Client: caba

Earning high quality backlinks with a reactive newsoom

61

average DA
of coverage

+30%

increase in average monthly traffic

59

pieces of coverage
with backlinks

PR Campaigns come in different shapes and sizes. The S.C.A.M. campaign for caba is one we delivered as part of our StoryPlan - a flow of mini-campaigns, and it’s an incredibly hard-working, big impact one. It’s ‘PR-for-SEO’, with clear goals – to ladder up to our annual objectives. So it demands creative resourcefulness from the team, to make ‘new-news’ that not only earns coverage, but earns backlinks too – that drive traffic increases that aren’t just a single spike, but endure, ready for the next campaign to build upon.

And - because there are no certainties in earned media - when that first story doesn’t reach the target straightaway, we find a way to reframe, and go again, until the impact is achieved.

Infographics about scam awareness, showing four sections with icons and text warning about email scams, urgency tactics, signs of scams, and common mistakes.

The brief

Each mini campaign in the StoryPlan has to deliver its own share of the overall annual objectives. For this particular findability brief, we needed to identify potential topics, from caba audience insights, that are long-lasting – not something so briefly topical that it couldn’t be the basis for an evergreen content destination on-site.

Although Bottle have a longlist of potential insights-led topics, there was one issue that caba members had been seeking advice: how to deal with ‘financial scams’.

We began planning and assembling the winning ingredients of a hard-working campaign.

Expertise becomes irresistibly linkable content

An infographic with four sections explaining a process. The first section shows hands typing on a laptop with the letter 'S' and the word 'sender.' The second section shows a person with a watch working on a laptop displaying an email alert, with the letter 'C' and the word 'chasing.' The third section features hands holding a credit card over a laptop, with the letter 'A' and the word 'action.' The fourth section depicts a man looking at a phone with glasses, with the letter 'M' and the word 'mistakes.'

Working with caba experts, we created a compelling - simple - onsite asset, formed from the mnemonic - S.C.A.M. - four common signals that you might be the target of an online fraud.

Hosted in the ‘Financial Tools’ hub on the caba site, it would be an essential link from any editorial coverage.

We wanted fresh data that hadn’t already been thoroughly rinsed through the media cycle - the flipside in making a story from a popular media topic is finding that newness to bring to the news.

ONS crime survey data was well-used already, so the team went to the source - ‘Action Fraud’ - the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime.

New-news from FOI data

A detailed financial chart displaying stock price movements over time with various data points and color-coded sections, including a timeline from 2017 to 2023, and numerical data at the bottom.

Their stats potentially offered two things that could give publication breadth and media hooks for a story:

regional differences
age / generational differences

The challenge: the Action Fraud data is not published publicly, so accessing it would need a successful FOI (Freedom of Information) Request.

It’s a process that can face blocks and delays if the request isn’t framed properly - but it’s a well-practised skill for the PR teams at Bottle, and it came up trumps this time.

Pivoting from planned to reactive

The analysis of Action Fraud data gave regional splits – allowing for targeted outreach to regional news titles to highlight where they ranked in the financial fraud scale, nationally.

Bottle’s first ‘launch’ outreach, in June ’24, majored on this – with journalists encouraged to link to the S.C.A.M. guidance on the caba site.

Although this had some pickup and success, it was not enough on its own to deliver the campaign objectives.

PR results can sometimes feel like ‘you earn, or you learn.’ With all of the best efforts, we know there are many reasons why a story doesn’t catch fire.

Digital PR results, though, can be more ‘you earn, and you learn, and you adapt, and you earn again.’

We had an evergreen topic – and an onsite, irresistibly linkable, content asset that doesn’t have a short expiry date.

Screenshot of an article titled 'Silent crime: Why are Gen Z more at risk at being scammed for concert tickets?' with a byline by Benjamin Jackson, and text discussing research by occupational charity caba, about the impact of ticket scams on Gen Z and the importance of financial wellbeing.

The Bottle team knew the data – they had crunched it themselves – and they stayed vigilant in their Daily Newsroom, monitoring the news agenda for new, topical hooks when they could outreach again. They made sure that Feedly – Bottle’s preferred AI tool that scans the media for relevant topics – was tuned-in to the keywords that might signal a ‘fraud and scams’ reactive opportunity. And they looked out to the next quarter, for ‘popular culture’ triggers – for another ‘planned reactive’ push.

Media analysis, from the previous years, showed that ‘Black Friday’ was a peak time for ‘scam’ stories – so it became a focus for that next quarter ‘planned reactive’ opp.

And the newsroom vigilance went from a ‘maybe’ to a ‘definitely maybe’ - with the Oasis tour announcement, which was accompanied with reports of ticketing scams.

The team knew that the data gave evidence of a surprising finding – that younger people and Gen Z digital natives were actually more prone to scams than the prevailing wisdom of vulnerable Boomers falling for fraudsters.

With some quick re-framing, the story angle of ‘Gen Z most prone to ticketing scams’ became the lead story, and with key titles targeted again, the team were on their way to hitting the campaign objectives.

A newspaper article titled 'Black Friday scams: How can shoppers better protect themselves?' with a photo of a retail store decorated for Black Friday, featuring a prominent sign indicating 'Black Friday 40%' discount, and customers shopping at the store.

Results & impact

With a campaign built around an enduring topic and an evergreen content asset, there’s not really an end-date. The Bottle team will be ‘sweating the asset’ for as long as the resource, and the topic, remain relevant.

Still, the campaign objectives had a timebound dimension, and it has (over)achieved the goals – by making a significant contribution to the site traffic for caba, and by earning backlinks in a broad range of strong online editorial targets.

Bar chart showing the distribution of domain authority (DA) by coverage volume. The chart indicates that 84% of coverage falls within the DA range of 50 to 100, with the highest volumes in the 50-59 and 60-69 ranges. The chart has pink bars representing volume, with numerical labels for each range, and a label in the middle indicates the 84% coverage in the DA 50-100 range.

Results (end 2024)

59 editorial backlinks (target: 40)
59 URDs (target: 40)
61 Average DA (target: 50)
1158 site visits by end 2024 to the caba ‘Financial Tools’ hub (target: 1000)

Line graph showing increase in website traffic after S.C.A.M. story launch, with magenta line for site average monthly traffic and blue line for hub average monthly traffic, from February 2023 to November 2024.

Don’t just take our word for it, take our clients’

“ Bottle always go above and beyond to deliver on our PR. They’ve always been helpful, supportive, (and patient!) throughout our collaboration and it’s such a pleasure to work with passionate, capable people that share our values and vision. We love how they put considerable resources into creating and tailoring the right messages and marketing mix for our needs. Their can-do, flexible attitude to supporting us has made them a very valuable part of our extended team."

Rekha Chauhan Senior, Brand and Communications Manager,

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