With manual CPC, you're in full control of what you're willing to pay for a click, keyword by keyword, and you can set bid adjustments for devices, locations, and schedules. Google has phased out Enhanced CPC — the semi-automated version of manual bidding — for Search and Display campaigns, pushing advertisers toward full Smart Bidding.
Manual CPC still has a place: new accounts with no conversion history, very low-volume campaigns, or situations where tracking isn't reliable enough to trust automation. But it can't react to auction-time signals the way Smart Bidding can, so most mature accounts move to automated strategies once they have enough clean conversion data.
Example
A new campaign with no conversion history starts on manual CPC with $4 maximum bids to collect data before switching to Smart Bidding.
How Sloss Digital uses it
We use manual CPC sparingly — mainly for new or low-volume campaigns — and move to Smart Bidding once tracking and volume can support it.