Paid search clicks from mobile soar over Christmas with more than one in three clicks now coming from phones and tablets

The findings show a surge in paid search clicks coming from mobile, with tablet devices accounting for the biggest jump at a rise of 87.3 per cent from 8.7 per cent total clicks in 2012 to 16.3 per cent this year. However, phone clicks grew by only 7.5 per cent on last year, increasing to 20.4 per cent.

Nick Blake, director of client services at Kenshoo, said: "The large jump in paid search clicks from tablet devices this shopping season is likely to be down to the growth in the tablet market. There has been an increase in entrants to the market, with more Android tablets, as well as lower cost devices available from Apple - meaning the number of tablet owners has increased.

"Plus we know that tablets are primarily used at home – where people have time to research their holiday shopping."

The rise in clicks from mobile devices accompanied a rise in spend from retail paid search advertisers, with 34.4 per cent of their budgets being allocated to mobile this year compared to 20.5 per cent last year.

Josh Dreller, director of marketing research at Kenshoo, added: “Retail search advertising continues to show healthy growth in spend, clicks and impressions, indicating that consumers and marketers alike are seeing increasing benefits from it.

“This year the big increase in mobile search spend is most likely driven by Google’s shift to enhanced campaigns which means that advertisers are now automatically opted in to tablet and phone targeting by default within AdWords.

“And the enormous growth and fantastic performance of PLAs means they are likely to become integral to marketers’ advertising strategies year-round.”

Retailers spent almost twice as much on the Google PLAs platform this year (196.1 per cent) and were duly rewarded with total global revenues from PLAs increasing by 417.4 per cent on 2012.

According to the report, Cyber Monday online shopping traffic increased by 12.6 per cent year-on-year. In the UK alone, Black Friday brought a 43.6 per cent rise in paid search clicks and growth of 35.1 per cent in impressions.