Businesses need to put in place digital marketing strategies to catch up with the changing lifestyle of consumers, according to the Digital Life study by TNS Research International.

Thailand is among the countries that have seen high growth of social marketing, in line with the increasing mobile internet penetration.

The report stated that tourism, mobile phones, cars, credit cards, consumers products, as well as fashion products, are among the items with high potential to increase sales through online advertising.

The report was conducted based on a survey on 72,000 consumers from 60 countries, including Thailand.

Thailand is among the countries with a low number of internet users, at only 24% of the population. But that leaves it with much room for growth, driven by the proliferation of mobile internet and a wider broadband network.

The country also showed a high level of online shopping time, at nearly 35 hours a week, compared to the global average of 18 hours.

"The business sector should develop digital strategies to capture the big opportunity by integrating the online marketing channel with other mainstream media and physical stores," said the report.

Brand owners also need to design digital content that is relevant to their target groups and appropriate devices such as smartphones or tablets.

Arnaud Frade, regional director digital strategy of the global research company TNS Asia Pacific, said that the development of digital content has changed Thai consumers' lifestyle to be more sophisticated. As much as 66% of Thai respondents said they spent time searching information on blogs and social networks sites before making purchase decisions while the global rate was 54%.

"Thai people tended to find facts about products through social networking websites as they trust their friends more than commercial ads by the producers themselves," said Mr Frade.

"We found that 42.3% of Thai online users spent lots of time on activities on the internet, such as games, blogs, social networking and shopping," added Mr.Frade.

The study also found 69% of the consumers are keen to spend more time and money online in the future.

To catch up with the trend, Mr Frade suggested that businesses set up dedicated teams to oversee digital content, as well as interaction with clients.