{"id":1082,"date":"2026-09-21T10:59:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T14:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/google-ads-mobile-share-of-spend"},"modified":"2026-09-21T12:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T16:26:08","slug":"google-ads-mobile-share-of-spend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/google-ads-mobile-share-of-spend","title":{"rendered":"The Median Account Puts 78.9% of Its Google Ads Spend on Mobile"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"tldr\">\n<p><strong>TL;DR abstract.<\/strong> Market forecasts say mobile takes most of search advertising. They do not say what a single account looks like. Doctor Ads Profit Forensics measured device mix inside its managed portfolio for January to June 2026: the median account put <strong><span data-claim-id=\"MOB-01\">78.9%<\/span><\/strong> of its spend on mobile, with the middle half between 70.5% and 88.8%, and <strong><span data-claim-id=\"MOB-03\">about half the accounts<\/span><\/strong> above 80%. Weighted by spend across those same accounts the figure is lower, <strong><span data-claim-id=\"MOB-04\">71.0%<\/span><\/strong>: the accounts carrying the most money pull the weighted figure below the typical account.<\/p>\n<p>The more interesting question is movement. In the accounts present in both 2023 and the first half of 2026, the median share went from <strong><span data-claim-id=\"MOB-05\">77.8% to 81.5%<\/span><\/strong>, but the median signed change was only <strong><span data-claim-id=\"MOB-06\">+1.76 points<\/span><\/strong> while the median size of a change was <strong>4.57 points<\/strong>. Twenty-one accounts moved up, eleven moved down, and <strong><span data-claim-id=\"MOB-07\">15 of 32<\/span><\/strong> moved by at least five points. The aggregate change in that cohort was modest, but individual accounts moved more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"key-stat\">\n<p><strong>The median managed account spent 78.9% of its Google Ads spend on mobile in the first half of 2026. Weighted by spend across the same accounts, the share is 71.0%.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"source-line\">Method basis: campaign by month by device spend, January to June 2026, portfolio accounts with at least $1,000 in the window, mobile as a share of all devices. Source: Doctor Ads Profit Forensics.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The last widely cited measurement of this kind came from Merkle, which reported in its <a href=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/media.mediapost.com\/uploads\/Merkle__2021_Q4_Digital_Marketing_Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Q4 2021 Digital Marketing Report<\/a> that phones took 51% of US paid search spend and tablets another 2%. Tinuiti, which publishes the successor series, reports growth rates and click shares rather than a spend split. Both are pooled across a client base. Neither tells you what share of accounts sit where, which is the number you need when you are looking at one account and wondering whether it is normal.<\/p>\n<h2>The median account is at 78.9%, the pool at 71.0%<\/h2>\n<p>Across the portfolio accounts that spent at least $1,000 in the first half of 2026, the median share of spend going to mobile is <strong>78.9%<\/strong>. The middle half of accounts falls between <strong>70.5%<\/strong> and <strong>88.8%<\/strong>. Leaving any single account out moves the median only between <strong><span data-claim-id=\"MOB-02\">78.2% and 79.6%<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Weighted by spend across the same accounts, mobile takes <strong>71.0%<\/strong>. The gap between 71.0% and 78.9% is what weighting does: the money is concentrated in accounts sitting below the median, so the spend weighted figure lands lower. Both numbers are correct and they answer different questions, which is why we print them together. Anyone comparing their own account against a single market level number is comparing against the wrong statistic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>About half the accounts<\/strong> spend more than 80% of their budget on mobile; a single one is below 20%.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"chart\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/tda-w10-mobile-mix.png\" alt=\"Pooled mobile share of Google Ads spend by window: all campaign types 57.1 percent in 2023, 60.1 in 2024, 72.4 in 2025 and 71.0 in the first half of 2026; Search campaigns only 62.9, 65.8, 71.9 and 68.0 percent in the same windows.\" title=\"\"><figcaption><strong>For Search campaigns the increase from 2023 is smaller, and the share in the first half of 2026 is lower than for all campaign types.<\/strong> Spend weighted by window; the account set differs between windows, so this is not a within-advertiser trend. Source: Doctor Ads Profit Forensics.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>A modest aggregate change hides larger individual moves<\/h2>\n<p>Yearly pooled shares in this portfolio run <strong><span data-claim-id=\"MOB-09\">57.1%<\/span><\/strong> in 2023, <strong>60.1%<\/strong> in 2024, <strong>72.4%<\/strong> in 2025 and <strong>71.0%<\/strong> in the first half of 2026. We are not going to present that as a trend, because the set of accounts changes between those windows. That series is also a different calculation from the headline one, which uses only accounts above the spending threshold; both happen to round to 71.0%.<\/p>\n<p>The honest version is a paired cohort: the accounts that spent at least $1,000 in both 2023 and the first half of 2026, each followed individually. The median share moved from <strong>77.8%<\/strong> to <strong>81.5%<\/strong>. The median signed change was <strong>+1.76 percentage points<\/strong>, and leaving any account out keeps that between <strong><span data-claim-id=\"MOB-08\">+1.72 and +1.81<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>But the median size of an account&#8217;s move, ignoring direction, was <strong>4.57 points<\/strong>. Twenty-one accounts went up, eleven went down, and <strong>15 of 32<\/strong> shifted by five points or more. Those two statistics are different things: one is the median of the signed changes, the other the median of their absolute sizes, and a small signed median beside a larger absolute one means the moves point both ways rather than that everyone drifted slightly upward.<\/p>\n<p>Weighting those same accounts by spend gives a third number: mobile took <strong><span data-claim-id=\"MOB-11\">65.4%<\/span><\/strong> of their budget in 2023 and <strong>68.2%<\/strong> in the first half of 2026, a rise of <strong>2.8 points<\/strong> in the same fixed set of advertisers. One more caveat belongs here: 2023 is a full year and 2026 is a half year, so seasonality inside a year is not controlled in any of these comparisons.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"chart\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/tda-w10-mobile-paired.png\" alt=\"In the Google Ads accounts measured in both windows, the median mobile share of spend moved from 77.8 percent in 2023 to 81.5 percent in the first half of 2026; the median signed change was plus 1.76 points while the median size of a change was 4.57 points, with about two thirds of them moving up, a third down, and nearly half moving by five points or more.\" title=\"\"><figcaption><strong>A small net move made of larger offsetting moves.<\/strong> Paired accounts spending at least $1,000 in both windows. Source: Doctor Ads Profit Forensics.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>A sensitivity check: Search campaigns alone<\/h2>\n<p>The pooled series has a large step between 2024 and 2025, from 60.1% to 72.4%. One obvious question is whether that reflects people using phones more, or budgets moving into campaign types that serve mostly on phones.<\/p>\n<p>Restricting the same measurement to Search campaigns only, the series becomes <strong><span data-claim-id=\"MOB-10\">62.9%<\/span><\/strong> in 2023, <strong>65.8%<\/strong> in 2024, <strong>71.9%<\/strong> in 2025 and <strong>68.0%<\/strong> in the first half of 2026. The step is smaller and the last window is lower than the all campaign figure. This is consistent with campaign mix contributing to the pooled jump, and it is also consistent with several other explanations: which advertisers are present changes between windows, and so do the weights of the campaigns inside each account. Separating those would need a decomposition inside a fixed cohort, which this page does not attempt. Read it as a sensitivity check, not as an identified cause.<\/p>\n<h2>What this means when you look at one account<\/h2>\n<p>The useful output here is not the average, it is the range. If your account sits between 70% and 89% of spend on mobile, it is unremarkable in this portfolio. Below 70% or above 89% puts you in the outer quarters, which calls for an explanation rather than an alarm: a B2B account selling to people at their desks belongs at the low end, and a local service bought on a phone in a car belongs at the high end.<\/p>\n<p>The only published per account figures we could find are from a <a href=\"https:\/\/korfdigital.com\/blog\/mobile-vs-desktop-conversion-rate-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2026 study of four accounts<\/a> reporting mobile spend shares of 72.3%, 56.1%, 94.1% and 91.2%, pooled at 64.5%. The spread there looks like the spread here, which is the point: four accounts and fifty four accounts agree that the variation between accounts is wider than any single industry number suggests.<\/p>\n<h2>When this does not apply<\/h2>\n<p><strong>You want a market number.<\/strong> This is a portfolio of managed accounts, not the market. For market level dollars, the forecast houses publish series; they model the market rather than observe accounts, and their definitions of mobile and of search differ from ours.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You are comparing with Merkle or Tinuiti.<\/strong> Merkle reported phones separately from tablets across multiple search platforms. We report mobile as a share of all device spend within Google Ads, tablets included in the denominator but counted separately. The numbers are neighbours, not equivalents.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Your campaign mix changed during the period.<\/strong> An account that launched Performance Max or video in 2025 will show a device shift that is a media mix decision, not an audience change. Our Search only series exists for exactly this reason.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You expect device to explain performance.<\/strong> It does not, on its own. This page reports where budgets sit, not what they returned. Conversions are not comparable across accounts in this portfolio, so no conversion rate by device is published here.<\/p>\n<h2>How to check yours in two minutes<\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li>In the campaigns view, segment by device and set the date range to the last six months. Read cost, not clicks.<\/li>\n<li>Divide mobile cost by total cost. That single number is comparable with the 78.9% median above.<\/li>\n<li>Run the same calculation for the same months two or three years back. The difference between those two numbers is your own version of the paired cohort.<\/li>\n<li>If the number jumped, check what campaign types you launched in between before concluding that your audience changed.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2>Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The median managed account spends <strong>78.9%<\/strong> of budget on mobile; the middle half sits between <strong>70.5%<\/strong> and <strong>88.8%<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Pooled across the same accounts the share is <strong>71.0%<\/strong>, because the biggest spenders are less mobile than the typical account.<\/li>\n<li>In the accounts measured in both windows, the median signed move since 2023 was <strong>+1.76 points<\/strong>, the median size of a move was <strong>4.57 points<\/strong>, and weighting those same accounts by spend gives a rise from <strong>65.4%<\/strong> to <strong>68.2%<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>For Search campaigns the rise from 2023 is smaller and the last window lower, <strong>62.9%<\/strong> to <strong>68.0%<\/strong>, which is consistent with campaign mix contributing to the pooled jump without identifying it as the cause.<\/li>\n<li>Merkle&#8217;s last public point, Q4 2021, put phones at <strong>51%<\/strong> of US paid search spend across platforms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- cta-anchor --><\/p>\n<h2>Researcher&#8217;s take<\/h2>\n<p>I stopped quoting a single mobile share number years ago, because every time I did, someone&#8217;s account turned out to be twenty points away from it and the conversation moved to whose number was wrong. The interval is the useful artefact. What still surprises me is the second half of this measurement: the aggregate change in the paired cohort is modest, while nearly half of its accounts moved by at least five percentage points between 2023 and the first half of 2026. If you run one account, the stable portfolio number is not your world. Your account is one of the ones moving.<\/p>\n<p><em>Igor Ivitskiy, Doctor Ads \u00b7 19 years \u00b7 $770M managed spend<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Method<\/h2>\n<p><em>Doctor Ads Profit Forensics is the research desk of a Google Ads practice with 19 years and $770M managed spend behind it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Data statement v.2026.09. Source: campaign by month by device spend for a managed Google Ads portfolio analysed by Doctor Ads Profit Forensics, snapshot dated 10 July 2026, covering January 2023 to June 2026. Accounts are pseudonymised; spend is normalised to US dollars at fixed rates.<\/p>\n<p>Definitions. Mobile share is mobile cost divided by cost on all devices in the same window, with tablets, connected TV and other kept in the denominator; we do not publish their shares separately, because their combined share is too small to characterise an account. Windows are calendar years, with 2026 covering January to June. Per account figures use accounts with at least $1,000 of device attributed spend inside the window: 54 accounts in the first half of 2026. The spend weighted figure printed beside the median is computed on that same set of 54 accounts. The paired cohort is the 32 accounts clearing that threshold in both 2023 and the first half of 2026, and the spend weighted pair 65.4% to 68.2% is computed on those 32. Medians and quartiles use a single engine, quantile_cont. The Search only series restricts rows to campaigns of type Search.<\/p>\n<p>Limitations. Four. Yearly pooled figures contain different account sets and are not a within advertiser trend. The paired cohort compares a full year with a half year, so seasonality inside a year is not controlled. Device attribution is read from Google&#8217;s own device column in the export, not reconstructed by us. And the portfolio is agency managed, not a random sample of advertisers.<\/p>\n<p>Changelog. First published September 2026. Recomputed quarterly.<\/p>\n<h2>What to read next<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/google-ads-benchmarks-average-cpc-ctr\">What a normal cost per click looks like across accounts<\/a>, the companion benchmark on price rather than device.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/google-ads-dayparting-dead-hours\">Half of Google Ads spend runs in dead hours<\/a>, the same portfolio measured against the clock instead of the device.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/google-ads-lost-impression-share-rank-vs-budget\">Rank or budget: which one costs you the most lost impression share<\/a>, on what limits delivery once the mix is set.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Market forecasts report device mix for the market. This is the distribution across a managed portfolio: a median of 78.9% of spend on mobile, 71.0% weighted by spend on the same accounts, and in the accounts measured in both windows a median signed change of 1.76 points since 2023 against a median move of 4.57.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scheduling-devices","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1155,"href":"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions\/1155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedoctorads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}