Online performance marketing drove £16.5bn of consumer spend in the UK last year, equating to 10 per cent of all eCommerce retail sales.

Thats according to a study from the IAB and PwC, looking at lead generation and affiliate marketing activity across 12,000 publishers.

Of that amount, £15.4bn came from the 125m purchases made via affiliate websites during the year, with the remaining £1.1bn generated through 30m lead capture forms.

The total online performance marketing spend for the year, meanwhile, stood at £1.1bn – equating to an average ROI of £15 to every £1 spent.

Of this spend, £187m went on mobile and tablet specifically, representing a year-on-year increase of 72 per cent for the channel, compared to an eight per cent growth overall.

“Advertisers are heavily increasing OPM spend on mobile because it’s playing a bigger role in shopping,” said IAB UK chief strategy officer Tim Elkington. “Half of adult smartphone owners buy something with their mobile every month, a quarter do so weekly.”