• by Aaron Goldman , Op-Ed Contributor, December 6, 2008

Search Insider Summit Roundtable Notes: What’s Next â€" E-Commerce Facilitator: David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy, 360i Friday, December 5, 2008

Opinions on images and videos appearing within Google search ads: - Not much activity, interest - Video in text ads = bad user experience - Better for engagement (as opposed to clicks / conversions) - When people want video, they go to YouTube

Goals of roundtable attendees: mainly clicks & conversions (as opposed to engagement or other branding metrics) - Engagement is “squishy” â€" hard to determine value - One attendee’s company encourages consumers to share, mash up video - Questions on value of someone watching a video - Must do some social media marketing, engagement marketing to tell a complete story, reach all consumer touchpoints

Wish list of attendees: product ratings listed on search engine results pages

Big challenge: low overall sophistication of search marketers

Challenge for social media: hard to determine what to get out of it

Issue: Google search results shifting too much. ‘Michael Jackson nose dilemma’ (it was okay in his “Bad” days, but he kept changing it so much that it wound up looking awful) - Personalization making search more frustrating - “If I wanted customized results I’d go to Yahoo” (an interesting idea, since Google’s done much more with personalized search results) - Fear of missing out on what’s new, what others are seeing - Search doesn’t work â€" it’s a terrible experience; no engine gets it - People are trying to break their Google habit (though among attendees, not that successfully) - Some consumers are getting rid of their browser bar entirely

Metric wish list: - Better info on new vs. return visitors - Impressions by source for search (eg not just clicks but search ad impressions)