As reported by ClickZ, the average cost-per-click across the major search engines, declined between September and October in six of the seven vertical categories tracked by Efficient Frontier.

According to Efficient Frontier’s data (provided to it by multiple advertisers), the average cost per click fell in the Total Finance, Insurance, Travel, Automotive, Retail and Dating categories. It increased by just 1 percent in the Mortgage category.

In particular, the average cost per click in Total Finance - which includes auto finance, banking, credit, financial information, insurance, lending, and also mortgage - fell by 20 percent. The drop was predominately due to a 27 percent decline in the financial information subvertical. Without this subvertical, the average CPC would have decreased by just 1 percent.

On average, a click in the Total Finance category is now $1.64. The next biggest decline was in the Insurance category, which declined by 10 percent to go from $12.65 to $11.40. The average click cost in the Mortgage category increased by 4 cents, from $2.89 to $2.93.

Source: ClickZ, “Average Search CPC Data by Category for October 2008″, ClickZ, November 14, 2008

As reported in The ClickZ Network, data from Efficient Frontier indicates that average click costs in some general categories were substantially down, while others were up, in September 2008.

The average cost-per-click (CPC) for finance related keywords declined by 22 percent from August to September, reaching $2.06.

Meanwhile, the average CPC of retail related words was up by 13.6 percent to $0.50. Other terms were either up or down by less significant percentages. For example, the average CPC for mortgage related words was up by 7.8 percent to $2.89, while the average CPC for dating related keywords was marginally up. It increased just one cent from $0.43 to $0.44 - a 2.3 percent increase.

Source: The ClickZ Network, “Average Search CPC Data by Category for September 2008″, The ClickZ Network, October 16, 2008

Efficient Frontier has released its June average search engine based cost-per-click (CPC) data.

A snapshot of the results reveals that the average CPC per category are as follows (all figures are in US dollars):

Auto Finance: $1.91
Automotive: $0.50
Dating: $0.41
Finance: $2.94
Insurance: $11.14
Mortgage: $3.53
Retail: $0.47
Travel: $0.67

Across these categories the average CPC in June was $2.30, lower than the average of $2.59 in the preceding month.

Source: ClickZ, “Average Search CPC Data by Category for June 2008″, The ClickZ Network, July 15, 2008