October 15, 2025 • 26 mins
In this 205th episode of The E-Comm Show, host Andrew Maff chats with Alex Nigmatulin, Co-Founder and CMO of PRNEWS.IO, about how AI and large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are redefining eCommerce PR.
They dive into Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), two emerging strategies that help brands appear inside AI-driven results and boost credibility across search and media.
You’ll learn how PR placements now influence ChatGPT’s recommendations, how to track ROI from brand mentions, and why personal branding has become the new PR frontier for eCommerce growth.
What You’ll Learn:
- How AEO & GEO shape brand visibility in ChatGPT
- The new ROI metrics for eCommerce PR
- Founder-led PR vs. corporate press releases
- AI-driven media placement strategies that work
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CONNECT WITH GUEST:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alex Nigmatulin (00:03):
If you sell something popular, you just
create a PPC campaign and youtarget the people who will buy
and hope that your bets willplay better than the bets of the
competitors.
Narrator (00:14):
Welcome to the E comm Show podcast. I'm your host.
Andrew Maff, owner and founderof BlueTusker, from
groundbreaking industry updatesto success stories and
strategies. Get to know the insand outs of the E Commerce
Industry from top leaders in thespace. Let's get into it!
Andrew Maff (00:29):
Hello everyone.
Welcome to another episode ofthe E comm show as usual. I am
your host, Andrew Maff, andtoday I am joined by the Amazing
Alex Nigmatulin, who is the cofounder and cmo over at
Prnews.io, Alex, how you doing,buddy? Ready for good show.
Alex Nigmatulin (00:43):
Good happy to have to come to your show and
happy to meet you finally.
Andrew!
Andrew Maff (00:50):
Thank you. I'm very excited to talk to you. I've
actually, in the past, likeseveral months, we've started
kind of evaluating somedifferent things from a PR
perspective, and obviously howit's affecting different llms
and all the fun AI and all thatfun stuff. So having you on the
show is fantastic timing. Reallyappreciate it. I always like to
kind of start these offrelatively stereotypically, just
kind of set the tone. I like togive you the floor. Tell
(01:10):
everyone a little bit about yourbackground, how you got started
with PR news.io, and we'll takeit from there.
Alex Nigmatulin (01:18):
Yeah. We are in this PR business for a long
time, and from day one, wewanted to implement something
new, and we started as peernewswire service back in Ukraine
and Europe, but then weunderstood that most of our
clients don't need just a chanceto get in published somewhere.
(01:41):
So they wanted a guaranteedplacements in exact medias. So
we discovered the world ofsponsored content and editorials
and decided to disrupt thismarket and create a marketplace
for that. That's why we are in Ecommerce, too, and we treat
ourselves as any other ecommerce, e commerce project
(02:03):
like Amazon or other otheronline shops, it is a place
where you can where providers,the owners of the media, provide
their services as placements ontheir platforms. And we help
people, we help clients tochoose the right one and to
(02:24):
conduct this procedure as smoothas possible.
Andrew Maff (02:27):
Beautiful, let's, um, let's, let's kind of start,
I guess, a little bit a stepback, and just kind of look at
it from the pros and cons of thePR side, right from an E
commerce perspective, obviously,I know a majority of the people
that listen to our podcast are ecommerce sellers, and in an E
commerce space, and I find thatmost of them severely
(02:51):
underutilized. PR, I think it'san amazing tool to be able to
get into different publications.
It helps a lot. fom an SEOperspective, it can obviously
help a lot now that llms aregetting involved and things like
that, because it's a little bitless biased. But from an E
commerce perspective, like, whatdo you see a lot of brands doing
in terms of how they leverage PRlike, is it mostly from product
(03:12):
launch strategies? Is it aroundlike, events that they're doing?
Like, what? What constitutesthem wanting to do a press
release.
Alex Nigmatulin (03:23):
I understand that, yeah, press release is a
decent way to communicate withwith the society, through
contacting with journalists,with providing their confirmed
information from your company.
But under PR, we understand muchother things. It's not only
press releases. It's all kind ofcontent, all kind of text
content. In our case, it is onething when you have an
(03:45):
auditorium who are interested inyour product in and your idea is
just to present your product tothese people. So yeah, if you
sell something popular, you justcreate a PPC campaign, and you
target the people who will buy,and hope that your bets will pay
better than the bets of thecompetitors, but it will be a
(04:08):
problem if it is completely newproduct and PR and marketing.
Content marketing is a way ofhow you can teach other people
about that this product exists,exists, that it helps to solve
problem it solves and to helpthem understand that they, in
(04:29):
the beginning, they have thisproblem, because not everyone
understands that. And in thiscase, PR will help you
definitely. Also PR is importantwhen you are looking for
partners, or you are looking forinvestment or any other kind,
because people will look yourcompany on Google, and now they
(04:50):
will look your company onchatgpt, or any other LLM.
That's why you need to controlwhat will be shown a on these
platforms and PR will help you.
So a lot of articles about allaspects of your company, about
your founders, about the keypeople, about the products you
(05:10):
produce, about your providers.
It is really important, and youhave to communicate this through
press.
Andrew Maff (05:17):
Okay, one of the things that I was super excited
to get to talk to you about, Iliterally, I think this was last
week, maybe two weeks ago. Wedid a campaign through PR
Newswire, and that was one ofthe most antiquated, ridiculous
platforms I think I've everused. It was just, it was
interesting. So tell me a littlebit about the difference,
(05:39):
because I know they're kind oflike the old school, like the
classic one of how that goesthrough. But obviously yours has
more of, like this kind of AIability to it. Can you explain a
little bit about thedifferentiator between PR
news.io, and other companieslike that?
Alex Nigmatulin (05:54):
Yeah, PR Newswire is a nice company with,
I don't know, 100 years history.
They distributed press releases,I think, when there was
telegraph or something, andyeah, and the approach they have
is still from that that times.
(06:14):
So the idea of them, they justtake your press release and send
to the media outlets and hopethey will pick it up, and in
most times it is not picked upbecause your news is not so
interesting for journalists,that's why they use the chain of
partner websites or sections onpopular websites where this news
(06:35):
will appear, but unfortunately,No one will read this news on
these sections. And we know thisproblem, that's why we disrupted
this process. So we take themoffers of media outlets, and you
(06:55):
can get placed in media one byone, pay on pay as you go.
Model, for example, today youwant to get your press release
published on Reuters. You pay1000 bucks, or tomorrow you want
to get published on AssociatedPress. It will cost you 100
bucks, for example. Then youwant to get published in some
(07:16):
niche trade media about, I don'tknow, portable toilets operator,
there is a media outlet forthat, yes, and you pay your
free, yeah, yeah, you pay this300 bucks and you get appeared
in this media guaranteed on theterms you want to get appeared.
(07:36):
Yes, it will be marked assponsored, but you will
definitely hit your audience,and then we'll discover about
your product. So we created thise commerce website where you
have a lot of filters so you canfind media for your for your
product. They are all divided byindustries, by the niches media
(08:00):
write about they have thisadditional information about the
visits, about the quality of themedia, with the help of, I don't
know, SEO characteristics of thewebsite. And then the process is
simple. You see the nicepublication, you pay the price
for placement, you provide thetext, then someone from the
(08:21):
publication will pick it up,publish from the website, and
send the link back. That'sthat's the approach.
Andrew Maff (08:28):
So is it? Excuse my ignorance around here, but this
is, it sounds similar to like aprogrammatic like, when you're
doing, like content articles andlike doing different things,
where you get it published ondifferent websites. You're doing
more programmatic things. If youcreate an article and you kind
of it blends in, like anotherarticle. Is it similar to that?
Just more from, like a mediaperspective?
Alex Nigmatulin (08:49):
It's not, maybe similar because in this case,
like programmatic, yes, there'ssome companies like tabula or
Outbrain, I don't know. Are theyconnected right now because they
wanted to merge, but yeah. Butin their model, you will appear
on the websites until you payfor this appearance, like you do
with PPC approach. You pay foradvertising, you are shown to
(09:13):
your clients. In our case, inmost cases, their placements
will be there forever, so itwill be a dedicated page on the
media outlet about you. It willbe in format of interview about
you as a founder. It can be alisticle of the most popular
products from your platform,from your e commerce website. It
(09:34):
can be, I don't know, a historyabout your company, or any other
format, but it will be thereforever, until this website will
exist.
Andrew Maff (09:44):
Yeah. So I imagine, especially now, with AI taking
off and all that fun stuff,that's it's probably having a
pretty large effect on it,right? Like, I know if, if you
use chat GPT, you're searchingfor something, it's pulling a
lot of data, obviously, justfrom standard Google search
results, but now it's alsopulling from like Reddit and
Quora and all these otherpublications. So doing these
(10:06):
types of articles, this type ofPR is that having an effect on
all the llms and like theresponses, or like, how's that
working?
Alex Nigmatulin (10:15):
Yes, yes, it has a great effect. After Quora,
after Reddit, after Wikipediaand after the website of the
company, their articles in mediais the next source of
information they use to answerthe questions. That's why, as
you know, young generation tellthat they don't read the news.
(10:37):
They use Tiktok and ChatgGPT. Wetell yes, you don't read the
news, but chatgpt does. So allthe information it gives backs
to you. It was taken fromsomewhere, and it is your target
as a marketer to feed this datato chatgpt, and you can do that
through placements in onlinemedia also chatgpt and other
(11:01):
LAMs. They like structured data.
That's why people ask, Can yourecommend me something? What is
the best solution for this? Andthat that's why one of the
approaches which works right nowis to get placed in listicles.
It is their article whichconsists of different products
in it like, what is the best ecommerce for dog food, for
(11:23):
example, and your target as amarketer right now, if you want
to get to make chatgpt Recommendyou, you have to be mentioned in
all these listicles, andpreferably on the first three
places. And this is how it worksright now. And from our
experience, we see that,unfortunately, chatgpt now
(11:45):
doesn't understand was thismedia? Was this placement paid?
Does it have this paid mark, orit was not? They still treat it
as a decent source ofinformation. Probably it will
change with time. But I thinkthat the core idea is that it
will not change because weunderstand that advertising
(12:08):
makes the product better. Ifpeople will want to invest money
in advertising, in advertisingof their product, if they invest
in placements, in listicles,they definitely need more
clients. They definitely want tomake to serve their clients in
the best way. Yeah, that's why Ithink still advertising exists.
(12:28):
And yeah, it is. It is an enginethat drives the product forward.
Andrew Maff (12:38):
Yeah.
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(13:00):
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Andrew Maff (13:11):
So I know this has so this is where it gets kind of
muddy, right? Because, like,this is kind of standard SEO to
a certain extent. But obviously,because of AI and things like
that, brand awareness all that,it kind of muddies the area of
how you would qualify orquantify. I guess this type of
strategy, a lot of E commercebrands, they love to, you know,
(13:33):
make sure that they can paint apicture of an ROI down to like
every single penny. So ifsomeone was to do a campaign
directly through like, throughyou guys doing it through PR
news.IO like, how am I? Am Iable to track how much traffic
as has gained from thatcampaign?
Alex Nigmatulin (13:53):
This is a tricky thing, but you can do it
on your site. You can use theUTM, when you place the links on
the media outlets, that's whyyou can track the number of
clicks it came from. And in thecase of chatgpt, it is harder in
other lms Because they don't usethis but in case in chatgpt and
(14:15):
lms, it's nice thing that youdon't need to think about
backlinks anymore, because theyunderstand their mention of your
brand, it is more important thana backlink to you. So yeah, it
is an easy way. The problem willbe is that your brand name can
(14:36):
can be not unique. And in thiscase, you have to think about
that. That's why, if you haveunique name, unique approach, it
is it will be easier for chatgptto recommend you. This is one,
one of the ways, and yeah, somemedia outlets after the
placement, they will provideyou, if you ask the data about
how many visits or impressionsthis or that placement get from
(15:04):
their point of view. But thebest way is to use their UTMs
and to track this data throughthat, because there is no a
single solution which is used byeveryone, that people just can
use that.
Some time ago, we had thisGoogle Analytics and media
(15:27):
outlets share the GoogleAnalytics data with us so we can
control the information to ourclients. Now, with the
implementations of GA four, itis harder to do, and we are
looking for a best solution forthat. It's something we have to
implement soon.
Andrew Maff (15:42):
Yeah, interesting.
So between all this stuff, sothat obviously you've got the
stuff on the chat GPT side,you've got everything from like
a traditional perspective,that's a very good point. I
never even really thought aboutthat of like chatgpt, all these
different AI models, they'reprobably more they're probably
more interested in howfrequently your brand is
referenced, as opposed to justbacklinks and things like that,
(16:04):
since those are easy to get sothat that makes it very
interesting, from a PRperspective, how that would be
pretty beneficial. Do you havelike, insight into what you
usually see works? Well, I couldsee a lot of brands being like,
Oh, let me just pay for like oneor two placements on, like, one
or two publications, and thenthat's it. Like, do you think
this is more of a, hey, you'vegot a you've got to make a big
(16:27):
splash and make a lot of noisefor it to really do anything. Or
is there a way to kind of dipyour toe in it and just try it
out?
Alex Nigmatulin (16:35):
You have to invest time and money in that?
Yeah, definitely. You can belucky and hit the target with
some, I don't know, digital PRcampaign, and get a lot of
mentions with that. You cancreate something viral, and it
will be picked up, and you'llget enough traffic and clients
with that. But for most of uswho don't put everything on that
(17:00):
you have to do a month to monthjob, you have to buy, you have
to get placed in media in anyway. You have to create
interesting content and pitchthem, and then you hope that
they will pick it up. Or you canjust pay and have this amount of
money you are ready to spend anddo that, but you have to be
(17:25):
aware that your competitors arenot waiting. They are doing the
easiest way. If they have enoughmoney, they will just buy
everything they want and bewherever they want. Yeah, yeah.
And you have to think not onlyabout your product, but about
the tactics of your competitors.
And in that case, by the way, Ican recommend using other tools,
(17:48):
like, I don't know, hrefs orSEMrush to analyze, to analyze
how your competitors what thetactics they use. Are they
placed in media right now? Dothey acquire the backlinks? Do
they acquire their are theyrecommended by chatgpt, because
all these instruments nowprovide some part of this data.
Andrew Maff (18:09):
Yeah, do you where do you think PR is going? I
think it's it's been kind of aninteresting play, right? Like
years ago, doing a pressrelease, awesome. You could get
a big splash. Sometimesjournalists and pick it up. Now
it's a little bit like, it'salmost more. It's almost more to
get the awareness in hopes thatthe AI platforms are going to
(18:29):
pick it up because journalists,it's almost like, I guess that's
why they say the benefit ofworking with like a PR agency is
that they have those preexisting relationships with
journalists and things likethat. Where do you think it's
headed now that we're startingto see more and more kind of AI
come into the picture?
Alex Nigmatulin (18:45):
I think that with this AI coming into
picture, people want to speakand communicate with people
more. That's why this personalbranding, personal PR, starts to
become more and more interestingevery day, because people, yeah,
the accounts, even on socialmedia, the accounts of brands
(19:09):
are not so popular as theaccounts of some of their
founders, for example, orpresidents.
And that's why people want toread the news from the founder
of some the from the key person.
That's why companies need toinvest into their people and
build this personal brand forthem. And this is, I think,
(19:29):
where PR is going also. Andbecause, yeah, it is. Now the
information is easy to get, butpeople want to have this vibe of
talking, and to get this, thisinformation is approved by a
real person. It is not generatedbecause maybe the easiest thing
you already can get fromChatGPT. But there's something
(19:51):
really important, somethingreally good. It is provided by
people.
Andrew Maff (19:58):
Yeah, interesting.
So are you seeing moresuccessful campaigns when it's
more directed as like it'scoming from, like the thought
leadership, like it's comingfrom the owner or the founder,
more so than if it's just like ageneral company news kind of
thing?
Alex Nigmatulin (20:11):
Yeah, yeah. I think that. And we operate in
different countries, and also insome Eastern countries, for
example, in Turkey and Oh,Tokyo, you have to name it,
change the name, and it is likemust have. If you approach this
market, you have to use thepicture, the portrait of your
(20:35):
founder, on every, everyactivities you have, because it
is it people trust you more ifyou if they see the person
behind that. And this approach,I think, goes to other, other
places. Yes, because now it iseasy with the Google video or
(20:57):
other tools you can create nowthe video, and, yeah, it works
to check their MVP, to check inMVP way, way of some
advertising, or something likethat. Or you can create a nice
picture of you in, yeah, it'sapplicable. But if the real
people, not the stock photos,not the generated photos, it
(21:23):
works better. But no one knowsall the instruments improve all
the time, and I don't know,maybe in the month, the pictures
will be so nice that people willnot understand that, are they
really generated, or are theyreally real? Now, which is hard
for some people to get that orwith nice instruments.
Andrew Maff (21:46):
Do you one of the things I was worried about in PR
perspective, is like you end upgetting either thought leaders
or businesses just in general,kind of, I guess, taking
advantage of it, where I feellike they're putting out a press
release for like, oh, I woke uptoday, like, here's a press
release about it. Like, it'sjust like, Okay, we don't need a
story about that. Do you whenyou are working with the
(22:08):
different businesses anddifferent brands, do you provide
any insight into, like, hey?
Like, you may not need a pressrelease for this, or, like,
Where specifically it should go,or anything along those lines?
Alex Nigmatulin (22:18):
Yes, definitely. People wants to, in
this case, people likes to readpeople's stories. That's why you
have to put these interviews, orto use this format, I don't
know, like one day in life of aperson. It is popular for
politicians, people just spendthe day with pictures, what,
(22:39):
what they're doing in everydaylife, how they talk with the
helpers, or, I don't know,anywhere in this format, yeah,
and yeah, definitely press. Butalso you have to understand that
press release, it is a B to Bproduct. It is not a B to C
product. People, common peopleare not supposed to read that.
(23:02):
It is information, rawinformation, for journalists.
And journalists have to create acontent on the basis of that, if
it picks their mind, if theylike this. That's why, when you
you don't have to read pressrelease until you are a
journalist, and not everyonereads all the press releases, we
(23:24):
hope that, yeah, they will befiltered out and you see the
press releases you're reallyinterested in. And yeah, there
is a problem that people justtry to promote something which
doesn't work to be promoted. Butsometimes they use it to get
backlinks, I don't know.
Sometimes they use it to just tobe that just to increase
(23:46):
awareness in any way, sometimesthey use it to hide something,
because there are this, some usein the company, which are hidden
for a day when there will becrisis situation, And, yeah, it
can be some problems, youstarted to let people away.
Yeah, you start to fire people.
(24:08):
But in this case, they don'tlike to negative news hit the
Google or news. That's why theytry to push some evergreen
content at the same time. Andyou don't know why it is
important right now, but they'rehiding something.
Andrew Maff (24:26):
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Alex, this was, this
was awesome, very eye opening. Iappreciate all the insight here.
I'd love to let you wrap up heretell everyone where they can
find out more about you, and, ofcourse, more about PRnews.io
Alex Nigmatulin (24:38):
Yeah, I'm always happy to connect on
LinkedIn, you can find me easythere. I'm Alex Nigmatulin, and
also I'll be happy to chat andto show you around the platform,
and maybe, I don't know, giveyou some some ideas or where to
start. And yes, and you canalways sign up on PR news. It is
(25:02):
free. You pay only if you wantto get published somewhere.
Andrew Maff (25:07):
cool. Alex, really appreciate it, man. Thank you so
much for coming on the show.
Obviously, everyone that tunedin, yep, make sure you do the
usual thing, rate review,subscribe all that fun stuff on
whichever podcast platform youprefer, or head over to the ecom
show.com to check out all of ourprevious episodes, but as usual,
thank you all for joining us seeyou next time.
Narrator (25:27):
Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over
to E comm show.com to subscribeon your favorite podcast
platform or on the BlueTuskrYouTube channel. The E comm show
is brought to you by BlueTuskr,a full service digital marketing
company specifically for Ecommerce sellers looking to
(25:48):
accelerate their growth, go tobluetuskr.com now for more
information, make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the E comm show! you
If you sell something popular, you just
create a PPC campaign and youtarget the people who will buy
and hope that your bets willplay better than the bets of the
competitors.
Narrator (00:14):
Welcome to the E comm Show podcast. I'm your host.
Andrew Maff, owner and founderof BlueTusker, from
groundbreaking industry updatesto success stories and
strategies. Get to know the insand outs of the E Commerce
Industry from top leaders in thespace. Let's get into it!
Andrew Maff (00:29):
Hello everyone.
Welcome to another episode ofthe E comm show as usual. I am
your host, Andrew Maff, andtoday I am joined by the Amazing
Alex Nigmatulin, who is the cofounder and cmo over at
Prnews.io, Alex, how you doing,buddy? Ready for good show.
Alex Nigmatulin (00:43):
Good happy to have to come to your show and
happy to meet you finally.
Andrew!
Andrew Maff (00:50):
Thank you. I'm very excited to talk to you. I've
actually, in the past, likeseveral months, we've started
kind of evaluating somedifferent things from a PR
perspective, and obviously howit's affecting different llms
and all the fun AI and all thatfun stuff. So having you on the
show is fantastic timing. Reallyappreciate it. I always like to
kind of start these offrelatively stereotypically, just
kind of set the tone. I like togive you the floor. Tell
(01:10):
everyone a little bit about yourbackground, how you got started
with PR news.io, and we'll takeit from there.
Alex Nigmatulin (01:18):
Yeah. We are in this PR business for a long
time, and from day one, wewanted to implement something
new, and we started as peernewswire service back in Ukraine
and Europe, but then weunderstood that most of our
clients don't need just a chanceto get in published somewhere.
(01:41):
So they wanted a guaranteedplacements in exact medias. So
we discovered the world ofsponsored content and editorials
and decided to disrupt thismarket and create a marketplace
for that. That's why we are in Ecommerce, too, and we treat
ourselves as any other ecommerce, e commerce project
(02:03):
like Amazon or other otheronline shops, it is a place
where you can where providers,the owners of the media, provide
their services as placements ontheir platforms. And we help
people, we help clients tochoose the right one and to
(02:24):
conduct this procedure as smoothas possible.
Andrew Maff (02:27):
Beautiful, let's, um, let's, let's kind of start,
I guess, a little bit a stepback, and just kind of look at
it from the pros and cons of thePR side, right from an E
commerce perspective, obviously,I know a majority of the people
that listen to our podcast are ecommerce sellers, and in an E
commerce space, and I find thatmost of them severely
(02:51):
underutilized. PR, I think it'san amazing tool to be able to
get into different publications.
It helps a lot. fom an SEOperspective, it can obviously
help a lot now that llms aregetting involved and things like
that, because it's a little bitless biased. But from an E
commerce perspective, like, whatdo you see a lot of brands doing
in terms of how they leverage PRlike, is it mostly from product
(03:12):
launch strategies? Is it aroundlike, events that they're doing?
Like, what? What constitutesthem wanting to do a press
release.
Alex Nigmatulin (03:23):
I understand that, yeah, press release is a
decent way to communicate withwith the society, through
contacting with journalists,with providing their confirmed
information from your company.
But under PR, we understand muchother things. It's not only
press releases. It's all kind ofcontent, all kind of text
content. In our case, it is onething when you have an
(03:45):
auditorium who are interested inyour product in and your idea is
just to present your product tothese people. So yeah, if you
sell something popular, you justcreate a PPC campaign, and you
target the people who will buy,and hope that your bets will pay
better than the bets of thecompetitors, but it will be a
(04:08):
problem if it is completely newproduct and PR and marketing.
Content marketing is a way ofhow you can teach other people
about that this product exists,exists, that it helps to solve
problem it solves and to helpthem understand that they, in
(04:29):
the beginning, they have thisproblem, because not everyone
understands that. And in thiscase, PR will help you
definitely. Also PR is importantwhen you are looking for
partners, or you are looking forinvestment or any other kind,
because people will look yourcompany on Google, and now they
(04:50):
will look your company onchatgpt, or any other LLM.
That's why you need to controlwhat will be shown a on these
platforms and PR will help you.
So a lot of articles about allaspects of your company, about
your founders, about the keypeople, about the products you
(05:10):
produce, about your providers.
It is really important, and youhave to communicate this through
press.
Andrew Maff (05:17):
Okay, one of the things that I was super excited
to get to talk to you about, Iliterally, I think this was last
week, maybe two weeks ago. Wedid a campaign through PR
Newswire, and that was one ofthe most antiquated, ridiculous
platforms I think I've everused. It was just, it was
interesting. So tell me a littlebit about the difference,
(05:39):
because I know they're kind oflike the old school, like the
classic one of how that goesthrough. But obviously yours has
more of, like this kind of AIability to it. Can you explain a
little bit about thedifferentiator between PR
news.io, and other companieslike that?
Alex Nigmatulin (05:54):
Yeah, PR Newswire is a nice company with,
I don't know, 100 years history.
They distributed press releases,I think, when there was
telegraph or something, andyeah, and the approach they have
is still from that that times.
(06:14):
So the idea of them, they justtake your press release and send
to the media outlets and hopethey will pick it up, and in
most times it is not picked upbecause your news is not so
interesting for journalists,that's why they use the chain of
partner websites or sections onpopular websites where this news
(06:35):
will appear, but unfortunately,No one will read this news on
these sections. And we know thisproblem, that's why we disrupted
this process. So we take themoffers of media outlets, and you
(06:55):
can get placed in media one byone, pay on pay as you go.
Model, for example, today youwant to get your press release
published on Reuters. You pay1000 bucks, or tomorrow you want
to get published on AssociatedPress. It will cost you 100
bucks, for example. Then youwant to get published in some
(07:16):
niche trade media about, I don'tknow, portable toilets operator,
there is a media outlet forthat, yes, and you pay your
free, yeah, yeah, you pay this300 bucks and you get appeared
in this media guaranteed on theterms you want to get appeared.
(07:36):
Yes, it will be marked assponsored, but you will
definitely hit your audience,and then we'll discover about
your product. So we created thise commerce website where you
have a lot of filters so you canfind media for your for your
product. They are all divided byindustries, by the niches media
(08:00):
write about they have thisadditional information about the
visits, about the quality of themedia, with the help of, I don't
know, SEO characteristics of thewebsite. And then the process is
simple. You see the nicepublication, you pay the price
for placement, you provide thetext, then someone from the
(08:21):
publication will pick it up,publish from the website, and
send the link back. That'sthat's the approach.
Andrew Maff (08:28):
So is it? Excuse my ignorance around here, but this
is, it sounds similar to like aprogrammatic like, when you're
doing, like content articles andlike doing different things,
where you get it published ondifferent websites. You're doing
more programmatic things. If youcreate an article and you kind
of it blends in, like anotherarticle. Is it similar to that?
Just more from, like a mediaperspective?
Alex Nigmatulin (08:49):
It's not, maybe similar because in this case,
like programmatic, yes, there'ssome companies like tabula or
Outbrain, I don't know. Are theyconnected right now because they
wanted to merge, but yeah. Butin their model, you will appear
on the websites until you payfor this appearance, like you do
with PPC approach. You pay foradvertising, you are shown to
(09:13):
your clients. In our case, inmost cases, their placements
will be there forever, so itwill be a dedicated page on the
media outlet about you. It willbe in format of interview about
you as a founder. It can be alisticle of the most popular
products from your platform,from your e commerce website. It
(09:34):
can be, I don't know, a historyabout your company, or any other
format, but it will be thereforever, until this website will
exist.
Andrew Maff (09:44):
Yeah. So I imagine, especially now, with AI taking
off and all that fun stuff,that's it's probably having a
pretty large effect on it,right? Like, I know if, if you
use chat GPT, you're searchingfor something, it's pulling a
lot of data, obviously, justfrom standard Google search
results, but now it's alsopulling from like Reddit and
Quora and all these otherpublications. So doing these
(10:06):
types of articles, this type ofPR is that having an effect on
all the llms and like theresponses, or like, how's that
working?
Alex Nigmatulin (10:15):
Yes, yes, it has a great effect. After Quora,
after Reddit, after Wikipediaand after the website of the
company, their articles in mediais the next source of
information they use to answerthe questions. That's why, as
you know, young generation tellthat they don't read the news.
(10:37):
They use Tiktok and ChatgGPT. Wetell yes, you don't read the
news, but chatgpt does. So allthe information it gives backs
to you. It was taken fromsomewhere, and it is your target
as a marketer to feed this datato chatgpt, and you can do that
through placements in onlinemedia also chatgpt and other
(11:01):
LAMs. They like structured data.
That's why people ask, Can yourecommend me something? What is
the best solution for this? Andthat that's why one of the
approaches which works right nowis to get placed in listicles.
It is their article whichconsists of different products
in it like, what is the best ecommerce for dog food, for
(11:23):
example, and your target as amarketer right now, if you want
to get to make chatgpt Recommendyou, you have to be mentioned in
all these listicles, andpreferably on the first three
places. And this is how it worksright now. And from our
experience, we see that,unfortunately, chatgpt now
(11:45):
doesn't understand was thismedia? Was this placement paid?
Does it have this paid mark, orit was not? They still treat it
as a decent source ofinformation. Probably it will
change with time. But I thinkthat the core idea is that it
will not change because weunderstand that advertising
(12:08):
makes the product better. Ifpeople will want to invest money
in advertising, in advertisingof their product, if they invest
in placements, in listicles,they definitely need more
clients. They definitely want tomake to serve their clients in
the best way. Yeah, that's why Ithink still advertising exists.
(12:28):
And yeah, it is. It is an enginethat drives the product forward.
Andrew Maff (12:38):
Yeah.
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Andrew Maff (13:11):
So I know this has so this is where it gets kind of
muddy, right? Because, like,this is kind of standard SEO to
a certain extent. But obviously,because of AI and things like
that, brand awareness all that,it kind of muddies the area of
how you would qualify orquantify. I guess this type of
strategy, a lot of E commercebrands, they love to, you know,
(13:33):
make sure that they can paint apicture of an ROI down to like
every single penny. So ifsomeone was to do a campaign
directly through like, throughyou guys doing it through PR
news.IO like, how am I? Am Iable to track how much traffic
as has gained from thatcampaign?
Alex Nigmatulin (13:53):
This is a tricky thing, but you can do it
on your site. You can use theUTM, when you place the links on
the media outlets, that's whyyou can track the number of
clicks it came from. And in thecase of chatgpt, it is harder in
other lms Because they don't usethis but in case in chatgpt and
(14:15):
lms, it's nice thing that youdon't need to think about
backlinks anymore, because theyunderstand their mention of your
brand, it is more important thana backlink to you. So yeah, it
is an easy way. The problem willbe is that your brand name can
(14:36):
can be not unique. And in thiscase, you have to think about
that. That's why, if you haveunique name, unique approach, it
is it will be easier for chatgptto recommend you. This is one,
one of the ways, and yeah, somemedia outlets after the
placement, they will provideyou, if you ask the data about
how many visits or impressionsthis or that placement get from
(15:04):
their point of view. But thebest way is to use their UTMs
and to track this data throughthat, because there is no a
single solution which is used byeveryone, that people just can
use that.
Some time ago, we had thisGoogle Analytics and media
(15:27):
outlets share the GoogleAnalytics data with us so we can
control the information to ourclients. Now, with the
implementations of GA four, itis harder to do, and we are
looking for a best solution forthat. It's something we have to
implement soon.
Andrew Maff (15:42):
Yeah, interesting.
So between all this stuff, sothat obviously you've got the
stuff on the chat GPT side,you've got everything from like
a traditional perspective,that's a very good point. I
never even really thought aboutthat of like chatgpt, all these
different AI models, they'reprobably more they're probably
more interested in howfrequently your brand is
referenced, as opposed to justbacklinks and things like that,
(16:04):
since those are easy to get sothat that makes it very
interesting, from a PRperspective, how that would be
pretty beneficial. Do you havelike, insight into what you
usually see works? Well, I couldsee a lot of brands being like,
Oh, let me just pay for like oneor two placements on, like, one
or two publications, and thenthat's it. Like, do you think
this is more of a, hey, you'vegot a you've got to make a big
(16:27):
splash and make a lot of noisefor it to really do anything. Or
is there a way to kind of dipyour toe in it and just try it
out?
Alex Nigmatulin (16:35):
You have to invest time and money in that?
Yeah, definitely. You can belucky and hit the target with
some, I don't know, digital PRcampaign, and get a lot of
mentions with that. You cancreate something viral, and it
will be picked up, and you'llget enough traffic and clients
with that. But for most of uswho don't put everything on that
(17:00):
you have to do a month to monthjob, you have to buy, you have
to get placed in media in anyway. You have to create
interesting content and pitchthem, and then you hope that
they will pick it up. Or you canjust pay and have this amount of
money you are ready to spend anddo that, but you have to be
(17:25):
aware that your competitors arenot waiting. They are doing the
easiest way. If they have enoughmoney, they will just buy
everything they want and bewherever they want. Yeah, yeah.
And you have to think not onlyabout your product, but about
the tactics of your competitors.
And in that case, by the way, Ican recommend using other tools,
(17:48):
like, I don't know, hrefs orSEMrush to analyze, to analyze
how your competitors what thetactics they use. Are they
placed in media right now? Dothey acquire the backlinks? Do
they acquire their are theyrecommended by chatgpt, because
all these instruments nowprovide some part of this data.
Andrew Maff (18:09):
Yeah, do you where do you think PR is going? I
think it's it's been kind of aninteresting play, right? Like
years ago, doing a pressrelease, awesome. You could get
a big splash. Sometimesjournalists and pick it up. Now
it's a little bit like, it'salmost more. It's almost more to
get the awareness in hopes thatthe AI platforms are going to
(18:29):
pick it up because journalists,it's almost like, I guess that's
why they say the benefit ofworking with like a PR agency is
that they have those preexisting relationships with
journalists and things likethat. Where do you think it's
headed now that we're startingto see more and more kind of AI
come into the picture?
Alex Nigmatulin (18:45):
I think that with this AI coming into
picture, people want to speakand communicate with people
more. That's why this personalbranding, personal PR, starts to
become more and more interestingevery day, because people, yeah,
the accounts, even on socialmedia, the accounts of brands
(19:09):
are not so popular as theaccounts of some of their
founders, for example, orpresidents.
And that's why people want toread the news from the founder
of some the from the key person.
That's why companies need toinvest into their people and
build this personal brand forthem. And this is, I think,
(19:29):
where PR is going also. Andbecause, yeah, it is. Now the
information is easy to get, butpeople want to have this vibe of
talking, and to get this, thisinformation is approved by a
real person. It is not generatedbecause maybe the easiest thing
you already can get fromChatGPT. But there's something
(19:51):
really important, somethingreally good. It is provided by
people.
Andrew Maff (19:58):
Yeah, interesting.
So are you seeing moresuccessful campaigns when it's
more directed as like it'scoming from, like the thought
leadership, like it's comingfrom the owner or the founder,
more so than if it's just like ageneral company news kind of
thing?
Alex Nigmatulin (20:11):
Yeah, yeah. I think that. And we operate in
different countries, and also insome Eastern countries, for
example, in Turkey and Oh,Tokyo, you have to name it,
change the name, and it is likemust have. If you approach this
market, you have to use thepicture, the portrait of your
(20:35):
founder, on every, everyactivities you have, because it
is it people trust you more ifyou if they see the person
behind that. And this approach,I think, goes to other, other
places. Yes, because now it iseasy with the Google video or
(20:57):
other tools you can create nowthe video, and, yeah, it works
to check their MVP, to check inMVP way, way of some
advertising, or something likethat. Or you can create a nice
picture of you in, yeah, it'sapplicable. But if the real
people, not the stock photos,not the generated photos, it
(21:23):
works better. But no one knowsall the instruments improve all
the time, and I don't know,maybe in the month, the pictures
will be so nice that people willnot understand that, are they
really generated, or are theyreally real? Now, which is hard
for some people to get that orwith nice instruments.
Andrew Maff (21:46):
Do you one of the things I was worried about in PR
perspective, is like you end upgetting either thought leaders
or businesses just in general,kind of, I guess, taking
advantage of it, where I feellike they're putting out a press
release for like, oh, I woke uptoday, like, here's a press
release about it. Like, it'sjust like, Okay, we don't need a
story about that. Do you whenyou are working with the
(22:08):
different businesses anddifferent brands, do you provide
any insight into, like, hey?
Like, you may not need a pressrelease for this, or, like,
Where specifically it should go,or anything along those lines?
Alex Nigmatulin (22:18):
Yes, definitely. People wants to, in
this case, people likes to readpeople's stories. That's why you
have to put these interviews, orto use this format, I don't
know, like one day in life of aperson. It is popular for
politicians, people just spendthe day with pictures, what,
(22:39):
what they're doing in everydaylife, how they talk with the
helpers, or, I don't know,anywhere in this format, yeah,
and yeah, definitely press. Butalso you have to understand that
press release, it is a B to Bproduct. It is not a B to C
product. People, common peopleare not supposed to read that.
(23:02):
It is information, rawinformation, for journalists.
And journalists have to create acontent on the basis of that, if
it picks their mind, if theylike this. That's why, when you
you don't have to read pressrelease until you are a
journalist, and not everyonereads all the press releases, we
(23:24):
hope that, yeah, they will befiltered out and you see the
press releases you're reallyinterested in. And yeah, there
is a problem that people justtry to promote something which
doesn't work to be promoted. Butsometimes they use it to get
backlinks, I don't know.
Sometimes they use it to just tobe that just to increase
(23:46):
awareness in any way, sometimesthey use it to hide something,
because there are this, some usein the company, which are hidden
for a day when there will becrisis situation, And, yeah, it
can be some problems, youstarted to let people away.
Yeah, you start to fire people.
(24:08):
But in this case, they don'tlike to negative news hit the
Google or news. That's why theytry to push some evergreen
content at the same time. Andyou don't know why it is
important right now, but they'rehiding something.
Andrew Maff (24:26):
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Alex, this was, this
was awesome, very eye opening. Iappreciate all the insight here.
I'd love to let you wrap up heretell everyone where they can
find out more about you, and, ofcourse, more about PRnews.io
Alex Nigmatulin (24:38):
Yeah, I'm always happy to connect on
LinkedIn, you can find me easythere. I'm Alex Nigmatulin, and
also I'll be happy to chat andto show you around the platform,
and maybe, I don't know, giveyou some some ideas or where to
start. And yes, and you canalways sign up on PR news. It is
(25:02):
free. You pay only if you wantto get published somewhere.
Andrew Maff (25:07):
cool. Alex, really appreciate it, man. Thank you so
much for coming on the show.
Obviously, everyone that tunedin, yep, make sure you do the
usual thing, rate review,subscribe all that fun stuff on
whichever podcast platform youprefer, or head over to the ecom
show.com to check out all of ourprevious episodes, but as usual,
thank you all for joining us seeyou next time.
Narrator (25:27):
Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over
to E comm show.com to subscribeon your favorite podcast
platform or on the BlueTuskrYouTube channel. The E comm show
is brought to you by BlueTuskr,a full service digital marketing
company specifically for Ecommerce sellers looking to
(25:48):
accelerate their growth, go tobluetuskr.com now for more
information, make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the E comm show! you
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