Obviously don't copy existing surveys but looking through them can be great inspo for sparking your own ideas.

5️⃣ Understand what the objective of your campaign is. This should be more than just "build links". How do you want it to make the reader feel? What audience is it targeting? How will this impact brand perceptions? What is the impact on other channels?

Each week I’ll be sharing five data sources that you can use, either for content inspo, or as data sources for your campaigns.

1️⃣ American Time Use Survey

The Time Use Survey produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is an incredible resource for researching how different demo groups of Americans spend their time doing various activities, such as paid work, childcare, volunteering, and socialising. There is a UK Time Use Survey but unfortunately it hasn’t been updated since 2024.

2️⃣ U.S. Consumer Expenditure Surveys

Here’s another really interesting and potentially very valuable resource from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This dataset provides data on expenditures, income, and demographic characteristics of consumers in the United States. A great resource for researching what Americans spend their money on and how trends differ between states.

3️⃣ Real GDP per Capita of EU Countries

Eurostat is a great resource for datasets that cover all EU countries. This one tracks the inflation adjusted GDP of each nation weighted against their population. Data goes from 2000-2025 which gives plenty of historical insights and comparisons.

4️⃣ U.S. Business Formation Statistics

This dataset tracks the number of new businesses created in America for each month of the year dated back to 2004. The data is updated pretty regularly with the most recent data as current as August 2026. Using the filters at the top you can also get a breakdown by state.

5️⃣ Sleep and Dream Database

A niche one to end with. The Sleep and Dream Database is an archive of over 44,000 user submitted dream reports and surveys to discover patterns of sleep and dreaming.

In this next section, I take a look at five campaigns from my archive of campaign inspo, with some quick fire analysis of what I liked about them and what made them work. Referring Domains (RDs) figures are taken from ahrefs.

1️⃣ 2026 UK Sex Map by Lovehoney

📊 53 RDs, 33 DR 50+

Two of my favourite campaign formats are annual reports and internal data campaigns. Lovehoney’s annual UK Sex Map campaign is a combination of the two, using their internal sales data to create this whopping report. For me this is one of the very best examples of how to create an annual report due to sheer scale of the insights and the fantastic production of the campaign page.

One of the most impressive aspects of the report is how many regional insights Lovehoney manage to pull into each report. The reward of that is clear to see within the coverage and backlinks earned. The 2026 report was only released a couple of months ago and it’s been covered by virtually every major regional title, and not via a syndication but unique stories tailored to each specific region.

2️⃣ Finding the UK's Largest and Smallest Feet by shoezone

📊 7 RDs, 4 DR 50+

From one campaign that’s all about size to another one, this time making the seamless transition from dildos to shoes. Last year shoezone analysed their internal sales data to reveal the average shoe size brought by men and women in different UK cities.

From a data point of view it’s an interesting piece of research but I also think it’s really good from a story angle. It has a nice blend of interesting to the reader while also being a bit goofy and creating some silly headlines such as “Hull men have 'smallest feet in England' says shoe retailer”. PR can and should be fun sometimes.

The study found that the men with the largest feet live in Armagh and the women with the largest feet live in Lichfield.

3️⃣ The Most Dangerous Day of the Year to Drive by Admiral

Another campaign format that I’m a big fan of is data studies which reveal the top day for certain events. This is a successful example of the format done by Admiral who used their internal insurance claims data to reveal the most dangerous days of the year for drivers. The study found that 18th January is the most dangerous day. Furthermore, all of the top 10 dates come between November 30th and March 1st.

The biggest benefit of this format is the ability to make a story massively newsworthy on a specific date. This one works especially well as you can lean into the danger elements of the story to warn people ahead of the most dangerous date.

The campaign regularly earned coverage in January from 2020-2022. What I found interesting looking at the campaign coverage is that it looks like Admiral originally ran this campaign in 2008! A great example of how campaigns that worked in the past are likely to work again in the future too.

4️⃣ The most and least affordable cars to run by Self Financial

📊 65 RDs, 26 DR 50+

Moving next to another campaign that is both a useful resource for drivers and a very successful PR campaign. This is a really well produced data study by Self Financial who researched the average annual cost for Americans to run a car, as well as the most and least affordable car models.

The study looked at the annual fuel costs, maintenance, insurance, and fees and taxes to calculate the cost for drivers each year, finding that the most affordable car to run is a Fiat 500e and the most expensive is a Porsche 911.

The campaign page is very well produced with tons of detail and insights from their research, helping the campaign to earn links from high authority sites such as Quartz, GOBankingRates, and MotorBiscuit.

5️⃣ Halloween Trends Unwrapped by DoorDash

📊 65 RDs, 23 DR 50+

Here’s another really well done example of the valuable and newsworthy insights that brands can pull from their internal data. In 2026, DoorDash analysed their sales trends from the previous year to reveal the top candies that America were buying for Halloween, with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups taking top spot.

Campaigns built around your own data are great for not just finding original insights that other brands won't be able to replicate but also for establishing topical authority. As SEOs we often think about this in terms of how it influences search rankings but it can also influence buyer behaviour too. Customers see stories like this covered in the news and if it happens often enough over time they'll start to associate the brand with the product.

While one big campaign that gets lots of coverage can start to create those positive brand associations and perceptions, achieving it multiple times over a consistent time period is when you'll see the best results. DoorDash also published the same report for 2024 and 2025. The 2024 report earned links from 27 referring domains, with 93 linking domains for the 2025 report and already on 65 at the start of October for the 2026 report. Another example of how annual report campaigns can be the greatest hack for landing coverage, and produced stronger results the more that you do.

And that’s a wrap for Issue 85. Same time again next week ✌️

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Each week in the newsletter, you’ll get:

• The latest Digital PR news and resources

• 5 tips to enhance your Digital PR activity

• 5 data sources you can use for Digital PR campaigns

• 5 successful campaigns that we liked

If you’ve missed any previous editions of the newsletter, you can go through the archive of issues on the Digital PR Tips website.

Have any feedback for the newsletter? Anything you liked, disliked, or want to see more of? Send an email to matt@digitalprtips.com and let me know 🙂