With the variety of smartphones and tablets on the market nowadays, some newcomers may think that there’s one general advertising system that works for them all. However, the truth is, with the size of certain devices like the Samsung Galaxy and iPhone 6 changing, there are other factors that need to be considered.

This article by AdWeek explains that consumer habits are changing with the introduction of these new devices, and, as a result, both smartphones and tablets have needed their own separate ad budgets, so that they can cater to these specific audiences.

“I’d say at least 80 percent, maybe higher, of clients today are creating separate budget lines for smartphones and tablets,” said Jeremy Lockhorn, vice president of emerging media and mobile lead for Razorfish North America, speaking with AdWeek. “Generally speaking, when this generation of tablets first launched, they got bucketed in with mobile. But as we’ve gotten a better sense of how people use tablets, it’s clear that it is a different and distinct use case from smartphones. Now, nearly all of our clients are treating them separately.”

Aaron Shapiro, CEO of Huge, added that tablets actually get more grouped nowadays with spending on desktop devices, “more often than not.”

“The most sophisticated clients will have separate mobile and desktop budgets that will include advertising work for tablet,” he explained. “But this work will usually fall under the desktop budget.”

Another agency, speaking under anonymity, also stated that less than ten percent of its clients create separate budget lines for tablet versus mobile. That said, most of them do optimize for digital spending as they see fit, which also leads to separation of the devices.

Device size plays a part with these statistics as well, as the lines with “mobile” can be blurred depending on that. “Perhaps if we said ‘handset’, that might make it easier to think about,” said David Eastman, managing partner for MCD Partners. “A smartphone is a handset, a tablet isn’t.”

That said, some believe that the tablet is losing popularity to larger mobile devices. “The primary device for the traveler is moving to the newer, larger phones…because their bigger screens now deliver the experience consumers only previously expected from laptops or tablets,” said Dan Swartz, senior vice president of digital marketing, media and analytics for Upshot. “You no longer need to juggle two devices.”

Ari Brandt, CEO of MediaBrix, also added, “Marketers should definitely consider tablets a separate and discreet platform from smartphones because the user experience is different and the type of activities being conducted and content consumed are also very different.”

A lot of researchers seem to be on board with this train of thought, including eMarketer and Nielsen. “We already separate smartphones and tablets in as many of our figures as possible,” said Dan Marcec with eMarketer. “For basically all of our (mobile-commerce) and time-spent media usage stats, we have smartphone and tablet breakouts, at least in the U.S. Ad spending is the main example where we don’t because the two are still lumped together in ‘mobile’ by most advertisers and publishers in terms of budgeting and selling, respectively.”

Recategorization may be in need, although tablets still need to be considered in some cases. “I see the lines blurring,” said Rye Clifton, product strategy director for GSD&M. “Tablets are becoming more like laptops, but I don’t see them as ‘home devices’. I see tablets more as travel devices for consuming content – an easier device to take on planes than a laptop, though not quite as great if you need to do a bunch of typing and editing.”

More information on the report can be found here.