Some creative uses of PPC you didn't think of

Lately I’ve noticed a rise in creative ways to use PPC for personal or corporate gain. Whereas I use PPC daily to market B2B or B2C products the ‘old-fashioned way’ - selecting and bidding on a keyword, using appropriate ad copy, and directing B2C traffic to a tracked landing page - savvy marketers seem to be going one better. Here are some top examples:

Corporate Recruitment
Why bother to use an agency when your next star employee could be on the next site over? Although best used for freelancer-type roles, if you’re looking for white-hot web designer for your next project, try bidding on a term like ‘web design’ to display your 96 character job description to anyone viewing a site related to web design. Your Google content network-targeted campaign might deliver hundreds of applications, but isn’t that a good thing? You get to choose the perfect candidate after they’ve come to you – for a fraction of the cost of agencies and/or recruitment ads.

Personal Service Offering - with a twist
Although firmly in Facebook’s shadow, Linkedin offers a great social networking service for professionals. The site is constantly adding killer functionalities and expanding the service, and thousands of employees (including myself) and employers are active in the network.

So if you’ve blocked off some time for freelancing as a side income, why not use PPC to advertise the services you offer? Don’t worry if you don’t have a PPC-friendly website or landing page; using your Linkedin’s public profile is probably better – it comes complete with testimonials/endorsements, work experience, education and a contact channel, so you can easily promote yourself as an expert in the field matching your keyword. Your clients are as qualified as they can be, and depending on what services you offer, you’ve likely paid for your campaign several times over.

Check out an example for the Google search query ‘multivariate testing’ resulting in Niki Hignett’s profile page where he offers services for A/B and multivariate website testing: (Having trouble? Click here to see the ad on Google's preview page)

Newsletter subscription growth
We all know email marketing is super cheap and effective, and that having a healthy opt-in subscriber base is a great way to launch new products, build brand loyalty, and up sell your product. Although organic is usually the preferred method of building your list, why not throw some money at it, and calculate the long-term revenue generated by your newsletter program? PPC can drive qualified, interested clicks to your newsletter program, although it’s likely you’ll need an incentive to entice them to click-thru. The argument is you’ll get some non-qualified clicks, but what better justification of a newsletter program for turning those subscribers into advocates and buyers?

Affiliate program promotion
If you’ve launched a new affiliate program, you want registrants ASAP. Use PPC to target potential affiliates by bidding on the same keywords your perfect affiliate might search for. Be up-front with the commission structure and tiers, and you can offset the costs of your PPC campaign with the sheer volume of sales generated by your super affiliate.

Synergize with your SEO efforts
SEO is free traffic, and PPC is paid… so it’s obvious which is better for your budget, right? If you’re on a tight budget don’t write off PPC just yet. When used in tandem (along with a good web analytics program) you can max out the effectiveness of both PPC and SEO with a little research and some sweat. By identifying your ‘head’ vs. ‘long-tail’ search terms, you can use PPC to target the search terms that are very specific to your product - low volume & high yield (and therefore low cost per click). Leave SEO to target the broad, brand-related keywords that are often high in volume and low yield, and you’re already saving a bundle and doing some semi-advanced marketing tactics!

Can you think of any more PPC ideas that aren't your 'run-of-the-mill' variety? If so, I'd love to hear them!