Abby Gonzalez brings a rare combination of behavioral science, cultural fluency, and rigorous data expertise to the world of PR and marketing analytics. A UCLA graduate with a degree in psychology and minors in Chicano Studies and entrepreneurship, she began her research career in a Minority Mental Health lab before pivoting into communications—a transition that has shaped her distinctly human approach to data. Since then, she has worked with agencies including Allison Worldwide, and today she partners with JMAC PR as a freelance data analyst, turning campaign performance into clear, actionable insights for clients and executives alike.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.
I studied psychology at UCLA, with minors in Chicano Studies and entrepreneurship. From the start I was thinking about people, culture, and business all at once. In my second year, I started working in a Minority Mental Health lab, which is where I got deep into scientific research methods: Excel, statistics, working with data in a meaningful and thoughtful way. I ran research projects, secured grants, and really built that analytical foundation.
I graduated at the height of the pandemic, which shifted a lot of things for me and for a lot of other people entering the workforce. That’s how I found my way into PR and marketing. I had the research background; I just didn’t have the marketing or communications background. Those worlds ended up merging when I joined Allison Worldwide, and I’ve been working at that intersection ever since.
What's involved in your role at JMAC?
I came to JMAC through a friend who was already working there. I work freelance, and John needed someone who could bring a corporate reporting sensibility to the work: the kind of structured, metrics-driven reporting that C-level executives expect.
What I do is quantify everything. All the work the teams produce, I translate into numbers: metrics, sentiment tracking, month-over-month changes. Then I pull insights from that data and give clients a clear picture of what was accomplished—what worked, what didn’t, and where there’s room to pivot. At the end of the day, it’s about turning activity into actionable insights.
Do you have a favorite project you've worked on so far?
Definitely the work I did for 2X. They were really interested in AI visibility toward the end of our engagement, and that was my first time diving deep into that space. I had never done it before—and honestly, neither had most people, because it’s still so new.
What struck me was how different it is from traditional marketing measurement. AI visibility has its own language, its own metrics, its own logic. You can look at the data from a very broad perspective or get incredibly granular, and the way you interpret it is just fundamentally different from what most of us are used to in martech. Having to learn it on the fly, build a report from scratch, and deliver something meaningful was one of the most exciting challenges I’ve taken on so far.
What excites you most about PR?
That it never stays the same. A lot of fields can feel routine, but in PR there’s always something new: a client who wants to explore a different direction, a new program to learn, a new way of doing things. What last week looked like might be completely different from this week. That constant evolution keeps you sharp and keeps the work interesting.
What are your thoughts on the intersection of PR and data analytics?
One needs the other. It can be messy, but it’s essential, especially when executives are asking about ROI, trying to figure out if something is working, or looking for ways to quantify inherently qualitative work. Data also serves a business development function: it gives agencies a way to demonstrate and sell the value of what they do.
The PR and communications teams are the ones doing the heavy lifting, but without measurement, it’s hard to tell the story of that work in a way that resonates at the leadership level. It’s a feedback loop: the data informs the strategy, and the strategy generates more data to learn from.
What I’ve also noticed is that even boutique agencies (maybe with just one or two clients) need this kind of measurement. They can’t always afford a full-time analyst on staff, but the demand is there. That’s exactly the gap I try to fill.
