Market Research using Google Adwords
Pay per click advertising such as Google Adwords is a great way of buying and driving traffic to your site. Its relatively fast to impliment, you can measure your spend and delivers results if your adverts and landing pages are constructed correctly.
Another great benefit of Google Adwords is the insight it can give you to the demand for products and services you offer. Google Adwords used in conjunction with a good web stats package - the easiest to use for this (though not the best) is Google’s Analytics - can be used for market research.
If you have a product or service and want to see which areas of the country are most receptive, analayse your traffic from the Google ads you have created, and you will get an inexpenisve insight into the demand from different locations.
I have used this method to help companies understand the demand for their product and help shape their future buisness offerings.
Its not a crystal ball a such but its a lot less expensive and quicker than using traditional market research companies.