Should a growing company spend on PR or on ads?
Ads and PR both cost money, and founders are right to ask which one earns it back. The short answer: an ad works for as long as you keep paying, and an article keeps working after it’s published. Most growing companies need some of both, in the right order.
What you are paying for
With advertising you rent a slot. You pick the audience, the message and the budget, and you can count clicks the same afternoon. When the budget stops, the traffic stops with it.
With PR you’re paying for an editor to decide your story is worth their readers’ time. You give up some control over timing and wording. In return you get something no ad can buy: an outside publication vouching for you, on a page that stays online.
Where ads win
Ads are the better tool when you need volume fast and already know what converts. A tested offer, a clear price and a buyer who is ready today. You can turn spend up or down and see the effect within days, and you can test ten versions of a message in a week.
Where they struggle is trust. Every reader knows an ad is the company talking about itself, and the more expensive the purchase, the less an ad alone will carry the decision.
Where PR wins
Coverage lasts. People keep finding an article months after it went live, and it does a second job for the company’s own website: links from outlets like Benzinga or IBTimes help a client’s site rank, which keeps paying off long after the article is old.
It also helps at the moments ads can’t reach. A buyer comparing three vendors, an investor checking a founder before a first meeting, a candidate deciding whether to take a call. Each of them searches, and what they find shapes the answer.
How to compare them fairly
Cost per click against cost per article doesn’t tell you much, because the two do different jobs. Three better questions:
- How long does the result last? An ad lasts as long as the budget. An article stays searchable.
- Who is saying it? The company, or a publication the reader already trusts.
- Where does it get used? Count the sales calls, investor meetings and hiring conversations where the article comes up, not only the visits it sends.
A simple way to measure PR
The oldest method still works best: ask every new lead how they found you, and write the answer down. Add a field to your contact form or CRM for it.
Two more signals are free. First, watch how many people search for your company name; Google Search Console shows this, and it’s one of the clearest signs coverage is being seen. Second, ask your sales team which articles they actually send to prospects. The ones they use are the ones that work.
The real problem with PR budgets
The fair complaint about PR is that it’s hard to know what you’re paying for. Founders who come to us from retainers usually tell the same story: monthly invoices, activity reports, and few or no articles to show for it.
A Series A SaaS founder came to us after 8 months on a retainer. He had spent $60K and had 2 small mentions. We agreed 5 placements upfront, and the first went live on Entrepreneur 34 days after he approved the topic.
With pay per placement, you know on day one what you’re getting: which outlet, what format and which time window. No monthly fees. Retainers pay for effort. We charge a fixed price per published article, agreed upfront, and refund it in full if the article doesn’t run. That makes a PR budget as easy to plan as an ad budget. We compare the two models in retainer vs. pay-per-placement PR.
Pay per placement isn’t right for everyone, though. A company that needs daily crisis handling or a full-time spokesperson needs a retainer, and we say so.
Which comes first
For most companies we’d start with a few strong articles, then advertise. Ads convert better when the person who clicks can search your name and find independent coverage. An ad with nothing behind it asks the buyer to take your word for it.
A rough order that works for many growing companies:
- Get two or three articles in outlets your buyers read.
- Put them on your website, near the contact form, and in your sales emails.
- Then run ads, and point some of them at pages where the coverage is visible.
If you’d like to see which outlets fit your story, tell us about your company. Edamame PR & Strategy works per placement, with no retainer and a full refund if we don’t deliver.