Our Campaign Bid Process
When we first launch PPC campaigns, sometimes we will put them in "manual bidding mode" which is the simplest and most straightforward form of adjusting PPC campaign bids. Once the initial bids are set, the PPC bid management is not "taken care of"; it's a process.
After setting the initial bids, data will start to accumulate showing us whether the bid were set right. In order to get the campaign serving as quickly as possible, we'll keep a close eye on the campaigns and adjust bids intraday during the first week or two after a campaign is launched. This process of running bids manually is a common practice, and it's suitable for some situations.
With the arrival of automated bidding in PPC, much of this tedious, time-consuming manual bid adjustment activity is no longer required. We build all of our clients' campaigns with the plan and expectation that we will be able to transition them onto automated bidding within 4 to 8 weeks of launch.
Typically, we will set manual bids for a new campaign right after launch, and over the next week dial the bids in.  Depending upon the type of campaign, and post-launch campaign behavior we'll be able to move it onto some form of automated bidding within 2 to 6 weeks.  Often we will walk it from a light form of bid automation, onto increasingly beneficial, more sophisticated forms of bid automation as campaign activity and conversion volume builds.
We have a series of articles pending about the benefits of campaign automation and specifically, automated bidding. This transition from manual to automated bidding is underway across the PPC industry, with varying degrees of success.
There are some situations where it is still advantageous to manually bid campaigns, but with improvements in bid automation, that is becoming increasingly less common. Automated bidding, among other advantages, frees the time of campaign managers to focus on more substantial issues that have can have a greater impact on campaign performance.