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
83 episodes
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...
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Season 4
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Episode 20
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39:35
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...
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Season 4
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Episode 19
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44:16
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 ...
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Season 4
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Episode 18
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32:11
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 ...
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Season 4
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Episode 17
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37:06
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...
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Season 4
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Episode 16
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27:40
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...
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Season 4
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Episode 15
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33:38
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...
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Season 4
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Episode 14
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26:39
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 "...
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Season 4
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Episode 13
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25:16
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...
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Season 4
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Episode 12
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37:27
Google AI’s Secret Plan: The BIGGEST THREAT to Your Retail Business Yet?
Will Google's new AI strategy kill ecommerce as you know it? In this episode of Growing Ecommerce, Mike Ryan and Chris Scharmueller dissect the biggest news from DMEXCO 2025 in Cologne, Germany, and reveal their bold take on the future of paid ...
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Season 4
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Episode 11
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30:38
Google's A/I Max & The Temu Takeover: Navigating the E-commerce Future
Welcome to Episode 10 of Growing ecommerce! Get ready to cut through the noise with your hosts Mike and Chris, as they tackle the real-world implications of three massive forces in the market.First, they take on Google's newest AI-powere...
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Season 4
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Episode 10
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28:30
AI's Reality Check: Financial Bubble or Foundation for the Future?
Welcome to Episode 9 of Growing Ecommerce! In a world buzzing with AI hype, we're cutting through the noise to ask the big question: Is this the next dot-com bubble, or a long-term, foundational shift for the future of business?Join host...
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Season 4
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Episode 9
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28:49
Google vs. Amazon vs. TikTok vs. Meta: Welcome to the AI Ad Wars
In this week’s show, Mike Ryan and Chris Scharmueller dive headfirst into the "PMAXification" of the advertising landscape, a term Mike coined to describe how platforms from Google to TikTok are rushing to automate your ad spend. Bu...
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Season 4
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Episode 8
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37:05
Is AI Shattering Google’s Fortress? Plus: Inside Amazon’s Risky Ads Test
Is AI a wolf in sheep’s clothing for Google's empire? Mike Ryan and Christian Scharmueller are back to spill the tea on the biggest players in ecommerce! This week they're dissecting Google's "fortress" of a business and Meta's unca...
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Season 4
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Episode 7
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40:01
Google Marketing Live Recap: AI Overviews, PMax reporting, AI Max, and more
Google is positioning AI at the center of its advertising ecosystem with substantial changes to search, shopping, and campaign management. The new "PowerPack" approach combines Performance Max, Demand Gen, and AI Max for search campaigns, thoug...
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Season 4
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Episode 6
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45:36
Big exits & bold bets: Temu stops ads in US while OpenAI enters ecommerce. Plus, debating the marketwide pivot to profit.
We broke the news: Temu hit the brakes – hard. In this episode, Mike and Chris dig intoWhy Temu suddenly killed all ads in the US, and what happened nextSigns that Temu's ad spend shifted to EuropeOpenAI’s move int...
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Season 4
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Episode 5
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35:17
Will AI Break Google Search? Plus: Tariff Shocks & the Rise of Zero-Click
Google’s turning into an answer engine—so why does it feel like the internet’s disappearing beneath it? In this episode of Growing Ecommerce, Mike and Chris tackle the search shake-up and what it means for everyone from advertisers ...
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Season 4
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Episode 4
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44:01
Instagram's Fake AI Influencers? Plus: A CSAM Scandal Rocks Google & Zuckerberg’s Moderation Cuts
Who’s real anymore? In this episode of Growing Ecommerce, Mike and Chris break down the chaos unfolding across the digital advertising world:• Instagram is testing AI-generated user profiles — Are we entering a world of fake ...
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Season 4
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Episode 3
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36:08
2025 State of PMax Report, plus: Zuckerberg shrugs ads, Amazon shares its ad stack
Digital ads in 2025 are anything but boring. In this episode, Mike and Chris unpack:Mark Zuckerberg’s eyebrow-raising claim that ads aren’t important (despite 98% of Meta’s revenue coming from ads)Amazon’s move to sell its ...
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Season 4
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Episode 2
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36:25
New co-host, same chaos: Amazon Haul, Nike's DTC regrets, Perplexity AI Shopping, and more
Big changes on Growing Ecommerce! Chris Scharmueller joins Mike Ryan for a fresh, unscripted take on the latest in online retail. In this episode:Amazon vs. Temu: What Amazon’s “Haul” launch says about their playbook and prof...
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Season 4
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Episode 1
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37:23
2024 Year End Recap: Google’s Legal Challenges, Amazon vs. Temu, and Other Platform News
Discover the forces reshaping the ecommerce landscape leading into 2025 as host Mike Ryan guides us through a labyrinth of game-changing developments and strategic maneuvers. From the Department of Justice's legal challenges against Google to t...
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Season 3
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Episode 10
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34:09
Q2 Highlights: Wins and losses for Netflix, Amazon, Pinterest, and Google
Can a new low-price, slow-shipping strategy from Amazon truly rival Temu's direct-from-China model? On this episode of Growing ecommerce, host Mike Ryan dissects some of the biggest headlines from Q2 including Amazon's attempt to fight back aga...
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Season 3
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Episode 9
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34:25
Tech's Impact on Health & Beauty with Rob Davis of THG
(Recorded live at IRX Birmingham)Rob Davis is Acquisition Marketing Director at THG Beauty, a division which is responsible for £1.2B of THG's total revenues, and which includes brands such as LOOKFANTASTIC, Cult Beauty, and Dermstore. Rob ...
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Season 3
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Episode 8
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43:04
Google Marketing Live: Ads in an AI-First Search Experience
Join Mike Ryan for a discussion of his highlights from GML 2024. Was the event overshadowed by Google I/O? Do advertisers need to worry about the biggest shake-up ever to Google's SERP? He answers these questions and unpacks the news around cor...
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Season 3
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Episode 7
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33:28
The State of MarTech with Daniel Smulevich
Learn about the future of marketing from Daniel Smulevich of Jellyfish, as he guides us through the MarTech revolution in a landscape brimming with change. This episode isn't about chasing shiny new tech; it's about strategic problem-solving an...
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Season 3
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Episode 6
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47:18
