Paid Advertising for Recruitment & Careers — The Practitioner’s Playbook.

SectionThe honest reframe most paid agencies won't tell you

Generic paid agencies sell recruiters a single Google Search campaign — broad keywords like "jobs in Bristol" or "marketing recruiter London" — bolt on a vague Performance Max experiment, and call it done. There is no funnel separation between candidates and clients. The same campaign chases candidates applying for jobs and operations directors looking for a hiring partner, with the same creative, same landing page, same CPL target. The numbers come back blended, unreadable, and no decision can be made from them.

Worse, most agencies running paid for recruitment have never heard of Google's Special Category — Employment policy, which forces restricted targeting on any ad serving job opportunities. Run an Employment campaign without flagging it correctly and Google will at best disapprove the ads, at worst lock the account. Run it correctly and you lose age, gender, postcode, parental-status and household-income targeting — which means the creative and copy must do the work the targeting can't.

There is no LinkedIn Recruiter integration into paid LinkedIn audiences. There is no per-job dynamic ad creative driven by a JobPosting feed. There is no offline conversion path from enquiry → interview → placed → fee earned. There is no ATS retargeting feeding the platforms back signals that say "this candidate progressed to second-stage interview" or "this client booked a discovery call". The platforms learn nothing, the spend bids on the cheapest event, and the recruiter's owner blames "the market".

This playbook fixes the structure. Read it, run it yourself, or have us ship it on retainer. Same canon either way.

SectionThe eight-point audit we run on day one

Score your own paid account red / amber / green this week.

1. Dual candidate-vs-client funnel separation — Two distinct campaign trees, two distinct conversion goals, two distinct creative sets, two distinct landing-page experiences. Candidate funnel optimises to application, registration, CV upload. Client funnel optimises to booked discovery call, vacancy brief, retainer enquiry. If both run in one campaign with one CPL target, the numbers are uninterpretable and the algorithm is bidding for the cheaper event (almost always candidate-side junk). For contingent firms this single fix typically halves blended CPL within 30 days.
2. Google Special Category — Employment compliance — Every ad group serving job opportunities must be flagged as Employment in Google Ads policy settings. Restricted targeting (no age, gender, parental status, marital status, postcode, household income) must be reflected in the campaign build. Non-compliance gets ads disapproved or accounts suspended; correct compliance keeps you live and forces the creative to work harder. Same compliance regime applies to Meta Special Ad Category — Employment and (in less stringent form) to LinkedIn employment ads.
3. Per-job dynamic ad creative with JobPosting feed — A live JobPosting structured-data feed (one row per vacancy, refreshed daily, salary band, location, sector, contract type) wired into Google Ads Dynamic Search Ads, Performance Max asset feeds, and Meta Advantage+ Catalogue / Dynamic Ads. One vacancy goes live; the ad creative refreshes within hours. One vacancy fills; it drops out of rotation automatically. Most recruiters run static creative referencing roles that closed two months ago — wasted spend and reputational damage in one.
4. LinkedIn Recruiter integration with paid LinkedIn audiences — Paid LinkedIn audiences synced from LinkedIn Recruiter project lists, InMail engagers, talent pool followers. Lookalikes built off shortlisted-and-placed candidates by sector. Sponsored Content + Conversation Ads + Document Ads layered against those audiences. Without the Recruiter-paid bridge you are paying LinkedIn premium CPMs to reach the same generic open-to-work pool everyone else is bidding on, and the Recruiter seat licence is doing half the job it could.
5. Client-side ABM company list — A named target-account list (Companies House + Apollo + your CRM hot list) running on LinkedIn Matched Audiences and Google Customer Match for the client funnel only. Decision-makers (HR director, head of TA, founder, ops director, finance director, COO) targeted by job title within those companies. Generic "we recruit for ops roles" broadcasting is not a client-acquisition strategy — it is brand awareness paid at performance prices.
6. Offline conversion tracking enquiry → interview → placed → fee — Enquiry, qualified-call, vacancy-brief-signed, candidate-shortlisted, candidate-interviewed, candidate-placed and fee-invoiced — all pushed back to Google + Meta + LinkedIn via offline conversion uploads with revenue values. The platforms then bid on revenue, not on form-fills. Without this the algorithm finds the cheapest tyre-kicker — students fishing for CV feedback, applicants outside the work-eligibility checks under AWR or GLAA-licensed sectors, candidates already placed elsewhere.
7. Brand-spend ratio under 15% — Your firm's name, founder's name and any registered trading-name variants run in a brand campaign capped at 15% of total paid spend. Anything more is paying Google to send candidates and clients who already know your name. Generic recruitment agencies routinely run 35–50% of paid spend on brand and call the result "great ROAS" — a number that ignores the fact those buyers would have come direct.
8. ATS-integrated retargeting (Bullhorn / JobAdder / Vincere feeding audience signals) — ATS stage transitions feed paid audiences in real time. "Candidate reached interview stage" becomes a high-value lookalike seed. "Client signed terms" becomes a Customer Match seed. "Vacancy lost" becomes an exclusion. "Lapsed client at 12 months" becomes a reactivation seed. Without the ATS-to-paid pipe the platforms cannot tell a placed candidate from an unsubscribed lead, and the spend wanders into the cheapest-event corner of the auction.

Three or more reds — fix the foundation before scaling spend.

SectionSix productised deliverables we ship per cycle

Dual candidate-vs-client funnel split. Two distinct campaign trees, separate budgets, separate goals, separate landing pages, separate creative tone and offer. Candidate funnel runs at low CPL with high volume optimisation (target £3–£15 CPL by sector); client funnel runs at high CPL with revenue optimisation (target £40–£200 CPL with retainer or fee weighting). Reporting separated by funnel — no more blended unreadable numbers. Time to first signal: 14 days.

Special Category — Employment policy compliance. Every Employment-flagged campaign correctly classified in Google Ads policy settings. Targeting restrictions implemented (no age, gender, postcode, parental status, household income). Creative and copy rebuilt to do the work the targeting can't — sector-specific language, role-level language, lifestyle-stage language without protected attributes. Account-suspension risk eliminated; ad approval rates climb to >95%. Time to first signal: 7 days.

Per-job dynamic creative with feed. Live JobPosting feed (CSV / XML / Google Merchant) refreshed daily from your ATS, wired into Google Ads DSA + Performance Max asset groups + Meta Advantage+ Catalogue + LinkedIn Dynamic Ads. Vacancy goes live → ad creative refreshes; vacancy fills → creative drops out. Stale-vacancy advertising eliminated; candidate trust improves; application rates lift 25–40% within 60 days.

LinkedIn paid integration. Paid LinkedIn audiences synced from LinkedIn Recruiter project lists, InMail engagers, talent pool followers, and shortlisted-placed candidate lookalikes. ABM target-account list layered for the client funnel. Sponsored Content + Conversation Ads + Document Ads sequenced across the funnel. Cost-per-qualified-applicant typically halves on hard-to-fill specialist roles within 90 days.

Server-side + offline conversion uploads. GA4 + sGTM + ATS webhook + offline conversion uploads pushing enquiry → qualified-call → vacancy-brief-signed → candidate-interviewed → candidate-placed → fee-invoiced (with revenue) back to Google + Meta + LinkedIn. The algorithms bid on real placement revenue, not form-fills. Junk-application rate typically drops 30–50% within 60 days; client-side cost-per-acquired-account drops 20–40%. Time to first signal: 21 days.

ATS-integrated retargeting audiences. Bullhorn / JobAdder / Vincere stage transitions wired via webhook into paid audiences across Google, Meta and LinkedIn. Candidate-side: "reached interview" feeds high-value lookalike seeds; "placed and out of contract window" excludes from candidate ads; "rejected at sift" feeds general top-of-funnel only. Client-side: "signed terms" feeds Customer Match; "vacancy filled" excludes; "lapsed client at 12 months" feeds reactivation campaigns; "key contact moved company" feeds a targeted re-introduction sequence. Audience freshness measured in hours, not weeks. Time to first signal: 28 days.

SectionWhat to do this week

Three actions, ranked by leverage. Same first three steps we ship in week one of a Foundation retainer.

1. Pull your last-30-day paid report and split it by funnel intent. Owner: marketing manager or operations lead. Time: 60 minutes. Tag every campaign as candidate-side or client-side. If the same campaign is doing both, that is your single biggest leak. Most agencies running one blended campaign are paying client-side prices to acquire candidate-side leads, or vice-versa.
2. Check your Google Ads policy classification for Employment. Owner: marketing manager. Time: 20 minutes. Open each campaign, settings, additional settings, ad-group restrictions. If Employment is not flagged on any campaign serving job opportunities, you are non-compliant — fix this within 48 hours before a policy review hits the account. Free to do; account-life-saving.
3. Decide DIY, DWY or DFY for the next 90 days. Owner: founder or partner. See the three ways.

SectionFive questions recruiters ask us about paid

What's a realistic candidate vs client CPL? Candidate-side £3–£15 across the category, depending on sector and seniority — high-volume warehouse / hospitality / driver £3–£6, mid-skill office / marketing / sales £8–£12, specialist tech / clinical / finance / legal £12–£15+. Client-side £40–£200 — mid-market contingent £40–£90, exec search / RPO / retained £100–£200, in-house TA tooling / RPO sales £150–£200. CPL is leading; fee-per-acquired-client is the truth — typical client-acquisition cost is £350–£1,200 across the category, paying back inside the first placement on contingent work and inside the first invoice on retained or RPO. Sectors regulated under GLAA (food, agri, shellfish, forestry) sit at the higher end of candidate-CPL because of compliance-vetting drop-off; APSCo-member specialist firms typically sit at the higher end of client-CPL because of longer client sales cycles.

How do we stay compliant with Google Special Category — Employment? Flag every Employment-serving campaign under Ad-group → Settings → Restricted targeting → Employment. Accept the loss of age, gender, parental status, marital status, postcode and household-income targeting. Rebuild creative and copy to carry sector, role-level, skills-and-experience language — not protected-attribute proxies. Audit ads for compliance language quarterly. Done correctly, account stays live; done sloppily, account gets suspended and there is no quick recovery.

LinkedIn vs Google for recruiters — which one wins? Both, run differently. Google captures active job-seekers (high-intent, lower CPL, candidate funnel) and high-intent client search ("recruitment agency for ops roles"). LinkedIn reaches passive candidates (specialist, mid-to-senior, harder to find on Google), and is the only credible client-acquisition channel for ABM-style decision-maker targeting. The right blend for most generalist recruiters: 60–70% Google candidate-side + 20–30% LinkedIn passive + 10–20% LinkedIn ABM client-side. Exec search inverts that ratio.

What's the impact of ATS retargeting we'll see? Two compounding effects. First, audience freshness: candidate stages flow into paid audiences in hours not weeks, so retargeting hits people while the brand is still warm. Second, exclusion accuracy: placed candidates and signed clients drop out of acquisition campaigns automatically, so spend stops chasing already-converted contacts. Combined effect on a typical generalist recruiter: 20–30% lift in candidate application rate, 30–40% drop in client-side cost-per-discovery-call within 90 days.

Can we run this with the playbook + £750 audit? Yes — most recruitment firms with an in-house marketing manager or paid-savvy operations lead can run the funnel split and creative rebuild themselves. The £750 audit gives you a written red/amber/green of your current account, plus the eight-point structure mapped to your build, plus named-owner / dated next steps. Credit toward first cycle if you sign for DWY/DFY within 30 days.

SectionWhere to go from here

If you want this shipped end-to-end on a productised retainer, book a 30-minute discovery call.

If you'd rather have a senior practitioner reviewing your team's paid spend each week, the coaching plans start at £750/month. If you have a hard deadline (an ATS migration cutover, a new-vertical launch, a peak-hiring quarter), the two-week embedded sprint lands a senior practitioner in your account for ten working days at £3,000 fixed.

Or run it yourself. Read this playbook end to end, run the eight-point audit, ship one deliverable a month for six months. Twice-quarterly office hours are open to anyone using the playbooks.