Email marketing and search (both organic and paid) were the dominant marketing channels over the holiday season according to new research from Custora. The firm released its new 2014 Holiday Recap.

According to that, ecommerce revenue in the U.S. was up 15.6% compared to 2013’s holidays season. This continues a four-year streak of mid-teen growth.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday were still the top two shopping days by far, and one out of four online purchases was done on a mobile device. Custora proclaims Black Friday was “Mobile Friday” as nearly a third of sales were done on phones and tablets.

Custora found search to still be the primary way people find the products they want. 38.5% of online transactions during the season originated from a search query. 21% of orders were driven by organic search, while 17.5% were driven y paid search.

It was also a good season for email.

“Winning email marketing can mean winning Black Friday and Cyber Monday,” the report says. “Overall during the holiday period (November – December 2014), email marketing drove 17.7% of online orders, making it the third largest channel after organic (free) search (21%), and paid search (17.5%). During Thanksgiving weekend (the five days from Thanks-giving to Cyber Monday, including Black Friday) email was by far the primary marketing channel driving e-commerce orders, account-ing for 27.3% on Black Friday, 23.9% on Cyber Monday, and 23.1% during the Thanksgiving weekend overall.”

“Email frequency and revenue contribution increased over the holidays,” it says. “Relevant email content & exciting offers actually drove unsubscribe rates down despite increased email volume.”

Social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, only drove 1.9% of all ecommerce orders. That’s actually slightly down from the 2013 holiday season when social media accounted for 2.3%.

The report is based on data from over 100 US retailers, 100 million anonymized shoppers, and $40 billion in revenue. More on the report here.

Image via Custora