• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 30, 2013

The average cost per click for paid-search campaigns running on tablets should continue to move much closer to the average of campaigns on desktops, but quality scores could influence price fluctuations, according to The Search Agency analyses.

The Search Agency analyzed CPC discounts among its clients to compare campaign results during the 30 days following the July 22, Enhanced Campaigns deadline, with the year-ago period.

The agency analyzes the CPC discount -- the difference in average cost per click for each device segment during a specific period of time on both tablets and smartphones, compared with desktop. If the average desktop CPC is $1, and average CPC on tablets is $0.75, the CPC discount is 25%.

The CPC difference between desktop and tablets or desktop and smartphones continues to decline, which puts the average CPC on smartphones and tablets much closer to the average on desktops.

During July and August in 2012, CPCs on tablets and smartphones ran at between 14% and 15% under the price of desktops, dropping to 4.1% on tablets and 11.3% on smartphones about 11 months later. One month following the 30-day Google's Enhanced Campaigns deadline, the CPCs on tablets fell to 1.2%, while CPCs for smartphones fell to 9.5%.

Early analysis shows that Enhanced Campaigns will have a more significant impact on tablet CPCs than smartphones. The CPC for tablet campaigns continues to move closer to CPCs on desktops, but device-specific quality scores still afford advertisers a small discount. 

While the CPCs for campaigns running on smartphones are also moving closer to desktops, marketers can still find better discounts for keywords.

"Magnifying Glass" photo from Shutterstock.