How Manual Processes Consume Your Team’s Time (and How to Change It)

Paulina Nockiewicz

Senior Technical Solutions Specialist

Why is automation necessary?

SEM teams today face increasing pressure to be efficient, profitable, and optimized. In such conditions, manual reporting, bid adjustments, or managing hundreds of campaigns take up dozens of hours and still don’t provide a competitive advantage. These manual, error-prone processes are exactly where that advantage is often lost.

Based on our experience working with European SEM agencies, we’re confident that automation isn’t a “nice to have” but a requirement for scalability and profitability. It’s what allows teams to regain time for what truly matters: strategy, client development, and new revenue streams. One of the most powerful tools on this path is Search Ads 360 (SA360), a platform built for complex teams and agencies managing multiple clients.

Key pain points of SEM teams

Managing campaigns for many clients simultaneously reveals recurring challenges:

Multiple platforms – Different platforms = different interfaces, settings, and approaches. This makes it difficult to maintain consistency and achieve strong optimization across campaigns.
Repetitive, manual tasks – Such as reports, optimizations, or campaign edits consume time, generate costs, and create room for human error.
Complex portfolio – Multiple platforms (Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, etc.), dozens of client accounts, and hundreds of campaigns create environments where errors are easy to make, and efficiency is hard to sustain.
Lack of data integration – Data dispersed across marketing channels and systems limits coherent analysis and optimization.
Client pressure – Expectations for quick results and full transparency.

We see these firsthand: agencies we audit lose up to 20 hours per month solely on reporting and manual optimizations.

How Search Ads 360 automation transforms SEM team workflows

SA360 centralizes and automates processes that once required many hours:

One tool for multiple platforms – Google, Microsoft (Bing), Yahoo!, Baidu. Instead of logging into each account separately, you can manage everything from a single interface.
Smart bidding strategies – SA360 algorithms use data from multiple online and offline sources (Floodlight, CRM, and others) to set bids and optimize costs.
Process automation – For example, pausing campaigns when inventory is low, pausing underperforming keywords, or raising bids to appear on the first page.
Integration within Google Marketing Platform – Consistent conversion tracking through a single Floodlight system across channels, cross-channel attribution, and centralized reporting.

Example:

A European agency managing SEM campaigns for a major e-commerce client with 13,000 products was losing dozens of hours on manual campaign updates for each product. These repetitive tasks also led to recurring errors that began to damage the agency’s reputation and client relationship.

We implemented Search Ads 360 at the agency and built SA360 campaigns based on templates automatically fed with data from the product feed. Campaigns were generated in both Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, and the system began automatically adjusting ads to product availability.

The result? Full process automation, improved efficiency, dozens of hours saved each month, and restored client trust.

Business benefits

Implementing SA360 delivers specific, measurable results that strengthen market position:

Time savings and scalability – fewer manual operations, easier management of multiple clients and tools at once = reclaimed time for scaling the business without expanding the team, and more room for strategic work.
Higher efficiency and ROI – algorithms react faster than humans, and a unified measurement system supports better decisions and reporting.
Competitive advantage – you can offer your clients premium services beyond standard optimization, such as cross-channel campaign management, advanced attribution, or automation based on business data.

How to start automating with Search Ads 360?

Process and account audit. Evaluate whether your company is ready for SA360: Do you manage multiple accounts? Work across different search engines? Rely on data-driven optimization? Create many campaigns with complex structures?
Implementation plan. Partnering with a technology partner shortens implementation time and minimizes deployment errors.
Team training. Automation requires new skills but also brings new opportunities. Offer your team training to help them fully leverage the platform’s potential. A reliable technology partner includes training and support during onboarding.
Quick test and scaling. Start with one client, test SA360’s features, and then scale the solution across your entire portfolio.