Growing Ecommerce – The Retail Growth Podcast
Feed your growth mindset. Ecommerce is growing, and so are the challenges and opportunities for online retailers. In the Growing Ecommerce podcast, Mike Ryan and other smec experts are joined by industry leaders in ecommerce, digital marketing, and data science. By sharing business trends, practical solutions, and best practices, this podcast helps online retailers solve the challenges of tomorrow.
Episodes
99 episodes
RIP DSA: What to expect from September's Sunset
In this episode of Growing E-commerce, Mike Ryan and Chris Scharmueller dive into the end of an era: Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) are officially dying.While Google's new AI Max for Search currently sits at a tiny 1.5-2% adoption rat...
How OpenAI Just Lost the Ecommerce War
In this episode of Growing Ecommerce, Mike Ryan and Chris Scharmueller break down the latest shifts in the battle for AI dominance and the future of online shopping.We analyze the quiet death of OpenAI's Agentic Commerce Protoco...
Inside Google's UCP playbook — why OpenAI CAN'T catch up
Google just quietly won the agentic commerce war — and most ecommerce retailers haven't even noticed. In this episode of Growing Ecommerce, Mike Ryan and Chris break down the three UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol) updates Google just shipped, ...
OpenAI's "Delusional" $100B Ad Target | Plus: The Fall of Allbirds
In this episode of Growing E-commerce, Mike Ryan and Chris Scharmueller unpack two massive stories highlighting the current realities—and potential delusions—of the tech and retail sectors.First, we discuss the quiet and stagge...
The “Amazon Killer”? How JD's Joybuy Invades Europe | PLUS: Meta's Zero-Click Threat
Is the “Zero-Click” shopping era finally here, and are European retailers ready for a three-way war between Amazon, Temu, and JD.com’s Joybuy?In this episode of Growing Ecommerce, Mike Ryan and Chris Scharmueller unpack a huge week in e...
OpenAI’s $25 BILLION Loss – is Agentic Shopping Dead?
OpenAI is facing a projected $25 billion shortfall, and their attempt to monetize ecommerce is already falling apart.In this episode of Growing Ecommerce, Mike Ryan and Chris Scharmüller ask the billion-dollar question: Is the drea...
How the Top 1% Retailers Run Google Ads in 2026
Ever wonder what the biggest e-commerce brands are discussing behind closed doors? We are opening up the vault. 🤫In this episode of Growing Ecommerce, Mike Ryan and Chris Scharmueller give you a backstage pass to their recent s...
Temu Hits 71% Market Share – Should You Worry? Plus: Google's Coming for Your Landing Pages
Is the "clash of the titans" coming for your profit margins, and is Google about to take away your website traffic? In this episode of Growing E-commerce, Mike Ryan and Chris Sharma tackle two massive, existential shifts threat...
Sam Altman SCREWS UP ChatGPT Shopping | Plus: Google Product Feed Deep Dive
Why did OpenAI quietly kill its shopping feature, and what does it mean for the future of Google Ads? 🚨In this episode of Growing E-commerce, Mike Ryan and Chris Sharma tackle the reality of the "AI takeover" in paid search. Fol...
The State of PPC 2026: Live from SMX Munich w/ Wijnard Meijer (TrueClicks) and Frederick Vallaeys (Optmyzr)
If you want to know how your peers are actually handling the grind, the Google Ads updates, and the "AI takeover," this episode is a must-watch. We recorded a special edition of Growing Ecommerce live from SMX Munich! Host Mike...
The end of Dynamic Search Ads is here! Insights from 200+ AI Max campaigns
In this episode of Growing E-commerce, Mike Ryan and Chris from Smarter Ecommerce (smec) tackle the massive news that DSA's time on Earth is limited. With DSA going the way of the dinosaurs, Google is pushing advertisers toward AI Max ...
The Expensive Problem with Google’s Search Partner Network (SPN): Insights from 1,500+ Campaigns
🚨 Breaking Google Ads News: Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) will be going "the way of the dinosaurs." As confirmed by Google's Ginny Marvin, DSA's time is limited, paving the way for AI Max as the future-proof campaign standard.Is the Google Ad...
Is ROAS Overrated? – Why the “Revenue Trap” Might Kill Your Google Ads Profit
Is ROAS a flawed metric for Google Ads? According to acclaimed ecommerce experts Mike Ryan and Christian Scharmüller, using Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) as your primary "North Star" metric creates a dangerous "Revenue Trap." Because ROAS measures ...
PMax vs. Standard Shopping? – 3 Google Ads Myths Busted
In this episode of Growing eCommerce, Mike Ryan and Chris debunk three persistent myths that are still holding retailers back in 2026. While everyone is distracted by the hype of UCP and Agentic Commerce, many accounts are bleeding eff...
Google’s UCP Explained: Will "Agentic Commerce" Replace Search in 2026?
UCP (Universal Context Protocol) is a new infrastructure layer aiming to standardize “agentic commerce.” It breaks ecommerce into modular capabilities (“Lego bricks”) so AI agents can negotiate tasks like product discovery, checkout, and paymen...
Ecommerce Trends 2026: Google AI, Temu & CPC Forecast
In the final episode of 2025, Chris and Mike trade their suits for matching Christmas pajamas to deliver a raw, honest review of the year in digital marketing. 🎄They break down the biggest surprises of the year, from Google’s unexpected ...
Are Your Google Ads Lying to You? - Marginal ROAS Explained
In this episode, Mike Ryan and Chris dive into the fundamental issue plaguing advanced performance advertisers: the lack of data integrity between ad platforms and a retailer’s backend systems. Why are sophisticated retailers taking optimizatio...
Black Friday Bloodbath: ROAS Down 12%, Gross Margins Down 9% | Post-Mortem Data
In this post-mortem episode, hosts Mike Ryan and Chris dive deep into the data behind the last peak season to reveal the true cost of Black Friday. They confirm what many performance marketers feared: the event is a "promotional bloodbath where...
Google is bidding on the WRONG products: The ‘Clicked vs. Bought’ dilemma explained
In this episode, Mike Ryan and Christian Scharmueller dismantle a massive technical flaw in Performance Max: the "Clicked vs. Bought" discrepancy.In a keywordless world, product targeting is your main lever. But Mike reveals that Google ...
Google AI Max is A TRAP?! New Data on ROAS, Demand Gen & DSA Sunset
Is Google's new AI Max for Search the future, or is it a hidden trap?In this episode of Growing E-commerce, Mike Ryan and Chris dive into brand-new, independent test data on AI Max for Search and discuss the strategic role of Demand Gen ...
Google's $155 Billion Backlog: The Real Cost of Advertising
Q3 earnings are in, and the consolidation is real. Hosts Mike Ryan and Chris dive into the gravity-defying numbers, confirming that Google's core ad revenue is up a strong 12.6% year-over-year (YoY), and their massive Cloud backlog sits at $155...
CPC Crisis: 30% Inflation is Here! What now?
This episode tackles the most urgent issues retail clients are facing right now: exploding costs and profound market uncertainty.Hosts Mike Ryan and Chris dive into the alarming trend of increasing CPCs (Cost Per Click), which are soarin...
Google & OpenAI are FORCING You to Pay: The AI Ad Overhaul
It's here! Ads are officially landing inside your AI search results, and Google’s not asking for permission. In this episode, Mike Ryan and Chris break down the massive global rollout of AI Overviews (AIO) and AI Mode (AIM). They re...
Zalando is Banning Shoppers: Are Returns Killing YOUR Profits?
This controversial episode is tackling the messy side of shopping! Hosts Mike Ryan and Christian Scharmueller dive straight into the news that Zalando is tightening its return policy, issuing warnings and even year-long bans for shoppers with "...
Google Email Leak Explained: What’s coming next to Google Ads?
In this solo episode, host Mike Ryan tackles the opaqueness of the digital advertising industry. He then reveals a previously confidential email from two senior Google executives. This internal communication confirms that Google’s “PMAXificatio...
