Link building case studies: what public campaigns show
Yes, there are public link building case studies with numbers, but almost all are published by the agency that ran the campaign. This page lists seven with a named source, labels who published each, and explains how to read them.
In short
- Nearly every public link building case study is written by the agency that did the work, so each one shows a success chosen by the seller.
- Reboot Online's JRPass case study reports 122 links, a 139% rise in referring domains and a 46% rise in organic traffic.
- JBH's entry for Cosmetify at the 2026 Performance Marketing Awards reports 125 links from a 12,000 pound budget, with 72% of links pointing to commercial pages.
- Reboot Online's February 2025 experiment on a dormant test site is the closest thing in this list to a controlled test, and it covers one site.
- No independently verified case studies were found for finance, crypto, legal, education or home services.
There are real link building case studies with numbers, and you can read them. The limit is who writes them. Almost every public case is published by the agency that ran the campaign, which means you are looking at a success the seller chose to show. That does not make the numbers false. It means they show what is possible, not what is typical.
Every case below has a named source that we opened in October 2026. Each is labelled with who published it. The figures are the publisher’s own and have not been independently checked.
Seven public cases
| Case | Published by | Type | Reported result |
|---|---|---|---|
| JRPass, rail passes | Reboot Online, agency case study | Digital PR in several countries | 122 links, 139% more referring domains, 46% more organic traffic, 41% above the contracted target |
| Rant Casino | Reboot Online, agency case study | Digital PR, 56 or more campaigns since 2020 | 433 links, 114 pieces of coverage |
| DAZN Bet | Receptional, agency article, July 2026 | Interviews with former footballers | More than 350 pieces of coverage, 311 links, Domain Rating from 26 to 58 in about a year |
| Cosmetify | JBH, award entry, Performance Marketing Awards 2026 | Refreshed data index | 125 links, 72% to commercial pages, 12,000 pound budget, 421% return claimed |
| Booking.com for Business | Digitaloft, agency case study, updated April 2026 | Hero campaigns plus reactive PR | 75 or more links at an average Domain Rating of 53, 28% more organic traffic in under 12 months |
| Car floor mat retailer, Spain | Seeders, agency case study | Blog placements, internal linking, technical work over six years | 399 new top-3 rankings, from 12 ranking keywords at the start |
| Dormant test site | Reboot Online, own experiment, February 2025 | Syndicated news links only | More than 180 syndicated links, page-one rankings for all target terms within weeks |
What each one shows
JRPass. Reboot Online reports campaigns built on public data requests, social media data and expert comment, with links from ten countries. One campaign on the hottest London Underground lines earned 21 links. The useful point is the multi-country approach: stories were shaped for each market. International link building covers why that matters.
Rant Casino. Gambling is a sector where many publishers refuse links. Reboot Online’s case shows the usual answer in digital PR: widen the topic. Its campaigns covered entertainment and popular culture, and one about the unluckiest regions in a zombie apocalypse earned 81 links. The page gives no end date, and the question it leaves open is how much off-topic coverage helps a casino rank.
DAZN Bet. Receptional describes a brand that filmed interviews with former players, including Michael Owen and Paul Ince, and released quotes across the weekly football news cycle. The page is an agency article about examples in the sector. It does not state that Receptional ran the work, so treat it as a secondhand account.
Cosmetify. The clearest commercial case here. JBH’s award entry reports that 72% of 125 links pointed to category pages, with a stated cost of 96 pounds per link, a 74% rise in traffic and a 162% rise in revenue. It was written to win an award, and it did win silver. Links to commercial pages are what most campaigns fail to get, as which pages need links explains.
Booking.com for Business. Digitaloft reports that 67% of links came from domains new to the site, plus 25 brand mentions. The mix of planned campaigns and reactive comment is the standard agency model.
Seeders. This one is not digital PR. It combines placements on Spanish automotive blogs with on-page and technical work, over six years. Seeders itself credits internal linking for spreading the benefit. With that many changes, the result cannot be assigned to links alone.
Reboot’s syndication test. The only experiment in the list. A dormant site received more than 180 links from syndicated copies of news stories, at an average Domain Rating of 70, with minimal other changes, and moved to page one for its target terms. Reboot notes it was not designed as a formal test and that isolating syndicated links is normally close to impossible. It is one site, and BuzzStream’s guidance takes the opposite view of syndicated links.
How to read a case study
Ask five questions.
- Who wrote it? An agency page is marketing. An award entry is written to impress judges. Neither is an audit.
- How are links counted? Total links, unique referring domains and followed links give very different numbers. BuzzStream’s 2026 pricing analysis puts a typical $5,000 to $10,000 campaign at 6 to 7 unique linking domains when syndicated copies are excluded. Headline counts in case studies usually include everything.
- Where did the links point? Links to a campaign page help less than links to pages that earn money.
- What else changed? Site migrations, content work and technical fixes often run at the same time.
- What is the time frame? Several cases above give no end date. A rise “since 2020” tells you little about pace.
Also look for what is missing. Agencies do not publish the campaigns that earned nothing. You are seeing survivors.
What the cases agree on
Read together, they support a few modest conclusions.
- Data-led stories and expert comment are the formats that agencies report success with. That matches BuzzStream’s State of Digital PR 2026 survey, in which 95.9% of practitioners pitched data-led content.
- Results take months. The shortest stated period above is under 12 months, the longest six years. See how long link building takes.
- The strongest cases tie links to commercial pages or pair them with on-site work.
- Budgets are rarely disclosed. Cosmetify is the only case here that states one.
They do not show that a given number of links produces a given ranking. None has a control group apart from the single-site experiment.
The cases nobody publishes
The other kind of documented case comes from journalists, not agencies. Medianama reported in June 2026 that 223 Indian government websites had been hacked to host gambling content. That is evidence of how some rankings in high-risk markets are obtained, and it is criminal. Hacked and cloaked links explains how to recognise it.
Buyers of ordinary paid placements do not publish case studies either. For that side of the market the best evidence is large datasets, such as BuzzStream’s June 2026 study that rated 96.2% of roughly 257,000 guest post sellers as low quality.
Where the evidence is thin
For several sectors we found no public case with a named client and checkable numbers: finance, crypto, legal, education, home services and industrial B2B. Claims in those areas come from agency lists and anecdotes. If an agency pitches you with a case from one of them, ask for the client’s name and permission to call them. How to choose a link building agency lists the questions.
Where to go next
To compare agencies that publish cases like these, see the digital PR services comparison. To judge whether your own campaign worked, start with how to track backlinks. Terms such as referring domain and syndicated link are defined in the glossary.
Common questions
Are link building case studies reliable?
Treat them as evidence that a result is possible, not that it is typical. Most are published by the agency that ran the campaign, show only successes, and rarely separate the effect of links from other changes.
How many links does a digital PR campaign earn?
It varies widely. Among the cases here, single campaigns earned between 12 and 81 links. BuzzStream's 2026 pricing analysis puts a typical campaign of $5,000 to $10,000 at 6 to 7 unique linking domains once syndicated copies are excluded.
What should a good link building case study include?
A named client, dates, the number of links and how they were counted, which pages they pointed to, what else changed on the site, and a business result such as traffic or revenue.
Do case studies prove that links cause rankings?
Rarely. Only an experiment that changes nothing but links can suggest cause. One such test in this list, by Reboot Online, covers a single site.
Where can I find more case studies?
Agency websites and industry award entries are the main sources. Check the date, who wrote it and whether the client is named before relying on any figure.