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I have been doing SEM for quite a while and I have my own opinion on when a company should invest in a bid tool.
My opinion on this is companies should invest in a tool when, the campaigns are mature (search engine has collected enough click data) and also when the company has reached a certain stage to expand marketing budget.
Small businesses, if you are spending 1-10k a month, shouldn't this be a piece of cake? Do you really want to give a tool $500.00 to 2k a month? To do this doesn't make sense.
SMB: Lets assume you are a small agency, you are managing campaigns for your customers. You are charging your customer 8%, 10%, 15%, ask yourself, if I invest in a bid management tool will it really be cost effective? Do the math, it cuts into way to much revenue at the end of the year. My advice, be patient.
If you are a mid-large size company, absolutely, granted I think its best you have campaigns with click data before you optimize, otherwise (I've learned the hard way) you will sign up, wait 30 days to collect data on your freshly created campaigns before you actually begin to optimize, in other words, no data, no optimization = lost advertising dollars.
It makes sense for med-large agencies and advertisers, there is no better way to improve efficiency in your search, lead generation/sales dept. Any SEM will appreciate a powerful tool that will help save them time by improving efficiency which increases their productivity, it makes there life easier. First of all a bid management tool can't function without a person and manually managing a ridiculous amount of campaigns, adgroups, keywords..ect will eventually lead to a mistake. SEM needs tool, tool needs SEM.
Think about it, account managers cost money, are they truly utilizing their skills or do you have them doing stupid things a tool can take care of? Wasting their time cost money.