This document discusses questions that should be asked when evaluating public relations activity and measuring success, rather than solely relying on ad value equivalencies (AVEs). The three key questions are: 1) Is the AVE providing the most insightful, relevant information? 2) How do you know what customers are saying about you? 3) Are you the reason you don't know if your communications campaign is working? These questions get at whether objectives were defined and linked to business goals, if PR achieved its objectives, and how closely the PR plan is aligned with current goals and business performance. Relying only on AVEs is not considered the hallmark of success.