• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, November 7, 2018

Search became the top promotional driver for retailers on Election Day, according to data released by Adobe on Wednesday.

Paid-search advertisements made up 22.2% of sales on Election Day, with email at 18% and shopper helper sites at 5.4%. Social networks made up 1.7% of overall sales.

Apparently, voters felt pretty confident about the economy. The average order volume (AOV) on Election Day rose 4% year-over-year.

Shoppers relied heavily on their mobile devices. Mobile drove 51.6% of visits and 32.6% of revenue. Smartphones led for mobile at 44.3% of visits and 25.1% of revenue.

Adobe data predicts that the day after the election -- today -- retail visits will dip 6% and rebound by 8% on Friday.

Adobe in October released numbers that estimate consumers will spend $124 billion online this holiday season, from November through December.

That's positive news around election time, but what about during the holidays? I can’t help but think holiday growth will slow this year, based on the continuous data breaches in the news.

Adobe says not so. “We see no indication that data breaches will slow online shopping growth,” an Adobe Analytics spokesperson wrote in an email to Search Insider. “There are always outside events that can affect the holiday shopping season -- for example, a data breach or a winter storm -- but don’t anticipate this to impact growth.”

In Adobe’s second-quarter survey, 72% of respondents said they felt the same or more secure about their data online compared to a year ago, and only 77% said they have not changed where they shopped in the last six months because of a retailer's data privacy policy.

Perhaps the consumers participating in Adobe’s survey didn’t hear about the data breach related to HBHC, which was announced Tuesday, and the numerous ones that occurred this year ranging from healthcare agencies to brands.