Earned media is coverage a brand wins because an editor, journalist, creator or customer chose to feature it, unpaid. For beauty, health and wellness brands, earned media is now the coverage Google and AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Perplexity lean on when they decide which brands to rank and recommend.
Key takeaways
- Earned media is editorial coverage, reviews, expert quotes and creator content that a brand earns through a story rather than buys.
- Google and AI assistants treat earned coverage in trusted titles as independent evidence, so it shapes rankings and AI answers in a way adverts cannot.
- Earned media value, sometimes called advertising value equivalent, measures what coverage would have cost as an advert, which says nothing about whether customers found or chose the brand.
- Beauty brands should measure earned media by visibility in Google and AI answers, branded search, links and sales.
What is earned media?
Earned media is any coverage of a brand that a third party publishes by choice, including press features, gift guide inclusions, expert quotes, reviews and unpaid creator content. A brand earns it with a story, a product or an expert worth featuring, and the publisher keeps full editorial control over what runs.
UK search demand for the term and its valuation, October 2026:
| Search term | UK monthly searches | Keyword difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| earned media | 880 | 40 |
| what is earned media | 390 | 37 |
| earned media value | 210 | 32 |
All figures: Semrush UK, October 2026. Glossy PR treats earned media as the input to search and AI visibility, explained on the PR for SEO and AI search page.
What is the difference between paid, owned and earned media?
Paid media is space a brand buys, owned media is the channels a brand controls, and earned media is coverage a third party chooses to publish. Each plays a different role, but only earned media carries independent credibility, because someone outside the brand decided it was worth saying.
| Paid media | Owned media | Earned media | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Examples | Meta ads, paid creator posts | Website, email, Instagram feed | Press features, gift guides, reviews |
| Who controls the message | The brand | The brand | The publisher or reviewer |
| Credibility with buyers | Lower, reads as promotion | Moderate, reads as the brand's own view | High, reads as independent |
| What happens when spend stops | Visibility stops | Stays, but only reaches existing audience | Articles stay indexed and searchable |
| Effect on Google and AI answers | No direct effect on organic rankings | Depends on what others say about the brand | Strong, trusted titles are a key source |
What does earned media look like for a beauty or wellness brand?
Earned media for a beauty or wellness brand usually takes five forms: editorial features, seasonal gift guide inclusions, expert quotes from founders or practitioners, independent product reviews, and unpaid creator content. Each form puts a third party's name next to the brand, which is what makes it persuasive.
- Features: a serum in a national title's barrier repair round-up.
- Gift guides: a body care set in a Christmas edit.
- Expert quotes: a practitioner quoted on a trend story.
- Reviews: an editor testing the product and publishing a verdict.
- Creator content: a creator posting about a gifted product, unpaid.
Worked example: a skincare founder quoted in a lifestyle title's sensitive skin feature gains a brand mention, a product link and a syndicated copy from one pitch. Glossy PR has secured this kind of coverage for brands including Skin Sapiens, Wonderskin and Curo Skin, and James Jardella, Founder of Skin Sapiens, described the result: "Glossy generated great coverage with some fantastic titles from month one."
Why do Google and AI assistants trust earned media more than adverts?
Google and AI assistants trust earned media because a respected publication has put its own reputation behind the coverage. Adverts show what a brand says about itself, while an editorial feature shows that an independent source with an established audience judged the brand worth mentioning, which is the kind of evidence search systems look for.
Earned media now feeds AI answers as well as Google rankings, because AI Overviews and assistants such as Perplexity summarise third-party sources rather than brand advertising.
Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is the practice of making a brand easy for AI assistants to find, understand and recommend. Earned media sits at the centre of GEO, because Glossy PR's position is that AI assistants draw on established publications more readily than on brand websites. Our guide answering does PR help SEO covers the link and mention signals in detail. Glossy PR plans this through its Visibility Ladder: featured, found, named, chosen.
Why is earned media value a weak way to measure PR?
Earned media value, also called advertising value equivalent or AVE, estimates what a piece of coverage would have cost if the space had been bought as an advert. Earned media value is a weak metric because it measures column inches, not whether buyers found, trusted or chose the brand.
| Pros of earned media value | Cons of earned media value |
|---|---|
| Easy to produce from a cuttings file | Treats editorial coverage as if it were an advert |
| Gives a single headline figure for reports | Ignores whether the article linked to the brand |
| Says nothing about search, AI answers or sales |
Glossy PR's position is that cuttings are an output, visibility is the result. One feature in the beauty title customers trust beats a large earned media value from titles they never read.
What should beauty brands measure instead of earned media value?
Beauty brands should measure earned media by what it changes: whether the brand appears in Google and AI answers, whether branded search rises, whether coverage earned links, and whether sales follow. Each of those metrics connects coverage to commercial outcomes, which earned media value never does.
A monthly earned media scorecard should track:
- AI answer visibility, using Glossy PR's five-prompt AI visibility test across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google.
- Google visibility for priority product and category terms.
- Branded search volume in Google Search Console, compared month on month.
- Links and referring domains from coverage, noting followed and nofollow links.
- Sales and revenue to the pages coverage linked to.
Bridget O'Keeffe, Founder of Blush and Blow London, described why this standard matters: "The team heavily invests in my brand and focuses on their impact on our bottom line, which is totally unheard of with PR."
How do beauty and wellness brands earn media coverage?
Beauty and wellness brands earn media coverage by giving journalists something worth publishing: a genuine story, a product with a clear point of difference, or an expert who can comment with authority. Earning coverage is a repeatable process, run every month, not a single press release.
- Find the story: a founder journey, a new ingredient or a specific problem solved.
- Check every claim: the UK CAP Code governs health and cosmetic claims, so pitches must stay within what the evidence supports.
- Target the right titles: beauty editors, health writers and wellness journalists are pitched separately.
- Offer an expert voice: founders and practitioners become the people journalists quote.
Practitioners follow the same process with tighter claims discipline, covered on our wellness and health PR page. Natalie Raven, Founder of Parcel London, described what consistent execution looks like: "The coverage for my brand was instant and constant throughout our time working together."
Frequently asked questions about earned media
What is an example of earned media? An example of earned media is a beauty editor including a brand's moisturiser in a published round-up because the editor rated it, with no payment from the brand.
Is social media earned or owned media? Social media is owned when a brand posts on its own account, and earned when customers or creators post about it unpaid.
Is earned media value a good PR metric? Earned media value is a weak PR metric, because it prices coverage as advertising space and ignores links, search visibility, AI answers and sales.
How does earned media help AI search? Earned media helps AI search because assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews draw on trusted publications, so brands named in those titles reach AI answers more easily.
How to see whether your earned media is working for your brand
Glossy PR is a UK public relations agency for beauty, health, and wellness brands. Part of SugarNova Group, it is the first beauty PR agency built around GEO, turning earned media coverage into the citations AI engines surface when buyers and founders research which brands to trust.
Take the 2 minute visibility check and see how your coverage shows up in Google and AI answers today.
About the author: Shayne Williams is Founder and Group CEO of SugarNova Group, the London growth group behind Glossy PR. Since founding SugarNova in 2016, Shayne has built PR, SEO and paid media into one system for UK brands, with Glossy PR serving beauty, health and wellness. Last updated: 23 October 2026.