Smartphones accounted for approximately 7% of all paid-search clicks in the UK in the third quarter, the research by Latitude Digital Marketing found. Tablet devices, boosted by iPad 2 sales, accounted for 3% of clicks, up from 1.5% in the second quarter.Of all search queries, 15% take place on mobile devices, up from 7% last year, according to new research that underscores the growing importance of mobile as a marketing channel.

The total number of UK mobile web users is expected to reach 30m by the end of 2012, the report said. The recently launched iPhone 4S is expected to further boost m-commerce.

Growth in consumer confidence, combined with growth in people using their mobile for searching for information and buying goods and services, means that some retailers will “smash” records for m-commerce transactions this Christmas, the research also said. However, despite the expected success of individual retailers in m-commerce, Discovery analyst Matt Haydock in yesterday’s new media age Analyst speak column concluded, based on recent research, that an overall “m-commerce Christmas” remained a way off.

Nick Dutch, multimedia manager at pizza chain Domino’s, said the research echoed trends it had seen in mobile marketing over the past year.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in our search traffic coming through mobile devices, with up to 20% at certain times this year,” he said. “This increase in mobile search volume has had a knock-on effect on our PPC [Pay-Per Click] search budget, which we are investing more pro-actively into mobile.”

Domino’s has made £10m in sales through mobile so far this year, Dutch said, adding that he expected the growth in mobile traffic and sales to continue next year.

Alex Kozloff, senior mobile manager at the IAB, said that new mobile technologies, such as “voice search”, a new feature of the iPhone 4S, and “visual search”, as used in Google Goggles, a mobile app that lets people search the internet for products using pictures taken on their phone, would help make search marketing on mobile devices more attractive to advertisers.

Meanwhile, research published by Forrester this week found UK consumers use the mobile internet more often than their European counterparts.

Nearly one in three (31%) of UK adults use the mobile Internet at least monthly, compared with the European average of 19%, while 22% access social networking sites from their mobile at least monthly, compared with 11% of European adults. And 66% have downloaded an app in the past three months, compared with 61% of Europeans.

The Forrester research was based on surveys of more than 330,000 consumers in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.