AdWords Smartphone CPCs Drop Sharply After Enhanced Campaigns Transition [RKG Report]

It has been two months since we’ve seen enhanced campaigns.  After these two months, RKG’s Q3 Digital Marketing Report can show us the near-term impact of the roll-out of its client set.  This set includes 40 of the top 500 online retailers.  Even though it looks like most metrics have remained unchanged, smartphones have gotten to feel the effects of these enhanced campaigns.  CPC has dropped quite a bit since the transition took place.

RKG refined changes to its in-house bidding technology, and since then, transitioned most campaigns to enhanced in late June.  RKG has offered two reasons for such a drop.

1. Since ROI on smartphones were weaker, bids were lowered because of it.
2. Targeting cheaper tail keywords on mobile became easier.

In a huge drop, Google smartphone CPCs went from 60% of desktop levels to between only 30 to 40% today.  Because of this, the spend share for smartphone went from 8.8% in Q2 to 6.4% in Q3.

For more on the story, follow the link below on Search Engine Land:
http://searchengineland.com/adwords-smartphone-cpcs-drop-sharply-after-enhanced-campaigns-transition-rkg-report-173992