Advertisers need to be weary about rising CPCs headed into the big retail holiday season. They should not based their budget on rates and costs from earlier in the year as their sole source. Look to prior year metrics for the same time period as a better base line. However, it appears that even those seasonally adjusted numbers are rising sharply.

As a result, I hypothesize that retailers may branch out into long tail a bit more than normal, as well as dabble in newer areas such as display markets, video and mobile.

This may cause a shortage in inventory across all channels, further driving up prices for non-retailers in related industries, especially when you take broad match in to account.