KPI Scorecard

Read time 9 min Level Intermediate Prerequisites A Story with KPI targets set in Campaign Builder; familiar with Email Pitching, Phone Pitching and Bookings & Coverage

In a nutshell: The KPI Scorecard answers one question per Story -- are we hitting the numbers we committed to? Five output KPIs (Interviews Booked, Media Items, Audience Reach, Emails Pitched, Phone Pitching hours) show actual against target with a red / amber / green dot and a progress bar, plus an optional ProofScore quality panel as coverage analytics come in. Targets are set in Campaign Builder (OUTCOMES); colours come from your target ratios -- green = 100%+, amber = 80-99%, red = under 80%.

What you will learn

The five output KPIs the Scorecard tracks and the optional ProofScore quality panel.
Where targets come from, and where actuals come from.
How to read the RAG dots and progress bars without over-reading them.
How a Story's status badge ("On Track", "Partial", "Off Track") is decided.
How the Scorecard sits alongside the Success Score and CQI.

The mental model

The KPI Scorecard answers one operational question per Story: are we hitting the numbers we committed to? It is a target-versus-actual board. Each Story you own shows as a card; each card lists five output KPIs side by side as "actual / target" with a coloured dot and a progress bar. Stories with logged coverage analytics also get an optional ProofScore quality panel.

The Scorecard does not invent metrics. The five KPIs are the same numbers targeted in the OUTCOMES area of Campaign Builder, and the actuals flow in directly from the pitching and coverage activity already being logged. Set targets at the start of the Story and the Scorecard does the rest.

A KPI without a target is just a counter. The Scorecard earns its keep when you set ambitious-but-achievable targets at the start of a Story -- before pitching begins.

Acme PR Corp's Globex Wellbeing Index 2026 carries all five KPI targets set on the OUTCOMES tab -- Interviews Booked, Media Items, Audience Reach, Emails Pitched, Phone Pitching hours -- each plotted as actual against target on the Scorecard.

Setting KPIs that matter

A KPI without a target is a counter; a KPI with the wrong target is a vanity metric. Three principles for setting KPIs that earn their place on the Scorecard:

SMART, applied to PR: Specific -- name the audience and outlet category. "Tier 1 national coverage" beats "national coverage". "5+ healthcare-trade placements" beats "trade press". Measurable -- numbers the platform can read from logged data. Achievable -- ambitious-but-grounded in your team's recent run-rate (the campaign-vs-company-average comparison on MEASUREMENT tells you what you have hit before). Relevant -- mapped to the business outcome on OUTCOMES, not chosen because they are easy to hit. Time-bound -- the window the Story is measured against.
Inputs paired with outputs: The Scorecard mixes inputs (Emails Pitched, Phone Pitching hrs) and outputs (Interviews Booked, Media Items, Audience Reach) on purpose. Setting only output targets blames the team when an indifferent week of pitching produces an indifferent set of results; setting only input targets rewards busy-work that lands nothing. Both, in proportion, tells the honest story.
Outcome KPIs anchored on the brief: The five output KPIs measure the campaign's delivery. Real PR success is the outcome -- the business shift the Story drove. Add Business Outcome KPIs on Campaign Builder > OUTCOMES alongside the Delivery KPIs: a 15% lift in inbound enquiries, a 5-point movement in brand-favourability tracking, a 20% increase in white-paper downloads. The Barcelona Principle BP2 (outcomes over outputs) anchors the practice.

What to avoid:

Vanity targets. "100 placements" looks impressive and means nothing if the tier and quality slip to chase the number.
Round numbers nobody can defend. "10 placements" is fine if it sits within the team's run-rate; arbitrary if it does not. Use the campaign-vs-company-average benchmark to calibrate.
Targets that incentivise the wrong behaviour. If "Emails Pitched" target is too high, the team broadcasts. If "Interviews Booked" is too low, ambitious bookings slip. Tune both ends of the funnel together.

Set targets before pitching starts. Lock them in at brief sign-off. Adjust deliberately at review points, not reactively to make a red dot green.

How to reach it

Open the KPI Scorecard from a Story's context links or directly from the campaign navigation. The page filters by the team member it is tracking -- by default you. Two filters at the top: Location (visible when your company has multiple locations) and Team Member. The Scorecard shows the current state of every active Story for the selected person, with a Print Report button for a print-formatted version when you want to share or archive a snapshot.

[Screenshot placeholder -- the KPI Scorecard page showing the summary row (Active Stories / On Track / Need Attention), the Location and Team Member filter bar with a Print Report button, and one Story card below with five KPI tiles each showing actual / target, a coloured dot, and a progress bar.]

The Scorecard: summary counters at the top, then one card per Story with five KPI tiles and a status badge.

The five output KPIs

Interviews Booked: How many interviews have been booked against the Story, versus target. Accrues from bookings logged in Bookings & Coverage.
Media Items: How many pieces of coverage have been logged, versus target. Accrues from coverage records on the Story.
Audience Reach: Total audience figure across logged coverage, versus target. Accrues from the reach figures attached to each piece of coverage (which come from the outlet record).
Emails Pitched: How many email pitches have gone out on the Story, versus target. Accrues from Email Pitching activity.
Phone Pitching (hrs): Hours of phone pitching logged on the Story, versus target. Accrues from calls and call time recorded in Phone Pitching.

Two are inputs (Emails Pitched, Phone Pitching hours) and three are outputs (Interviews Booked, Media Items, Audience Reach). Together they tell you whether the effort went in and whether the results came out. KPIs without a target show a dash in the target column and sit out of the status calculation.

The RAG dots and progress bars

Each KPI tile carries a coloured dot and a progress bar driven by the actual-against-target ratio:

Progress against target	Colour	Read
100% or more	Green	Target met or exceeded.
80% to 99%	Amber	Close but not there. Push to close the gap.
Under 80%	Red	Behind. Needs attention.

The progress bar fills to the same percentage, capped visually at 100%. The ProofScore tiles use their own thresholds (see below). Two things to remember as you read the colours:

The colour is a ratio against your target. An ambitious target reads red until you catch up; a conservative target turns green quickly. Both are legitimate -- the colour shows the gap, you supply the judgement.
The colour reflects the Story to date, not a forecast. A red Media Items tile in week one of a four-week run can still finish green -- check the breakdown and the calendar before drawing a conclusion.

The Story status badge and summary row

Every card carries a status badge derived from its KPIs:

No KPIs -- targets have yet to be set. Counted as on-track in the summary because no target means no gap.
On Track -- every KPI with a target is at 100% or more.
Partial -- at least one KPI is at target but at least one is not. Shows a pulsing Needs Attention badge.
Off Track -- no KPI has reached its target. Shows Needs Attention.

The summary row at the top rolls these up: Active Stories, On Track, Need Attention (Partial plus Off Track). That row is your triage list -- if Need Attention shows three, those three Stories are where your day starts. Dismiss the summary row with the small close button when you want a cleaner view; it stays hidden for the session.

The detailed breakdown

Each card carries a View Detailed Breakdown toggle. Expand it and you get, for the three output KPIs (Interviews, Media Items, Reach), a breakdown by media type and by region -- target, actual, variance and a RAG dot per row. This is the "where is the gap" view: if Media Items is amber overall, the breakdown reveals whether you are short on broadcast, short on print, short in a particular region, or short evenly across the board. Use it to direct the next wave of pitching precisely.

The optional ProofScore panel

On Stories that have coverage analytics in place, a ProofScore Metrics panel appears under the five KPIs with three quality measures:

Quality Index (CQI), out of 10: Average coverage quality across the Story's logged coverage. Green at 7+, amber 4-6, red below 4.
Positive Sentiment %: Share of logged coverage assessed as positive. Green at 70%+, amber 40-69%, red below 40%.
Message Pull-Through %: How much of your key messaging came through in coverage. Green at 70%+, amber 40-69%, red below 40%.

The panel appears as soon as coverage analytics are in place -- normal to see it light up partway through a Story's life as monitoring runs. ProofScore answers quality of what landed; the five KPIs above answer quantity of activity and results. Both matter, and they reinforce each other.

The Scorecard, the Success Score and the CQI

Three different lenses, each anchored to a different question:

KPI Scorecard -- target-versus-actual on the five operational KPIs, plus the optional ProofScore panel. Operational tracking. You set the targets.
Success Score -- the Story's overall verdict, fixed at four equal quarters: 25% CQI, 25% Coverage, 25% KPIs, 25% Completion. The KPIs quarter draws on the same KPI performance the Scorecard shows.
CQI (Coverage Quality Index) -- a quality measure for individual coverage, fixed at 35% Tier, 35% Sentiment, 30% Message. The ProofScore panel's CQI tile is the Story's average CQI.

Plain English: the Scorecard is where you check the dials mid-flight, the Success Score is the final mark out of 100, and the CQI is how good each clip was. The weightings (25/25/25/25 for Success, 35/35/30 for CQI) are fixed.

Try this

Try this: Before pitching starts on your next Story, set targets for all five KPIs in Campaign Builder > OUTCOMES. Write them down. On day three and day seven of the run, open the KPI Scorecard and read the colours. A red on Emails Pitched at day three means you have not started; a red on Media Items at day seven with green inputs means the coverage has not landed yet -- chase the booked-but-not-published list. The Scorecard is most powerful while the Story is still live, not as a post-mortem.

Frequently asked

Why is my Story showing "No KPIs"?: Targets have yet to be set. Open the Story in Campaign Builder, go to OUTCOMES, set targets for the KPIs you want to track, save, and the card starts plotting them on the next page load.
Can I filter the Scorecard by date or campaign type?: The Scorecard shows the current state of every active Story for the selected team member. For a time-bounded or campaign-type view, Story Performance and NewsWire Analytics give you those lenses.
The ProofScore panel is missing on a Story I know has coverage. Why?: The panel appears once coverage analytics -- CQI, sentiment, message pull-through -- have been recorded for the Story's coverage. Logging a piece of coverage and the monitoring analysis running on it are two steps; the panel shows up after the second one completes.
Does Print Report produce a client version?: Print Report produces a print-formatted version of exactly what is on screen for the selected team member -- ideal for internal review and archiving. For a client-facing deliverable, use the Reporting page.
A KPI dot is red but I think the target was unrealistic. What now?: The colour is a pure ratio against the target you set. If a target was set too aggressively, revise it in Campaign Builder -- deliberately, at a review point, not reactively to make a dot turn green. The Scorecard is only as honest as the targets are.
Where does AVE or impressions fit on the Scorecard?: The Scorecard tracks the five operational KPIs and the three ProofScore quality metrics. AVE conversations belong on the Reporting page, anchored on the measures that hold up: CQI and the Success Score.

Key takeaways

The Scorecard tracks five KPIs per Story -- Interviews Booked, Media Items, Audience Reach, Emails Pitched, Phone Pitching (hrs) -- each as actual versus target with a RAG dot and progress bar.
Targets are set in Campaign Builder > OUTCOMES; actuals flow in from pitching and coverage activity.
Green = 100%+, amber = 80-99%, red = under 80% -- all against your target, so the colour shows the gap, you supply the judgement.
An optional ProofScore panel adds CQI /10, Positive Sentiment % and Message Pull-Through % once coverage analytics arrive.
The Scorecard, the Success Score (25/25/25/25) and the CQI (35/35/30) are three lenses on the same Story -- check the dials, take the mark, read each clip.