5 questions you should ask every PR agency before signing

1. Who is actually working on our account?
   Meet someone from the operational team before you sign—usually a Team Lead. And ask where AI fits into their process.
2. Who do you really know?
   A full contact book helps, but it’s rarely the deciding factor. Ultimately, it’s about having the right story at the right time. Besides, editorial teams change faster than any contact list.
3. What are your benchmarks, and what should we be measuring you by?
   There’s no such thing as a guaranteed article, but there are binding objectives. Clarify what counts as a placement, how reach is calculated, and whether the agency measures your visibility in AI search results.
4. How much work will we still have to do?
   There’s always a bit, especially at the start. A good agency will tell you how much in advance. They’ll take the rest off your hands: topics, copy, interview prep, and monitoring.
5. What can you do that AI can’t?
   AI handles a large portion of the routine work. What remains is strategic positioning and the intuition to know which story lands with whom and when. That is exactly what you pay an agency for.

During a sales call, you’re often won over by the sales team or, depending on the size of the agency, the management team themselves. Once you’ve signed, you may never hear from them again. Yet, good PR depends on the people who speak to journalists on your behalf every day. That’s why you should meet someone from the operational team before signing. Usually, this is a Team Lead who joins the second meeting to spar with you. Ideally, this is the person who will be managing your account. However, an agency can’t always guarantee this during the sales process, as capacity can shift before the start date.

The size of the team depends on the scope of work. With us, a Team Lead keeps everything strategically aligned. You’ll also have a dedicated point of contact as your account lead, plus further support from the team depending on your package. Usually, two to three people work on a mandate. The mix is what counts: you need senior experience for strategy, while junior consultants are often the better choice for broad media outreach because they are on the phone with journalists daily. Ideally, you get both.

A new question is where AI fits into the team. Every serious agency uses AI today; that’s not an issue. The problem arises if no one can explain which steps are automated and where humans with sound judgement are reviewing the output. We use an internal AI stack for research, pitch preparation, and topic scouting. The time saved is invested by our consultants into stories and relationships. More on this in question 5.

Ask during the sales call:

• Who is likely to manage our account? And when will we meet them?
• How many people will work on our account, and what is their level of experience?
• How many other accounts is our team managing in parallel?
• Which steps in your process are handled by AI, and who checks the results?

Having a good network within editorial offices helps. But almost every agency promises that. On its own, it doesn't say much. Journalists write when a story is relevant to their readers and arrives at the right time. A good connection opens the door, but the story still has to do the heavy lifting.

The figures are clear. In the Muck Rack State of Journalism 2026 (897 responses from journalists, January to March 2026), 88 per cent say they delete pitches immediately if they don't match their subject area. Almost half say they rarely or never receive relevant pitches. In the Cision State of the Media Report 2026 (1,899 respondents, January to February 2026), 72 per cent say that less than a quarter of pitches are relevant to their desk. A good contact won't save a bad pitch.

What's more, contact books go out of date quickly. Desks are merged, positions are cut. A study commissioned by ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio considers it possible, depending on the scenario, that the number of journalists in Germany could fall by 12 to 50 per cent by 2035 (Christian Zabel and Ulrike Rohn, presented at Medientage München in October 2026). Anyone advertising today with "We know the editorial board" might just know the one from three years ago.

So, don't ask who an agency knows. Ask what they have achieved in your industry. Ask to see articles they have placed for companies in your field, including the publication and date. Ask for references and speak to other clients. If they block you or start hedging: steer clear.

Incidentally, a lack of industry experience is not a deal-breaker. An agency that doesn't yet know your market can still be convincing. But only through the quality of their thinking: they should demonstrate in the sales call that they have understood your business model. And they should use that to build stories you wouldn't have come up with yourself.

You don't have to take our word for it that this works. You can see for yourself on our results page .

Ask during the sales call:

• Which articles have you placed for companies in our industry in the last twelve months?
• What is the first story you would tell with us, and in which publication?
• Which clients can we speak to?

PR is measurable if you define what counts beforehand. More and more agencies are working with outcome-based goals instead of timesheets. getpress started doing this in 2017; it's good that others are following suit. Even so, it's worth taking a second look at the usual promises.

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There is no such thing as a guaranteed article. But there are binding goals.

Unless it involves advertorials, journalists decide what gets published. Anyone guaranteeing you an article in a specific medium is promising something they cannot control. What a good agency can do is commit to goals, because they know from experience how many pitches it takes to secure a placement. For us, this means we agree on fixed outcome targets and define the target media together. If we don't achieve a result in time, we deliver it later.

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What counts as a clipping?

Two quotes, same price: one agency promises 24 placements a year, the other 48. Is the second one really twice as efficient? Usually, they are just counting differently. A clipping—agency jargon for a single appearance in a medium—can mean anything from a full profile to a passing mention in a subordinate clause. A good agency will therefore define a target media list with you during onboarding, and if it doesn't appear there, it doesn't count. Publications in an agency's own "magazines" certainly don't count. Also, ask whether it is purely editorial coverage. Otherwise, you will end up paying additional advertorial costs on top for each medium.

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Reach: do the maths yourself

80 million reach per quarter sounds good. The question is where the figure comes from. Media houses do not publish the reach of individual articles, only the unique users of their entire offering. For example, the digital offering of the Handelsblatt reached, according to agma DNA in January 2026, 4.99 million unique users. Only a fraction of those will see your article. We estimate the actual reach using this formula:

[Unique users per month] × 0.15 × [click-through probability]

The 0.15 comes from our own SEO analysis, in which we compared the daily and monthly user numbers of various online media. The click-through probability depends primarily on the position on the page. We conservatively set this between 0 and 0.2.

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Reputation compared to the competition

A good agency also keeps an eye on your competition. How does your reputation compare? Who is mentioned more frequently in your category, and in what tone? If this is particularly important to you right now, you can book a benchmark analysis as an add-on with us.

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New: Visibility in AI responses

Today, an article also has an impact where no one clicks. AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude base their answers heavily on editorial sources. Malte Landwehr (CPO & CMO, Peec AI) describes in our podcast narrative nowthat data-driven marketers are rediscovering PR for this very reason: as a measurable lever for citations in AI systems. Whether your brand appears there and how you stand in comparison to the competition can be measured with specialised tools. Ask an agency if they measure AI visibility and include it in their reporting.

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In the end, it’s the business that counts

Reach, clippings, and AI visibility are intermediate steps. Luisa von Kageneck (Head of PR & Communications, simpleclub) says in narrative now'Of course I look at metrics like reach, share of voice and sentiment, but that’s all just a means to an end.' The crucial factor is whether PR contributes to your goals, such as building trust during sales conversations or increasing job applications. Some teams even measure what happens before an article is published. Anja Rechtsteiner (VP Communications, Raisin) has her team measured by narrative now how often they speak with journalists, because these conversations pave the way for tomorrow’s placements.

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Ask during the sales call:

• What counts as a clipping for you, and which target media does your promise refer to?
• How do you calculate reach?
• Do you measure our visibility in AI responses, including how we compare to the competition?
• Do you look at how our reputation stands up against our competitors?
• What happens if you miss a target?

There will always be some, and a good agency will tell you in advance how much. Effective PR requires your expertise and your sign-off. They should handle everything else for you.

To be honest, you’ll need a few extra feedback loops at the start until the agency gets to know your tone and your topics. In the best-case scenario, you’ll work together for years, and the agency will feel like your outsourced press office.

This is the crucial question, especially for SMEs. Often, there’s no dedicated press department, and PR is handled alongside marketing or by the management team. In that case, you need an extension of your team that can identify and drive topics independently. Anyone who just waits for your briefing is too slow for that.

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What an agency should take off your hands

• Finding topics. Crafting stories from your data, projects, and industry developments, and pitching them to the right editorial teams. (Media relations)
• Writing copy. Guest articles, quotes, press releases, and interview responses that you only need to review and approve. (Content creation)
• Preparing for interviews. Briefings on the media outlet, the journalist, and expected questions, plus training for your spokespeople. (Interview training)
• Monitoring. Media monitoring is standard, of course. It gets more interesting when you look at how AI systems talk about you. (AI Visibility)
• Visibility beyond the press. LinkedIn for the faces of your company, usually management or C-level. Plus awards and speaking opportunities. (LinkedIn, Personal Branding, Awards, Speaker Opps)
• Proactive thinking. Spotting opportunities before you even ask. And sometimes advising against an idea if it won't deliver results. An agency that says yes to everything is just selling you time. One that pushes back is focused on results.

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What you need to provide

• Access to knowledge. Figures, projects, client testimonials: you can't build a story without the raw material.
• Time for interviews. How much depends on your package. Even so, schedule fixed blocks in your calendar for the interview itself and for preparation. Your conversation with the journalist determines how you come across. No agency can do that for you.
• Fast approvals. A quote that sits in the legal department for three days will miss the news cycle it was meant for. So, clarify the approval process before you start.

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‍Ask in the sales call:

• How much of our time do you need each month, and for what exactly?
• Who writes the copy and quotes? And how does the approval process work?
• What ideas do you bring to the table without us having to ask for them?
• When was the last time you advised a client against an idea?

The answer to this question reveals more about an agency than any list of references. AI can now do many things for which agencies used to bill hours: building media lists or writing initial drafts. Lilith Brockhaus, co-founder of O/WONDER, estimates in narrative nowthat 70 to 80 percent of PR work can be automated. She should know: her team helped develop the AI system at getpress.

At getpress, we are happy to leave those 70 to 80 percent to AI. Our philosophy is: automate where it scales, keep it human where it counts. Above all, four things count.

• Relationships. Yes, in question 2 we demystified contacts. But not relationships. A journalist trusts people who have been bringing them good stories for years and who are honest when one doesn't fit. They are less likely to trust a generic press release that screams AI. In the Cision State of the Media Report 2026 53 percent of the journalists surveyed reject AI-generated pitches.
• Experience and intuition.The gut feeling of good PR consultants is no coincidence. It is built on thousands of pitches: which story fits which editorial team right now? Added to this is the strategic assessment: does the story contribute to your positioning? Is now the right moment? Only those who understand this can tell an AI what to do. And only then can you spot when its output is off the mark.
• New ideas. A language model primarily knows what has already been written. The angle that no one has reported on yet rarely comes from "Give me ten topic ideas."
• Different perspectives. We have former journalists, PR strategists, and AI specialists working together, with different backgrounds and strengths. This results in ideas that a single person wouldn't come up with. And a single model wouldn't either.

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"We automate everything that scales. Trust is not one of those things. In a world full of AI content, 'human-made' becomes a seal of quality, and that is exactly what we work for."

Maximilian Ziche, Co-Founder & CEO, getpress 

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Two answers should make you suspicious during a sales call. "We don't use AI": then you are paying for outdated routines – in the worst case at an hourly rate. "Our AI does everything": then you are paying for something you will soon be able to do yourself.

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Ask in the sales call:

• Which of your workflows are automated?
• Where does a human make the decisions, and who is that person?
• What do you do with the time that AI saves you?

Five questions are enough to find out in your very first sales call whether you’ll be sitting in a meeting three months from now thinking: This isn't what we expected. Afterwards, you’ll know who is working on your account, whether the agency thinks in terms of stories or contact lists, what they measure their success by, how much work remains for you, and what you are actually paying for in the age of AI. The rest is gut feeling. And you’re allowed to take that seriously, too.

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Do you want to ask us these five questions?

We’d be happy to answer them. We have the answers ready, along with a few uncomfortable ones too. We help companies across Europe, from scale-ups to large corporations, get the attention they deserve. Get in touch via our contact form or at hello@get-press.de. Linda or Elia from our growth team will get back to you.