Digital PR Examples: 9 Campaigns and Their Link Counts

The clearest digital PR examples are campaigns whose link counts were measured afterwards: WalletHub's city education study earned 604 backlinks, LinkedIn's Future of Work report 383, Zillow's rate-locked homeowners survey 235, and Lush's Saltburn bath bomb 135, according to Ahrefs' analysis of nine campaigns. They fall into five formats, and three of them can be copied by a small site.

The moment most people search for this: you have been told to "do some digital PR", you have a modest budget, and every example you find is a global brand with an agency behind it. The campaigns below are big, but the formats are not. Each section ends with the version that works at a smaller scale.

Where these numbers come from

All nine campaigns and their link counts come from one source, so they are comparable with each other. Ahrefs' Louise Linehan published 9 Successful PR Campaign Examples, According to the Data on 27 September 2024 and measured each campaign in Ahrefs' own Backlinks and Content Explorer reports. Two caveats: the counts are for the campaign-related pages or keywords, not the whole brand, and the Heinz figure counts media mentions rather than links.

Campaign	Format	Links or mentions (Ahrefs, Sept 2024)
WalletHub, most and least educated cities	Data study	604 unique backlinks
LinkedIn, Future of Work report	Data study	383 links
Zillow, rate-locked homeowners survey	Survey	235 backlinks
Lush, Saltburn bath bomb	Cultural moment	135 links
Duolingo, "No buts" advert	Creative ad	130 links
Heinz and Mattel, "Barbiecue" sauce	Brand collaboration	118 mentions in top-tier media
Pinterest, "Eclectic Grandpa" trend	Trend naming	98 referring domains
Krispy Kreme, Olympic doughnuts	Event tie-in	95 links
McDonald's and Crocs	Brand collaboration	260 links for McDonald's, 416 for Crocs

Data studies: the format that earns the most links

Original numbers are the most reliable way to earn links, because journalists need a source to cite and a ranking gives every local outlet its own angle.

WalletHub's city rankings

WalletHub ranks US cities on education, safety, cost and dozens of other measures from public data. The education study alone earned 604 unique backlinks, from Wikipedia, Forbes, Business Insider and Bloomberg among others. The reason it works is structural: a ranking of 150 cities is 150 local news stories ("City X ranked 12th least educated").

LinkedIn's Future of Work report

LinkedIn turned its own platform data into a report on how jobs are changing, and earned 383 links from Forbes, Harvard Business Review and CNET. The lesson is that first-party data you already hold is worth more than a survey you have to commission.

Zillow's homeowner survey

Zillow surveyed homeowners about being "locked in" by low mortgage rates and earned 235 backlinks from Bloomberg, Yahoo and Money.com. A survey works when it answers a question the press is already asking.

The small-site version: one statistics page built from your own records (prices you have seen, response rates, order data) or from public datasets nobody has compiled for your niche. How statistics pages earn backlinks covers the format, and linkable asset ideas lists other shapes that work.

Newsjacking and cultural moments

Tying a product to something people are already talking about earns links fast, but only inside the window while the story is live.

Lush and the Saltburn bath

Lush released a bath bomb referencing a scene from the film Saltburn while the film was being discussed everywhere, and the campaign earned 135 links, many from high-DR publications. The product cost almost nothing to make; the timing did the work.

Krispy Kreme's Olympic doughnuts

A limited run of Olympic-themed doughnuts earned 95 links from Yahoo, USA Today, People and the Food Network. Event tie-ins work because the calendar is known in advance, so you can prepare.

The small-site version: keep a list of dates and recurring stories in your niche, and prepare one comment, dataset or product angle for each before it happens. Expert-request platforms are the lowest-cost route into these stories; see the best HARO alternatives.

Brand collaborations and product stunts

Two brands together get covered where neither would alone, and the smaller partner usually gains more.

Heinz and Mattel's "Barbiecue" sauce

A pink barbecue sauce released with the Barbie film earned Heinz 118 mentions in top-tier outlets including Bloomberg and CBS News, measured in Ahrefs' Content Explorer.

McDonald's and Crocs

A footwear collaboration earned 260 links for McDonald's and 416 for Crocs, measured by filtering each brand's backlinks for mentions of the other. The smaller brand gained more, which is the pattern in most collaborations.

The small-site version: co-publish a piece of research or a tool with another business in an adjacent niche. Both sites link to it, both pitch it, and each reaches the other's audience. Co-citation and co-occurrence explains why being mentioned next to a known name helps on its own.

Naming a trend

Pinterest's "Eclectic Grandpa" trend earned citations from 98 separate domains because Pinterest gave a name to something people were already doing and backed it with search data. Naming a pattern in your own niche, with numbers to show it is real, is cheap and repeatable. Our own backlink prices page is the same idea at smaller scale: a question people argue about, answered with two datasets.

Creative advertising that gets written about

Duolingo's "No buts" advert earned 130 links from Gizmodo, Lifehacker and Indy100 as well as 5 million views. This is the format a small site should skip: it needs a known brand and a production budget, and the links are a by-product of the advert rather than the goal.

What the successful examples have in common

Every campaign in the table gave journalists something they could not get elsewhere: a new number, a new product, a new name or a new joke. None of them pitched the company itself. The three formats worth copying at small scale are the data study, the prepared newsjack and the collaboration, in that order of reliability.

Two honest limits. First, digital PR links point at the campaign page, not at your product pages, so you still need internal links to move the authority where it matters; how to build links to product and pricing pages covers that. Second, a campaign can land nothing, which is why digital PR costs what it does. For the baseline of referring domains that makes a campaign worth running, a one-for-one exchange with another site owner is the cheaper route: on Backlinkster each swap is an in-content link between two real sites, verified by API.

Frequently asked questions

What are some examples of digital PR?

Data studies such as WalletHub's city rankings (604 backlinks) and LinkedIn's Future of Work report (383), surveys such as Zillow's rate-locked homeowners study (235), cultural tie-ins such as Lush's Saltburn bath bomb (135) and brand collaborations such as Heinz and Mattel's Barbiecue sauce (118 top-tier mentions), all measured by Ahrefs in September 2024.

What is the most effective type of digital PR campaign?

Data studies, on the evidence above. The three data-led campaigns in Ahrefs' set earned 604, 383 and 235 links, more than any stunt or advert in the same analysis, because original numbers give every outlet its own story to tell.

Can a small business do digital PR?

Yes, with the formats that do not need a famous brand: one statistics page from your own data, prepared comments for predictable news in your niche, and a co-published piece of research with an adjacent business. Expert-quote platforms are the cheapest way in.

How many links does a digital PR campaign get?

It ranges from none to several hundred. The nine campaigns Ahrefs measured earned between 95 and 604 links each, but those were selected as successes. Agencies do not guarantee counts because they cannot control what journalists publish.

What is the difference between digital PR and link building?

Digital PR earns links by giving journalists a story; link building covers every way of getting links, including outreach, guest posts and exchanges. Digital PR is one link-building channel, usually the most expensive per month and the strongest per link when it lands. See what is digital PR in SEO.

The bottom line

The best digital PR examples are measured ones. Data studies earned the most links in Ahrefs' set, timely tie-ins earned them fastest, and collaborations gave the smaller brand the bigger win. Copy the format, not the budget: a single data page, a prepared newsjack and one co-published asset are within reach of almost any site.