I’ve been doing this form of link building for a decade, managing hundreds of campaigns and writing processes for pretty much every major SEO publication.

I now run my own agency doing this and I typically say during our sales meetings with new clients to be careful of any Digital PR or agency that communicates their ‘network’ as a strength.

I personally did outreach for years before moving up, and had relationships with writers at well known publications but you are only ever as good as the story you have to share. My relationship with them doesn’t matter if the headline/data/asset I have isn’t good enough.

If they feature any and everything I shared, the relationship might not be as organic as you’d like.

As for impact, as most will know, these sorts of links and brand mentions are exponentially more valuable than old school tactics. However, their value is dependent. We have various clients experiencing triple digital growth, and beyond, but it depends on other factors like your content, architecture, technical foundation, etc. Especially in competitive niches and SERPs.

They can be more valuable if you don’t have any links of this quality in your profile, but even more so if your competitors don’t. However, if you have no quality content on the site, why would it rank? Not saying that’s you, but hopefully paints the picture and relationship between all facets of SEO.

Unfortunately, not a clear cut answer but I hope the logic helps.