Search marketing company NetElixir has completed its analysis of the 2016 holiday shopping season, compiling the findings into its 2016 Holiday Season: By the Numbers report. The data indicates that compared to 2015 total ecommerce holiday sales increased by 10.43%.
NetElixir also found that purchases on mobile devices, otherwise known as mcommerce, surpassed 30% in 2016. These findings match NetElixir’s forecasted holiday ecommerce figures, which were released in September 2016.
“While we hoped for better sales figures, we are pleased that we were able to predict the holiday ecommerce sales figures so accurately,” said Udayan Bose, CEO of NetElixir. “We attributed the conservative growth figures this year to several factors like earlier than usual holiday shopping with major online events like Amazon’s Prime Day, consumers using their mobile devices to purchase yet making less expensive purchases on mobile, and to the uncertain political environment.”
NetElixir analyzed the ecommerce sales data by U.S. regions and found the highest increase in the south with a 19.9% increase. The next highest was found in the west with 9.5%, then in central U.S. with 6.5% and then the northeast with 5.8%.
Search marketing trends were also tracked in the report. Impressions saw the biggest lift this year with an increase of 35.7% and conversions increased by 18.63%. The average cost-per-click went up by just 1.56% and the average order value (AOV) decreased by 5.4%.
The most popular time of day to buy was during the afternoon hours of 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. and the second most popular time during the morning hours of 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. The same time of day statistics also applied to impressions and clicks.
“The uptick in mobile activity this holiday season caused conversions and impressions to increase fairly dramatically, but caused overall AOV to decrease as people typically spend less on their mobile devices than on desktops,” continued Bose. “The time of day rates are also important findings for retailers as they plan for future digital marketing campaigns, which should be focused on the afternoon hours when consumers are showing the most engagement and intent to purchase.”