Opinions expressed by Digital Journal contributors are their own.
The public relations industry has a trust problem that has nothing to do with media formats. Businesses have spent years paying monthly retainers to agencies that promise coverage, produce activity reports, and deliver little else. Agency Reporter’s 2026 analysis of PR pricing trends found that clients increasingly feel they are paying for effort rather than outcomes, with the retainer model creating what the publication described as “quiet resentment on both sides.” That frustration has pushed a growing number of founders and executives toward a simpler question: what does guaranteed actually mean?
Carson Spitzke, founder of Calgary-based Spitz PR, built his agency around answering that question directly. Where most traditional PR firms sell access to a process, Spitz PR sells results. “The retainer model protects the agency, not the client,” Spitzke says. “We work on outcomes. If we do not deliver coverage, we have not done our job.”
“When we build a PR strategy for a client, we look at every format available, earned coverage, guaranteed placements, press releases, all of it,” Spitzke adds. “We vet each one for how it ties into the overall goals. There are times where guaranteed placements harm and we stick to earned media.”
What guaranteed placements are actually for
The case for guaranteed placements is not that they replicate what earned coverage does. It is that they do something earned coverage structurally cannot. When a PR agency pitches a journalist, the journalist decides whether the story is worth covering, how to frame it, and when it runs. For stories that genuinely clear that bar, earned coverage is the stronger outcome. But most of what a brand needs to communicate will not clear that bar, and it was never going to. A founder making the case for their approach to a market problem, a company staking a position against competitors, a leadership team establishing category authority: these are stories with real audiences that do not fit a journalist’s editorial criteria. Guaranteed placements exist to tell those stories in credible publications, on the brand’s terms, with the brand’s framing intact.
Research on how audiences respond to guaranteed placements versus editorial coverage found that the two formats produce equivalent purchase intention despite being rated differently on credibility. The credibility gap that makes guaranteed placements seem like a compromise turns out to matter considerably less to actual buyer behavior than the argument against them implies.
The Google and AI dimension
The strategic case for guaranteed placements has strengthened considerably as buyer research behavior has shifted. A March 2026 analysis of 680 million AI citations found that 73 percent of B2B buyers now use tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity in their research process, and Forrester’s 2025 survey of more than 4,000 buyers found that 61 percent of the purchase journey completes before a buyer contacts a vendor. A placement in a credible publication puts the brand’s narrative into the information layer that those AI systems draw from. It shapes what a prospect finds when they search a founder’s name or a company’s category before a sales conversation ever begins. Spitz PR treats this as a core part of how guaranteed placements function, not a secondary benefit.
Muck Rack’s analysis of more than one million AI citations found that press release citations grew fivefold in the second half of 2025, making them the fastest-growing cited format across all major AI platforms. For B2B brands whose prospects are forming first impressions through AI-generated answers, a well-constructed press release can influence what AI says about a brand which shapes a consumers thoughts.
Earned coverage remains the stronger format for building long-term authority and third-party credibility. But earned and guaranteed are not competing strategies. They answer different questions. Earned coverage tells the stories journalists find compelling. Guaranteed placements tell the stories the brand needs told. In a media environment where a buyer’s first impression of a company is increasingly formed before any human contact, having both working together is no longer optional.
