Automated bid management is not a panacea, manual intervention is still required for optimal results, particularly on high volume phrases. So instead, it enables companies and agencies to redeploy resources away from repetitive checking to more value-adding activities such as analysis and improving campaign targeting and creative.

The wide range of rules used to manage bids in these systems means that bid management is not a ‘plug and play’ solution. Instead, skills and experience are needed to select the appropriate targeting and bidding approaches. There often seems to be a misconception amongst clients that “once we have a bid management system we can bring paid search in house”. This is far from the case.

When you start using a new tool, there may be a performance hit of a few weeks or months until the new bidding rules are optimized. This is particularly true if changes are made to account structure which means that keyword clickthrough history is lost.

Ensure your budget for a potential decrease in paid search performance for a month or two until the new campaign structure and bidding rules are adopted if you migrate to a new bid management tool.

Through using a third-party to manage your bids there are serious implications for ownership of the campaign structure and rules from the keywords selected, matching and targeting options and bid policies.

For smaller advertisers there are issues of cost – the setup and monthly costs may not be worthwhile.

If you are not satisfied with the service provided by the bid management tool or the agency managing that tool on your behalf, it may prove difficult to switch to another provider since the bid management company or PPC company may own the intellectual property.