Manual Vs. Automated Bidding Quiz: What's the Best Strategy for You?

How do you know if it’s time to start testing and experimenting with automated bidding? Some people actually don’t have accounts that are the best fit for automated bidding, while others could be doing worlds better than they are with the flick of a switch. Navigating all the rules, parameters and best practices can sometimes be confusing. Take our handy manual vs automated bidding quiz to find out which strategy makes the most sense for your current portfolio.

1. How many campaigns do you manage each month?

a. I manage 1-4 accounts on my own

b. I manage 5-10 accounts

c. I manage 10+ accounts

2. I typically run ad campaigns for my clients on:

a. Search

b. Search ads on Google and Bing

c. Search and display ads on Google and Bing

3. I typically adjust bids:

a. Once a month

b. Multiple times per month

c. I spend more than half of my week adjusting bids on different campaigns

4. Each month, I typically spend:

a. All of my client’s budget accurately and completely

b. Most of my client’s budget

c. I often don’t spend all the client’s budget

5. When it comes to the best time to increase bids:

a. I know exactly when my client’s ads get the most clicks and adjust bids accordingly

b. I occasionally adjust bids according to the best time of day or day of the week for my clients

c. I’m not sure when the best time of the day, week or month to advertise is

6. When I create my client reports each month:

a. My results are always outstanding

b. I hit home runs here and there, but ultimately know if I had the time I could improve conversions and reduce cost

c. I don’t always see the results I want in my PPC campaigns

7. My client campaigns are:

a. Often short-lived and promote temporary sales for my clients

b. Some client campaigns are short-term and some are long term

c. My client’s campaigns have been running for a long time and performance has stagnated and/or plateaued

8. When it comes to balancing bids and budgets across publishers:

a. I am the master at moving money around where it counts

b. I occasionally move budgets between publishers

c. I don’t have time to move budget around as often as I’d like between publishers and my accounts typically tend to skew towards one publisher, whether it’s best for client results or not

9. When I run impression share reports:

a. I have maxed out the available impressions for each of my clients

b. I get a range of results, some campaigns could be getting more impressions and some are at their available limit

c. There are a ton more impressions out there that I wish I could get for my clients

10. When it comes to actually managing bids and budgets on behalf of clients:

a. That’s my jam

b. I have mixed feelings about it

c. I hate it

Quiz: Is It Time To Get Automated?

For Now, Manual Bidding is Better

You and automated bidding aren’t friends yet. For now you’ve got manual bidding on your side and you’re doing just fine! In fact, using automated bidding in your case may actually be the wrong strategy for your clients.

Balance Both Manual and Automated Bidding

You’re ready to start experimenting with automated bidding but don’t necessarily have to go all in. Some of your accounts could be put on machine learning to automate bidding tasks intelligently, but others will still have to be managed manually. You’ll have to balance your time between automated and manual bidding tasks to get the best results for your current portfolio of clients.

It's Time to Get Automated!

You’re the perfect candidate for automated bidding. You can make your life easier and get better results while doing it by turning on machine learning or setting up some rule-based automation. If bidding and/or client results have got you down, you can get back up knowing there is a solution and a way back to results town!

For a full rundown on the pros, cons and strategies of automated bidding download a copy of our latest eBook: The Agency Guide to Automated Bidding!

Image Credits

Feature Image: Unsplash/Chris Liverani

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