According to a study commissioned by iContact, small and midsize businesses are allocating the largest share of their marketing budgets to email, with more than half spending up to 20 percent of their total marketing dollars on email marketing efforts.

The importance of optimising email campaigns for mobile has again been underlined by a new survey which shows that checking emails is among the most common activity for UK smartphone owners.

The Nielsen Mobile Consumer survey found that 68% of UK smartphone owners used their device to check email in the past 30 days. Only text messaging was more popular (92%), while using the mobile web (66%) and social networking (63%) achieved similar results.

US smartphone owners exhibit similar behaviours, with 86% using their devices for text, 82% for the mobile web, 75% for email and 63% for social networking.

Prospects for marketing and advertising are looking good after a study found that nearly half of smaller firms expect growth in 2013.

Research from The Co-operative Bank has revealed that 44% of SMEs believe their sales and orders will rise next year.

The findings also show that one in four (26%) businesses anticipate growth in international orders.

Around a quarter (23%) of senior decision makers saying they expect to invest in their company through, for example, new equipment or premises improvements.