I don't know how legitimate this is, but I used an interesting AdWords strategy to gather users. The normal strategy is to use a minimal bid in a certain area, and create an attractive ad that gets people to click. However, this costs money, as you pay based on a per-click basis.<p>What I wanted to do, was generate a lot of awareness. When people are aware of your product and see it advertised everywhere, it's more likely they'll check you out. If they happen to check you out after hearing from a friend, it won't even be an ad-referral, and it won't cost you a cent. How do you create awareness without using money?<p>I have no basis for saying this, and my only proof is a very successful campaign that I ran doing this. Since I've shut my project down, the trade secret isn't very useful anymore. I think there's an innate appeal for certain ads. A lot of ads make it blatantly obvious that they're there, but just doesn't make you want to click. Not because the product looks bad - but I just don't want to click some ads. I know a lot of friends also have this feeling, and a small study I conducted confirmed this.<p>My strategy was this: Bid minimal amounts after researching bids in certain areas, and create an ad that shoves its name, and possibly basic idea into an user's face. However, do not provide any incentive to click - at all. In fact, make it ugly, but not ugly enough to make your product or service seem bad. This is tricky, and takes some getting used to. The end result is a very LOW conversion rate (usually considered as a failure) - which is exactly what we want. I've gotten a bunch of repeat impressions onto users, without having to pay for them. If they happen to hear about it from a friend, they're now much more likely to check it out, because they're familiar with the name.<p>I've come up with a bunch of strategies like this, and I really wish I wrote them all down so I could share them. Maybe they're terrible... feel free to tell me it's a terrible idea. It may not work in all business areas, and I'd love to get some feedback.