SES London has brought together a tantalizing panel of 5 digital media experts, including Julie Warburton, Client Service Director at Microsoft Advertising (UK), to debate the changes in the digital marketing space.

Moderator:

• Jon Myers, SES Advisory Board & Head of Search/Associate Director, Mediavest 

Speakers:

• Ciaran Norris, Lead, Global Social Media, Mindshare
• Julie Warburton, Client Service Director, Microsoft Advertising (UK)
• Nick Gill, Head of Account Management, Yahoo!
• Tom Jones, Head of Media, iCrossing
• Duncan Fisher, Head of Paid Search, Latitude

Below is a summary of the hot topics and some of the best soundbites from this interesting and engaging session:

History of Search in the UK.

The session kicked off with Julie's comments around how Search Marketing has developed in the UK since 2002 when the original player in the market was Goto who became Overture and later Yahoo Search Marketing. Key challenges at the time were that the sales teams were based in the UK, while all the billing was done from west coast America which did not sit well with advertisers because of the eight hour time difference!

One big question on peoples' minds today was the next evolution of Search and the proposed deal between Yahoo and Microsoft Bing. Can the deal challenge Google's dominance in the UK? Nick and Julie outlined the proposed search partnership deal to the audience.

Tom and Duncan spoke of other past innovations in Search Marketing such as Espotting/MIVA being the pioneers of early Contextual Advertising back in 2001, and who have sadly since folded.

All of the panel agreed that click fraud used to be a big issue in the past, but not so much anymore. This is because it's much easier to spot click fraud today due to the advancements in anti-fraud technologies.

Display Vs. Search.

The panel was asked: "Why hasn't Display kept up with Search?"

Ciaran: Text on the world's first banner advert stated: "Ever click here? You will do". Did it make people click? No! Since those early days the ads have not really evolved. He said he was interested in watching companies like Facebook because they are taking their advertising in-house and are changing Display partly due to their targeting and audience segmentation.

Tom: Facebook is massively powerful to micro-target audiences.

Julie: agreed with Ciaran saying that Search's rapid growth has been driven by technology and investment in the medium, however Display had lagged behind because the richness and formats to engage users wasn't there before. Display is now taking learning from Search and adopting technology to work with Display. She finished off by stating that if you make it (Display) interesting and bespoke they will click more.

Ciaran: Click as a metric is a big mistake, there is more to Digital Media. We (as an industry) have got to get beyond the click and analytics to build a brand online.

The next topic was all about Mobile.

Ciaran: 1/4 of Facebook audience on Mobile. Year of the Mobile has been and gone. Globally there were more web-enabled mobile phones bought in comparison to laptops in 09.

Nick: Agreed with Ciaran. iPhone really kicked off Mobile and fired up real enthusiasm for smart phones.

Julie: Mobile has not yet had its zenith, Mobile Advertising very much in infancy and waiting for its time to come.

Next up was Ad Networks and Video (such as YouTube.)

Nick: ad networks great for getting targeted ads to your intended audience. Using rich ads and video content can convert just as well as PPC because of more sophisticated targeting techniques. SEM history has been all about Search, now it's a mixture of media.

Finally, the panel were asked was they saw the future of Digital Marketing

Nick: Display will eventually take over from PPC Search.

Tom: Watch Facebook audience and interface developments with much interest, especially their location based searches. Google will be looking at expanding video and TV offerings.

Duncan: The Microsoft and Yahoo deal; can they take 10-15 share points off Google in next few years? Duncan believes not unless there are some major games changes that come out of the deal.

Follow the rest of the day's events with @adcenter on Twitter or read our complete SES London 2010 coverage on the Microsoft Advertising Community Blog