PR Industry Evolution
The rise in the number of online publishers and different content mediums have made finding and accessing PR more complex, and scaling 1:1 relationships increasingly difficult. Thus, brands are turning to third-party platforms to access top publishers and maximize their reach.
We are thrilled to announce our $15M investment in Linkby, a performance PR platform designed to connect brands with premium publishers for measurable, content-driven traffic.
The Need for Premium Content Marketing
The phase-out of cookies and increased privacy regulations have made traditional performance marketing challenging. Flooded with advertisements daily, consumers are increasingly looking to trusted newsletters, articles, and other published content for recommendations, making editorial content the 2nd most trusted advertising channel today, only behind branded websites (1). In addition, editorial content on premium publishers contributes to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) for better placement on AI-powered search results like ChatGPT. As a result, brands are looking to diversify their marketing dollars across multiple performance-based models including premium editorial content.
Limitations of Existing Solutions
Brands are faced with many challenges when considering content-led marketing. For traditional PR, these challenges may include a lack of access to relevant premium publishers, limited distribution, and often, unfavorable pricing, including large upfront retainers.
As media consumption becomes increasingly fragmented and consumers harder to target, brands are looking for solutions that focus on trusted editorial content, distributed at scale, with performance guarantees baked in.
Rethinking PR for the Modern Age
When the Volition team first connected with Linkby, it was clear that CEO and Co-Founder Chris Wirasinha and his team were domain experts, building a disruptive marketplace designed to meet the needs of both brands and publishers.
At its core, Linkby is purpose-built for brands looking to drive traffic. Linkby offers a wide variety of brands, a platform to create new campaigns, connect with relevant publishers to write editorial content, and generate real, trackable traffic. By charging customers on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, brands only pay for real results —ushering in a new category of “Performance PR.” The Performance PR model aligns the interests of brands and publishers by sharing media risk, as both parties are incentivized to drive high-quality traffic.
Publishers are equally enthusiastic. Given how Linkby complements their existing ad revenues, publishers see Linkby as a low-barrier way to efficiently monetize unsold ad inventory. This approach has enabled Linkby to build a strong network of highly engaged, premium publishers, contributing to a flywheel effect that sees new publishers and brands joining the platform and increasing spend. As brands demand measurable advertising results and publishers look to diversify revenue streams, Linkby is well-positioned to lead the shift towards performance-based PR.
Perhaps most importantly, we are deeply impressed by the strength of the Linkby team. Building on their prior success scaling and exiting the Pedestrian Group, a leading youth-focused media platform in Australia, Chris and Co-Founder Adrian Fagerlund know the gaps in current PR solutions and strategies firsthand. Chris tapped another impressive serial entrepreneur, Andrew Chak, to come on board as co-founder and CTO to build out Linkby’s marketplace-led platform. Linkby’s customer-first approach, coupled with deep domain expertise, has impressed us since day one. We look forward to partnering with the Linkby team on the next stage of their journey.
Citation:
1 Source: Nielsen 2021 Trust in Advertising Study
