Cyber Monday sets all time e-commerce record with $3.45B

The previous record was from this year's Black Friday, which saw $3.34B in online sales

Even though Black Friday gets all the attention, it's becoming increasingly clear that Cyber Monday is where the money's at. For at least the second year in a row, it has set a record as the largest online sales day in the history of the U.S.

This year $3.45 billion was spent online during this year's Cyber Monday, according to data from Adobe. Sales grew 12.1 percent from 2015.

The previous record for single day e-commerce sales had been set just two days before, when $3.34 billion was spent online during Black Friday, beating the previous year's Cyber Monday.

The mobile share of visits during Cyber Monday reached 44 percent, while mobile represented 31 percent of sales. That's lower than Black Friday, which saw 55 percent of its visits come from mobile, and 36 percent of its sales. That was the also the first day to ever generate over a billion dollars in online sales from mobile devices.

Smartphone share of visits as 38 percent this year on Cyber Monday, while sales were 22 percent. Tablets saw just 9 percent of visits. On all three big shopping holidays, Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, tablets trailed far behind smartphones. 

Cyber Monday was the only one of the three days where desktops actually beat mobile devices in the percentage of visits, with over half, 53 percent. Cyber Monday also had the largest percentage of desktop sales, with 69 percent, compared to 60 percent on Thanksgiving and 64 percent on Black Friday. 

Desktop also had the best conversion rate, 6.3 percent, compared to 5.1 percent on tablets and 2.8 percent on smartphones. 

The higher desktop numbers makes sense when you realize that most of the online shopping during Cyber Monday was likely done while people were at work. It's easier to sneak in an Amazon purchase on your computer than on your smartphone.

Adobe also broke down where people were finding the best deals, and it's definitely not social media, which accounted for less than one percent of referral share..

Instead most people are finding deals either by searching for them, which accounted for over a third, 38.5 percent, of referrals. Direct sales accounted for 25.3 percent; email had 18.1 percent; and shopper helper sites had 16 percent. 

Like social media, display ads were also proven ineffective, with only 1.2 percent of referral traffic.  

From Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, there was a total of $12.8 billion spent, an increase of 15.2 percent year-to-year. From the beginning of the month through Cyber Monday, there was $39.97 billion spent online, an increase of 7.6 percent from 2015.

(Image source: timeanddate.com)