PR agency selection kit for B2B tech buyers

# PR agency brief — [Company]

Issued: 2026-10-23

## 1. Company

[What the company builds, who buys it, stage and revenue range.]

## 2. Business outcome this program serves

[The commercial result. Pipeline, category recognition, recruiting, an event, a raise.]

## 3. Buyer and audience

[Titles, company size, industry.]

## 4. Publications and channels that matter

[Named outlets, newsletters, analysts, podcasts. Be specific; 'tier one' is not a target.]

## 5. Competitors

[Three to five named competitors we are measured against.]

## 6. Known news in the next two quarters

[Funding, product, customers, research, executive hires. Say if there is none.]

## 7. Budget and terms

- Stage: Series A
- Expected retainer range: $12,000–$25,000 per month
- Scope: core media relations only

## 8. Reporting

[Cadence, format, and the metrics that count. We do not accept advertising value equivalency or impressions as a headline metric.]

## 9. How proposals will be scored

Each criterion is scored 1–5 and multiplied by the weight below.

| Criterion | Weight | What we are looking for |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Who actually does the work | 5 | Ask for the names and years of experience of the people on your account, not the pitch team. Get it in the contract. |
| Relevant category experience | 4 | Coverage in your buyer's publications within the last 12 months, not a logo wall from 2019. |
| Verifiable outcomes | 5 | Named clients, dated links to real articles, and a number the client agreed to publish. |
| Measurement you can audit | 4 | A stated method, a denominator, and a limitation. Reject any score whose formula is private. |
| AI and search visibility capability | 3 | Can they show how your company appears in generative answers today, and what they changed to move it? |
| Pricing transparency | 3 | A published minimum and clear contract terms. Opaque pricing usually means the number depends on how much you appear able to pay. |
| Surge capacity | 3 | What happens the week of a funding announcement, a breach, or an acquisition. Ask for a specific past example. |
| Working fit | 2 | Response times, escalation path, and whether they push back on you in the pitch. Agencies that never disagree in the sale never disagree later either. |

## 10. What will disqualify a proposal

- A guaranteed placement in a named publication — Editorial coverage cannot be guaranteed. A guarantee means paid placement, an advertorial, or a promise that will be quietly broken.
- A proprietary visibility score with no published formula — If you cannot reproduce it, you cannot audit it, and it will always improve on the agency's own dashboard.
- A ranking list the agency also publishes and appears at the top of — Self-published rankings are marketing. Ask whether the publisher recuses itself from its own scoring.
- The senior team disappears after the pitch — The most common failure in agency relationships. Name the account team in the statement of work.
- AVE or impressions as the headline metric — Advertising value equivalency has been formally rejected by the measurement bodies in the field. It measures nothing you can act on.
- A 12-month lock-in before any work has shipped — A minimum term is reasonable. A year of non-cancellable spend before the first placement is not.

## 11. What we need in the response

- The named people on the account, their years of experience, and their other accounts
- Three dated links to coverage the responding team personally secured in the last 12 months
- One example of a program that underperformed and what changed
- The measurement method, including its denominator and its stated limitation
- All-in monthly cost, minimum term, and notice period

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Template: PR Agency Selection Kit — https://www.cracklepr.com/pr-agency-selection-kit