Disclaimer. I'm not some sort of con-merchant, and I don't promise that my methodology will work – but I do think that the logic behind it is sound. If there's something that doesn't follow, or I've missed out a step in my argument (as I invariably do), please point it out in the comments.
Using a bid-bot is risky, as you don't know how much profit you're likley to get – as a late bidder could plunge everything into despair (not sure how to spell that word). There are, however, ways that you can reduce risk. But first, here is a list of all the things I've found can go wrong along with solutions:
- The bot gives you an upvote worth less than the amount you've paid. Solution: Check the total quantity of bids, and the proportion of the total bot upvote you'd get. Check the value of that bid on steemnow.com
- The value of your bid goes down over time... (wtf)! This one caught me by surprise, when I invested about 4.81SBD in a post with smartsteem.com – and got back about 4.00SBD. Not nice! Solution: Invest smaller amounts over many posts, instead of large amounts on one post.
Further things you can do are:
- Use many bots, and make smaller bids to each bot. This means that you spread the risk, as you have your money in many voting pools – so if one fails, then another one will help you make back some of the money you've lost. By diversifying your bids, you should make more money.
- Try using guaranteed profit bots. These either give you a fixed upvote, or a minimum value that you'll recieve.
Don't get stuck using one bot. Always be on the lookout for other bots to use. Who knows, there might be better bots out there!
I'll start making a site where you can bid for suggested bots (based on the value of the bids they've gotten). Like steembottracker, except better. Why? Because you can leave the tab in your browser and it'll vote in the last 10s of voting, and only for profitable bots.