What Founders Should Look for in a Boutique PR Agency

A good boutique PR agency gives you direct access to senior people who know your category, pitch editors who actually cover it, and report on what coverage did for your business. Before you sign, ask who works your account, how results are measured, and how the agency handles affiliate commerce and AI discoverability.

Most of the founders who get on a discovery call with us have hired a PR agency before, and the first thing they ask usually isn’t about outlets or price. It’s some version of “who’s actually going to be doing the work?” They met a senior team during the pitch, signed, and then spent the next few months emailing someone they’d never been introduced to, while the monthly report filled up with impression counts that didn’t match anything they could see in their sales.

That’s why I don’t think the real choice is a big agency versus a small one. Every agency you talk to will say it has great media relationships and show you a wall of logos, and a boutique PR agency will usually add one more promise, which is personalized attention. The better question is who’s going to work on your business, what they’re going to do, and how you’ll know it’s working. I’ve run Push The Envelope PR since 2006, and these are the 12 things I’d look at before signing with anyone, including us. A few of them didn’t matter five years ago, because the way people find and buy products has changed that much.

The Team You’re Actually Hiring

1. Find out who will work on your account day to day

The first thing I’d ask any agency is who, by name, will work on your account. The person presenting on the sales call and the person pitching editors in month three aren’t always the same, so you want the names of whoever builds the strategy, writes the pitches, talks to editors and makes decisions on your campaign every week, because that’s who you’re paying for.

This is where a boutique model can give you a real edge, since the distance between you and the senior people making decisions is usually shorter. The word boutique doesn’t guarantee it, though, so ask directly who your day-to-day contact is, who’s pitching the media, how long they’ve been doing it, and whether the senior people you’re meeting today will still be on your business after you sign.

2. Look for PR experience in your category

Pitching a skincare serum is different from pitching a SaaS platform, and landing commerce coverage for an Amazon-forward beauty brand takes a different read on the media than corporate PR does. A strong boutique agency should already know the editors, commerce writers, seasonal windows and awards in your market before you pay them to learn.

So ask to see results that match your business. If you’re a beauty founder, ask for beauty results, and if you’re a K-beauty brand entering the U.S., ask whether they’ve done that specific thing before. “Have you worked with brands like mine?” is an easy question to answer yes to, while “show me what you did for a brand like mine” is much harder to fake.

3. Know what “media relationships” really means

Every agency says it has relationships, and they do matter, just not because a publicist can call a journalist and demand a story. A good relationship means your publicist knows what an editor covers, what makes something timely for them, how they like to get information and, just as important, when not to pitch them at all.

That matters more than most founders realize, because editors are buried. In the 2026 State of the Media Report from Cision, a media intelligence company, 66% of the 1,899 journalists surveyed said they rely on PR-provided content like pitches and press releases for story ideas, but 72% said fewer than a quarter of the pitches they get are relevant to them. Relationships don’t guarantee coverage, but they get your brand into the small pile an editor reads.

Proof That Goes Past the Logo Wall

4. Ask what happened after the placement

Every agency will show you the biggest logos it can, and those placements matter. The question I’d push on is what happened next, whether site traffic moved, branded search went up, the article drove affiliate clicks, Amazon sales changed, and whether the coverage still shows up when someone researches your category in Google or ChatGPT.

That’s the conversation we try to have with every client at Push The Envelope. We’ve had a single editorial placement help sell more than 600 units within 24 hours, and two placements coincide with roughly $155,000 in sales in one month, according to the client. That’s a very different report from “your article generated 50 million impressions,” and it’s the whole idea behind Modern PR Isn’t Just Press.

5. Ask for PR case studies, not a client list

A logo on an agency’s site doesn’t tell you whether they worked with that brand for three years or three weeks, what they did, or whether any of it worked. A case study does. Look for the problem the brand came in with, the strategy, the coverage it produced, the business result and, ideally, what the client said about working together. An agency that’s been around for years should have plenty of these, so if all you get is a logo grid, take note.

6. Ask how the agency measures PR results

If an agency’s whole reporting system is placements plus impressions, I’d keep asking questions, even though that’s the industry default. In its State of PR Measurement 2025 report, Muck Rack, a PR software company, surveyed 832 PR professionals and found that 86% track the number of stories placed and 79% track reach and impressions, while only 17% measure revenue impact like leads or sales. More than half, 54%, said linking PR results to business goals is one of their biggest measurement challenges.

The standard the industry already agreed on points somewhere else. AMEC, the international association for communication measurement, has published the Barcelona Principles since 2010, and the 2020 version said measurement should identify outputs, outcomes and potential impact, yet only 7% of the PR pros in that same Muck Rack survey said they follow the principles. The right metrics depend on why you hired the agency, whether that’s awareness, credibility, ecommerce growth, affiliate revenue, founder authority or AI visibility, so ask exactly what you’ll see every month and get the answer before the campaign starts.

7. Expect transparency every week

You shouldn’t have to wonder what your PR agency is doing. You should be able to see what’s being pitched, what’s pending, what’s been secured, which awards are in play, which editors are interested and what’s been published, along with what’s coming next. At Push The Envelope, clients get a portal where they can follow campaign activity and results as they happen, and whichever agency you choose, ask how you’ll know what they’re doing every week and expect a clear answer.

Whether They Understand How People Shop Now

8. Make sure they understand affiliate commerce and Amazon

This one matters most for consumer brands. A product in an editorial article is valuable, and a product in an editorial article where the reader can click and buy on the spot is usually worth a lot more. Publishers have built serious commerce businesses around roundups, best-of lists, gift guides, reviews, and shopping events like Prime Day and Black Friday, and the money behind them is big. EMARKETER, a market research firm, forecasts that U.S. advertisers will spend $13.81 billion on affiliate marketing in 2026, with the channel driving an estimated $241.03 billion in ecommerce sales.

So if you sell beauty, wellness, fashion or lifestyle products online, ask how affiliate commerce fits into the agency’s strategy and how they approach product placement in the roundups your customers read. If Amazon is a big part of your business, that question gets even more important, because PR builds the discovery and trust that happen before anyone reaches your product page. We’ve written about how PR drives sales for Amazon brands, and the short version is that Amazon doesn’t create demand, it captures demand.

Amazon doesn’t create demand. It captures demand.

9. Ask how they approach Google and AI discoverability

Five years ago, founders weren’t asking PR agencies about this, and now they should be. Shoppers still use Google, Instagram and magazines, but they’re also asking ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews things like “what’s the best affordable vitamin C serum” or “what are the best K-beauty moisturizers,” and buying from the answers. Adobe data reported by Digital Commerce 360 shows AI-referral traffic to U.S. retail sites rose 62% year over year in July 2026, and those visitors converted 60% better than non-AI traffic.

That changes what earned media is worth. Muck Rack’s May 2026 What Is AI Reading? study analyzed more than 25 million links cited by ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini and found earned media made up 84% of citations, while paid content was 0.3%. A magazine feature doesn’t guarantee ChatGPT will recommend your product, but it backs up something PR people have known for decades, which is that what credible third parties say about you carries weight. In Edelman’s 2026 Trust and Brands findings, 41% of people said what people not paid by a brand say is their top trust influence, compared with 20% who pointed to what the brand says about itself.

We’ve looked at how consumers discover beauty brands in 2026 and why AI recommends some brands and not others, and any agency you hire should be able to explain that connection just as clearly.

How a Good Agency Acts Before You Sign

10. Notice how much they ask about your business

This one’s underrated. During the sales process, pay attention to who’s doing most of the talking, because an agency that spends an hour on its own credentials and barely asks about your business is showing you how the relationship will go. A good strategy starts with a diagnosis of what you’re trying to accomplish, what’s working and what isn’t, who your customer is, where you sell, what your margins look like, which products matter most and what success looks like six months from now. A skincare brand trying to grow Amazon sales needs a completely different plan from a founder who wants to be quoted as an industry expert, and the agency can’t know which one you are without asking.

11. Make sure the PR strategy is built for your brand

One of the biggest fears founders tell me about is getting the same program every other client gets, with the same media list, the same pitch structure and the same monthly report with a different logo on top. A real strategy comes with reasons. Your agency should be able to explain why these publications, why these story angles, why these products and why now, and how all of it ties back to your business goals. Smaller account structures can make that kind of customization easier, but you still have to ask to find out.

12. Walk away from guaranteed outlets

Be careful with any agency that promises you’ll definitely land in Forbes or Vogue, because earned media doesn’t work that way. An agency can build strong angles, work its relationships, find the right openings and chase coverage hard, but editors decide what runs. Confidence in their ability to perform is a good sign. A promise to control an independent newsroom is a red flag, and a good agency will be comfortable explaining the difference.

Boutique PR Doesn’t Mean Small Thinking

This might be the biggest misconception about boutique PR agencies. Boutique describes the service model, and it says nothing about the size of the ambition. A boutique agency can still land national media, work with top editors, run affiliate programs, support national launches, understand Amazon commerce and help brands get found in Google and AI answers, all while producing results you can measure. What you’re really judging is how good the team that works on your business will be, and the agency’s headcount tells you very little about that.

The Question I’d Ask Before Hiring Any PR Agency

If I were a founder interviewing agencies today, I’d finish every call with one request, which is to walk me through what happens after I sign. Who do I meet, who builds the strategy, who pitches, how fast do we start, how do I see what’s happening, what do you measure, what happens when something isn’t working, and what does a good relationship look like six months from now? Listen closely to the answer, because a great sales presentation tells you how good an agency is at selling PR, and that answer tells you how good they’ll be at doing it.

A great sales presentation tells you how good an agency is at selling PR.

Here are the questions I’d bring to every agency call, and what to listen for.

Question to ask	What a strong answer sounds like	Red flag
Who works on my account day to day?	Named people, with their role and experience	“Our team,” with no names
What have you done for brands like mine?	Case studies in your category with business results	A logo wall with no detail
What will you report every month?	Metrics tied to your goals, like sales, traffic or affiliate revenue	Placements and impressions only
How does affiliate commerce fit in?	A plan for roundups, gift guides and shopping coverage	Surprise that you asked
How do you think about AI discoverability?	A clear view of how earned media shapes AI answers	A promise that ChatGPT will recommend you
Can you guarantee a specific outlet?	No, with an explanation of why	Yes
How will I see what you’re doing each week?	Live access to pitches, pending and secured coverage	A monthly PDF and nothing in between

What Founders Should Ultimately Look For

The right boutique PR agency should feel like an extension of your company. They should know your category and your business goals, give you access to experienced people, and understand how editorial coverage connects to affiliate commerce, search and AI discovery, and then they should show you what they’re doing and prove they can deliver.

At Push The Envelope, that’s the thinking behind Performance PR and what we call PTE Visibility Intelligence, which follows a brand through four stages: Found, Recommended, Trusted and Purchased. The placement is where that work starts, and what happens after the placement is what really matters. If you’d like to see what that could look like for your brand, talk to our team.

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