Savvy US direct marketers recognize the growth potential in international markets, where an uptick in ad spending is expected this year. However, reaching consumers in other countries isn't without its challenges.

Marketers have long segmented their consumer base through geo-targeting at the country, state, city and ZIP code levels. In search, a retailer with a strong regional presence, like Modell's, can use geo-targeting to optimize campaigns in states where it is a strong brand separately from states where consumers are not as familiar with it. Now, a more "micro" type lets marketers fine-tune campaigns beyond simply selecting the states in which to serve ads.

Online marketers have invested heavily into sophisticated SEM and SEO techniques to drive traffic to their sites, and most are adept at creating and optimizing landing pages for a good percent of our audience. But there's not enough time in the day to create a custom landing page for every paid search term, and no one can control where a customer lands via organic search.

'Tis the season to analyze data. According to a survey by Google and Compete, consumers spent an increasing amount of time on retail sites as last year's holiday season progressed, with the most intense engagement occurring around Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and post-Christmas weekends. During these weekends, consumers took time to research and take advantage of seasonal sales.

Given the economic climate and consumers' reluctance to spend, one of the most important things you can do to drive e-commerce is integrate search with other marketing initiatives. Search is a great capture tool that can help boost the performance of other channels and net the created demand. Too often, marketing programs ignore the search component and end up creating a significant amount of demand which then is not captured.

To take advantage of consumers' desire for bargains this holiday season, search-focused sites are beefing up their price-comparison engines with enhancements such as better images, more reviews and easier-to-find coupons. TheFind.com has debuted a search format that helps consumers more quickly find coupons, while Ask.com has launched a coupon deals feature. Google Product Search, meanwhile, has updated its capabilities.

Yahoo VP of brand packaging solutions Erika Nardini discusses how the portal incorporates branded video through a partnership with GroupM.

When thinking about skills to look for in search hires, a few traits are obvious. Search marketers must be analytically-minded to get the most from metrics and testing, must think flexibly as this industry changes every week, and can't be afraid of hard work. But one SEM trait that's often overlooked — and is absolutely critical — is the ability to connect on a human level, and to translate that connection into better business.

Direct marketers take search measurement beyond last-click metrics to determine its role in buying decisions.

From DMNews' special search issue, check out campaigns from H&R Block, the Public Relations Society of America and Cole Haan