Wants and Needs: Partner and Agency Client Insights From the 2026 PR Newswire Partner Experience Survey
For over 70 years, PR Newswire has helped brands tell their stories by turning important announcements into widespread media coverage that connects with the most relevant audiences. During that time, we’ve evolved with our partners to provide the best experience and results while offering the most cutting-edge toolsets and solutions available.
Whether crafting the ideal press release or adapting to our new AI-enhanced environment, PR Newswire strives to ensure our partners find success in their communications efforts. That success is important to us, which is why we reached out over the past few months to hear from over fifty of our small- to medium-sized agency partners with our 2026 Agency Partner Experience.
We looked into what PR and comms agency clients want from our partners. What are they doing to support their clients? What are the most important priorities to focus on? How can they best achieve their clients’ goals?
Meanwhile, we also looked at how we, at PR Newswire, have helped put our partners in a place to succeed. How did we do? What are we doing well? Where can we improve? Let’s examine that and more with some key takeaways from this inaugural report.
Looking Into Agency Clients’ Wants, Needs and How To Best Focus on Top Priorities
We began our survey by asking our partners how their clients define success. Through our questioning, our partners explored what constitutes a successful offering, what services are in demand and what goals their clients want to achieve.
In the process, we found some interesting insights, including:
Measurable Outcomes Are Essential for Agency Clients, but Performance Visibility and Differentiation Are Also Key
When asked about the priorities of their clients, over three-quarters of our partners reported that their client’s top priority involved driving measurable business outcomes. Additionally, about half reported that greater visibility into performance and impactful market positioning was important to their clients. Supporting these objectives is critical for partners, as there exists a clear opportunity to target current needs.
Looking beyond the top priorities, we find interest in offerings that might not be considered necessities, but drive noticeable interest. A want, instead of a need. These include leveraging AI, go-to-market execution and scaling programs. While these “sweeteners” are not the most essential offerings, they still spur interest and can be incorporated into new or existing programs.
Agency Clients Want More Than Press Releases
Press releases have long been and remain a powerhouse tool for communications efforts. But as agency client priorities evolve, so, too, do their needs. Two-thirds of agencies feel their clients want integrated campaign amplification, aligning closely with key components of PR Newswire’s Multichannel AmplificationTM practice of leveraging multiple channels (such as paid, earned and owned) to widen the distribution of a message.
On par with amplification, content strategy and thought leadership development are viewed as strong areas of focus. Additionally, half of those surveyed expressed interest in performance analytics, return on investment (ROI) reporting, media targeting, reputation management and executive visibility, suggesting a desire to broaden communication tactics.
Agencies Feel Confident About Supporting Client Priorities, but Have Room To Improve
While there might be some differing opinions about what clients prioritize, overall the vast majority of clients feel they can confidently address their clients’ demands. However, they admit they have gaps that could be addressed.
This sizable group needs a reliable partner and a trusted resource to bridge those gaps, which would help with client satisfaction and build loyalty. There are numerous tools and offerings available that can address these gaps, such as the PR Newswire AmplifyTM Report Module to demonstrate ROI or other PR Newswire products to strengthen communications strategy.
What Can We Take Away From the Partner-Client Side of Our Agency Partner Experience Survey?
When looking at this data from our partners, a few areas stand out:
Most of our partners express confidence in addressing their clients' top priorities, although many admit room for improvement.
Agency clients want offerings in service to measurable business outcomes, while differentiating from competitors and gaining greater visibility.
While press releases are still invaluable, there is a desire to expand communications offerings.
These offerings include a content strategy focus, thought leadership development, Multichannel AmplificationTM and other services which provide ample avenues to bolster client relations.
Partner Relationships With PR Newswire, Our Tools, Desired Areas of Support and Ways to Improve
Just as our partners measure their relationship with their clients, they also need to let us know how they are using our services and what they are currently getting out of them. Just like our agency/client questions, these questions regarding the relationship between PR Newswire and our partners yielded some actionable data, including:
PR Newswire AmplifyTM Shows Clear Value, Though Some Assistance Is Needed to Unlock Its Maximum Potential
PR Newswire launched Amplify last September to provide an AI platform that aimed to accelerate modern public relations and communications capabilities. Like all emerging tools and technologies, a period of adjustment and learning is to be anticipated.
When assessing the Amplify tool, over 40% currently need more guidance and are open to intervention from PR Newswire to increase the value offered by the tool. This shows great promise, as well as the need for targeted outreach on how these tools can best support strategic positions.
Only 11% found that Amplify does not fit their PR needs, proving that the majority of our partners are open to exploring and receiving additional training.
Of course, if you want to learn more about this tool, you can request a demo of Amplify, click here.
Partners Have Strong Relationships With Account Managers, but Might Benefit From Utilizing Additional Offerings
Among our partners, awareness of PR Newswire is nearly ubiquitous at roughly 95%, with 45% using industry reports and performance or consumption reporting. Roughly one-third of those partners dove deeper, participating in training sessions, webinars and exploring enhancement capabilities or Multichannel AmplificationTM.
These participation numbers show a strong level of engagement between PR Newswire and our partners, yet nearly half primarily engage only through their Account Manager. This leaves a whole host of capabilities on the table - even though our partners are likely aware of these additional offerings, many are not utilizing them. This represents an opportunity for us at PR Newswire to explain the importance of these benefits to our partners, and how these benefits are specifically relevant to partners’ and their agency clients’ needs.
The Majority of Partner Interaction With PR Newswire Is Transactional, and On-Demand Support Is Greatly Preferred
Though nearly half of partners work solely through their account managers, the majority are not looking for a consistent, communicative relationship at the moment. Instead, they’re seeking a reliable resource who can be there for them when called upon. Roughly 65% of partners have simple transactional engagements with PR Newswire, which is almost exactly the number of partners who prefer access to on-demand support, using PR Newswire services as needs arise. Think of our services as a “Bat signal” of sorts, ready when needed.
Client Performance Is a Universal Need, but Planning, Training and Thought Leadership Are Must-Haves
Considering the importance of driving measurable business outcomes and performance visibility for agency clients, it is not too surprising that client performance dashboards and reporting access are universally viewed as the most important type of agency support that can be offered. Nearly 95% of respondents viewed that as a top-3 need.
Another client need identified by our partners was thought leadership development, which correlates with thought leadership and industry insights being viewed as a top-3 need for the majority of partners, along with agency team training, strategic planning and campaign consultation.
Finally, looking back to the importance of guidance and training on the use of our Amplify tool, it’s interesting to note what approaches to training and education are viewed as the most valuable for our partners. There is little enthusiasm towards certification programs for new hires or interns, or for PR Newswire providing client-facing onboarding. However, next to client performance dashboards, training for agency teams as a whole is viewed as the most important way to support clients.
How Can PR Newswire Improve Partner Relations?
We were able to ascertain quite a lot from our Agency Partner Experience survey. We saw the importance of performance and visibility as client offerings, as well as interest in PR Newswire’s training and thought leadership offerings, though some offerings might not be top-of-mind for some partners.
But data can only tell us so much. We reached out to our survey participants to ask directly: How can we improve? Here’s what they had to say:
Improved Reporting
Reporting was largely identified as an essential service that also serves a vital agency client offering. Any way to enhance or improve reporting was logged as a key area of potential improvement, with requests for “better in-depth reporting” and “better overall reporting,” with some claims that partners are often educating clients how to understand results, which more diversified and detailed reporting options could address.
Beyond more diverse and in-depth reporting, a focus on clarity was another common request, with partners asking for “data that showed the ROI of sending out a release (SEO/AEO impact, etc)”, the ability to pull reports that also say “what they mean [so partners can] deliver more ROI to clients” and an ask for reports including “vanity metrics vs. what really matters.”
AI Partner Education
Given its ability to shape and impact the story brands tell, it shouldn’t be a surprise that AI remains top-of-mind for many partners as it continues to evolve and impact communications across industries. That sentiment was shared by some of our partners in our Agency Partner Experience survey.
One respondent suggested an area of growth in our utilization of AI tools, suggesting a connection between a release and large language models (LLMs) that “would be amazing,” while another asked for a “clear understanding of why…press releases are or are not getting picked up by AI.” Of course, the world of AI is constantly shifting, but knowing that AI is still top of mind for many partners only furthers our drive to maximize AI’s impact in client communications.
And Finally - Some Happy Partners
We’re always striving to improve upon our offerings to ensure our partners and their clients find success, but we also would like to acknowledge a few of our respondents who were kind enough to share their satisfaction with PR Newswire.
“It’s been great!” one respondent said simply, while a partner who has been working with us for 20 years called out their account manager by name for their “thoughtful…recommendations, supportive...approach, and responsive[ness] to our company’s needs.”
We are thrilled to hear such great feedback from our partners, and strive to improve their experience even further in the years to come.
PR Newswire’s Success With Partners Means Our Partners’ Success With Clients
The 2026 PR Newswire Partner Experience survey provided a lot of key insights into agency-end client priorities, current positioning of our agency partners, the focus of their communication tactics and what our partners think of the PR Newswire AmplifyTM tool, as well as their experience with PR Newswire as a whole.
We’ve reaffirmed the importance of positive and measurable business outcomes, clear reporting, education and support that help PR Newswire’s offerings put our partners in a place to succeed for their clients. And with these new findings, we hope that by 2027 we’ll find even more successes for partners and their clients alike!
