The research also highlighted the fact 81% of Brits go online at least once a week.

According to the Ofcom report, UK consumers also benefit from some of the lowest prices in Europe in terms of broadband choices.

The UK is currently third for superfast broadband coverage according to the findings, lagging behind Germany and Spain.

However, in terms of fixed broadband take-up, the UK is on a par with both France and Germany, with 32 connections per 100 people – much higher than both Italy and Spain.

The report also shows the UK is second when it comes to superfast coverage, with 65% of UK premises boasting the connection as of June 2012.

In terms of mobile broadband, the UK is also second, with 64 connections per 100 people.

The ‘European Broadband Scorecard’ was actually proposed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport as a way of measuring the Government’s progress towards its lofty ambition of having the UK rated the best in terms of superfast broadband in Europe.

This was a target emphasised by the Government in a report back in December 2010 and then reiterated by the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt MP, in August of last year.

With smartphones, tablets and other smart devices, becoming more and more common place, more people than ever are going online in the UK.

As such, the importance of Internet marketing is only likely to increase, especially when it comes to adapting sites and ads for mobile use and suggesting appropriate strategies to fully capitalise on an ever growing market.

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Boxing Day in particular saw a huge number of punters flock to a variety of online retailers.

The report from Experian Hitwise showed that consumers spent a staggering 14m hours surfing the Web and made a whooping 113m visits to online retail stores – an impressive increase of 17% on last year.

This figure dwarfed the figures of Christmas Eve and Christmas day: in spite of the fact that, when looked at individually, they were impressive in their own right. Around 84m visits were made to retail stores on Christmas Eve, and 107m on Christmas day – up 86% and 71% respectively.

Amazon emerged victorious in the battle of the retailers, triumphing over the likes of eBay to become the most visited shopping site on Christmas day, accounting for around 12% of the total visits made on the day.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the search terms ‘sale’ and ‘sales’ figured heavily, with one in every 125 searches conducted in the UK featuring the phrases. Debenhams, Marks and Spencer and John Lewis, were the top brands in regards to sales searches.

IBM also conducted its own research into Boxing Day retail data, reporting an increase of online sales 44.96% higher than 2011.

The firm also looked into the use of items such as smartphones for conducting retail purchases.

With smartphones or tablets appearing in many people’s stockings over the Christmas period, it is of little surprise that figures for mobile traffic increased this year as well.

In total, almost one-third (30.73%) of visits were made using a smart device, a significant increase on the 19.8% of visits conducted on the devices on Boxing Day 2011.

With figures such as these, firms which failed to capitalise on the abundance of Internet marketing opportunities this year will certainly be more careful when planning their strategies over the next Christmas period.

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The report from mobile analytics firm Flurry, showed a staggering 17.4 million devices were activated on December 25 this year – a 332% increase on the period from December 1 – 20.

The figure was more than double that set last year, and shows that the move into smartphones, tablets and other smart devices is not likely to slow down anytime soon.

For those working in Internet marketing, it will have many considering the importance of mobile in 2013, with an ever-increasing number of people using their smartphones and tablets to do online shopping, use social network sites and surf the Internet.

Around 260,000 apps use Flurry Analytics, enabling Flurry to detect over 90% of all iOS and Android devices activated on a day-to-day basis. The company can then use this to generate the figures they produce.

To show just how great the surge in demand was over the festive period, the company established a baseline in the build up to Christmas using the first 20 days of December. In that time around four million devices were activated daily, a figure dwarfed by the 17.4 million activated on on Christmas day – that figure is 2.5 times higher than the previous record of 6.8 million devices activated in 2011.

Around 328 million apps were also downloaded on Christmas day – the highest since Flurry began recording records. Last year app downloads stood at around 242 million on the same day.

There was more of a shift to tablet devices this year as 51% of devices activated were tablets, the biggest sellers according to Flurry looked to be the iPad, iPad mini and Amazon Kindle Fire – this is in comparison to a figure of 80% of smartphones activated to 20% of tablets in the opening few weeks of December.

Flurry predicts app downloads will remain constant through to New Year’s day surpassing the 1.5 billion mark and possibly even smashing the two billion barrier for the first time ever.

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However, according to a number of recent studies, a significant amount of these shoppers are now opting to do their Christmas gift buying via mobile devices.

German parcel delivery firm DPD (Dynamic Parcel Distribution) found that 23 per cent of the Brits it surveyed had purchased items from the Internet via a smartphone, whilst a further 19 per cent stated that they had bought via a tablet device.

Interestingly it also found that 24 per cent stated that they fully expected to buy an item on a mobile device within the next year – implying that the recent growth seen in m-commerce is only set to expand in the future.

Figures released by Monetate, an American firm responsible for providing cloud-based technology, hinted at similar conclusions.

It found that conversion rates on Internet shopping extravaganza Cyber Monday, which fell on November 26 this year (2012), were higher on tablets than on traditional desktop devices for the first time – 0.33 per cent higher to be precise, with conversion rates on tablets at 5.84 per cent and on traditional devices 5.51 per cent.

More specifically, users of the Apple iPad bought more on Cyber Monday  – with a conversion rate of over six per cent, which was in excess of two per cent higher than at any other point during the Thanksgiving weekend, which also included Black Friday.

Meanwhile, Brand Perfect in its research report, Adventures in Retail – The other line’s moving faster, found that just over two-thirds of UK respondents (66.8 per cent) attributed slow loading times on sites as the main reason for them aborting their attempts to buy online.

However, as well as shopping on mobile devices, more shoppers are also using them when they do actually hit the high street. A survey conducted by The Cloud displayed that a massive 73 per cent of smart phone users admitted to getting their device out to check prices and look for special offers whilst browsing.

Based on these findings e-commerce sites and etailers not boasting a mobile-friendly or mobile optimised version of their site could be missing out on not only large amounts of Christmas traffic and conversions, but all year round – regardless of how effective their Internet marketing campaigns are. If their sites don’t operate efficiently enough, displaying product images in a timely manner, they could risk losing out in the long run.

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The OFT found that 62 out of the 156 sites checked in total might not be in full compliance with the consumer protection laws currently in place.

It checked the 100 most-used online retailers in the UK, as well as many online clothing sites.

In particular, the regulator found that some retailers were adding compulsory charges without warning customers when they checked out.

It also stated that some sites placed restrictions on refunds which were unreasonable, such as wrongly informing customers that they could only return items that were still in their original condition or packaging.

By implementing such a restriction, the OFT stated, the buyer’s right to inspect a product could be breached.

Retailers breaching the consumer protection laws have been written to by OFT, who want to see all sites complying by Christmas (2012).

Commenting on its findings, senior director of the goods and consumer group at the OFT, Cavendish Elithorn, stated: “The OFT recognises that most businesses want to play fair with their customers and to comply with the law.

“We encourage all online retailers to check their websites so customers can be confident their rights are being respected when they shop online.”

This isn’t the first time large companies have been reprimanded for their online activities.

Back in June, Nike was warned about its Internet marketing techniques after England footballers Wayne Rooney and Jack Wilshere tweeted marketing messages on behalf of the clothing giant, without clearly flagging the messages as advertisements.

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A recent forecast provided by eMarketer displayed that Google is expected to earn around $2.31 billion from display ads – a share of around 15.4 per cent of the total amount spent on display advertising in the US. Facebook, meanwhile, is forecast to take a 14.4 per cent share of the market – worth around $2.16 billion. Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL are expected to round out the top five earners.

eMarketer, however, added that the amounts earned from display advertising – a popular form of Internet marketing – in 2012 will be lower than expected, attributing this to bigger brands being more cautious with their ad campaign budgets.

In recent years Google has placed a larger focus on display advertising, with initiatives aimed at mobile-devices – through Admob – and an increased amount of video advertising featured on YouTube both playing a significant role in its success.

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According to the company's survey, 82 per cent of mobile phone users noticed the ads they were served with, while half of users took some form of action, Search Engine Land reports.

The firm claimed that 42 per cent click on the ad, while 27 per cent contacted the business and 49 per cent end up making a purchase at some point.

It also found that 79 per cent of people are using their smartphones to help them when shopping, with almost three quarters of these making a purchase either online or in a store.

The results may also highlight the importance of developing a good search engine optimisation strategy for mobile sites, as seven per cent of respondents said that they used a search engine on their phone.

Earlier this month, an article on Econsultancy stated that UK firms must improve the usability of their mobile sites, as many users have experienced errors when visiting a company on their smartphone.

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According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC), queries from such devices accounted for 11 per cent of all retail searches in the first quarter of 2011, with the total number growing by 29 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Multi-channel retailers saw the biggest increase, up 42 per cent year-on-year, as opposed to a rise of 19 per cent for stores that are online only.

Director-general of the BRC Stephen Robertson said that online retailing is now the fastest growing sector and mobile is "the star performer" within this market.

"Customers are taking to smartphone and tablet shopping very rapidly," he added. "The rise of mobile use to one in ten searches sends a valuable message to any forward-thinking retailer that doesn't yet have an m-commerce platform."

Recent, Matt Lawson said in a piece for Search Engine Land that marketers must separate their desktop and mobile campaigns in order to get the best results, as ads will perform very differently on the devices.

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According to the State of Search Marketing report, produced by Econsultancy and Sempo, more than half of firms (54 per cent) expect to put more money into search engine optimisation, with the average rise expected to be around 43 per cent.

Companies also anticipate an increase in spending of 31 per cent on pay per click activities, the report found, while there has been an upturn in the number of enterprises looking to engage with social media, with 84 per cent doing this.

Mobile marketing was also highlighted as a key growth area, with 79 per cent of respondents stating it is a 'significant' or 'highly significant' sector for search engine marketing.

However, a recent report by Vanson Bourne, also reported by Econsultancy, revealed that 28 per cent of UK firms have no plans to implement a strategy that is optimised for this platform.

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The firm reported total revenues of $1.06 billion (£647 million) for the first three months of 2011, a six per cent decline from the figure for Q1 2010.

It blamed the fall on a "required change in revenue presentation" due to its deal with Microsoft last year to share search results.

While income from display ads showed an increase of ten per cent, the search sector of the business performed less well, seeing a fall of 19 per cent.

This may be partly due to $56 million worth of reimbursements that were issued as a result of the site's properties switching over to Microsoft's Bing service. Yahoo! said it expects these costs to decrease as the transition nears completion.

According to the latest figures complied by comScore, Yahoo! witnessed a drop of 0.4 per cent in its share of the US search market in March.

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