Growing Ecommerce – The Retail Growth Podcast

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 margins are lost". The numbers are shocking: Google Ads spend was up over 31% year-over-year, but revenue only grew 15%, resulting in a massive 1...

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 places its bids based on the product a user clicks , while being completely blind to the product they actually buy . This means Google is often bidding...

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 and the future of Dynamic Search Ads (DSA). The analysis of over 250 e-commerce campaigns reveals significant concerns: AI Max delivers an average 35% lower...

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 billion USD.  Chris states that Google is not the "bee-headed chicken" but remains the dominant "American eagle". The focus then s...

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 soaring at rates of up to 30% in key categories. Chris calls these increases a "fucking pain in the ass" and a potential "business destroyer," espec...

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 reveal the experimental phase where ads will soon appear inside the AI content itself, and expose the most critical issue: advertisers currently have neither an opt...

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 "disproportionately high return volumes".  With fashion return rates soaring (sometimes 30-70%!), they break down why retailers are finally getting...

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 “PMAXification” phase is over. While their old approach was to push Performance Max as the end-all solution, their new strategy is a broader, more complex one centered a...

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 search and online retail. Chris shares his on-the-ground insights from the conference, including his talk on a major stage in front of over 600 people....

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-powered ad product, A/I Max. While Google promises performance, Mike and Chris reveal how it can lead to chaotic bidding on competitor terms and the low-quality Se...

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 hosts Mike and Chris as they debate the financial health of the tech giants driving the AI revolution and challenge the notion that AI has delivered on its promi...

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.  But just as we thought the black box was here to stay, Google is making a surprising U-turn, opening up more control and data for advertisers. We'll break...

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 uncanny ability to sell us things we didn't even know we needed. Our hosts will also dive into the mysterious case of Amazon's Goog...

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, though questions remain about how these components will work together without cannibalizing each other. • AI Overviews and AI Mode represent massive sh...

We broke the news: Temu hit the brakes – hard. In this episode, Mike and Chris dig into Why Temu suddenly killed all ads in the US, and what happened next Signs that Temu's ad spend shifted to Europe OpenAI’s move into ecommerce, joining Amazon, Perplexity, and Microsoft in the AI shopping race Does Google’s silence might signal hesitation or confidence? A debate: how profit vs growth is now...

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 to publishers: • AI Overviews (AIO) could kill clicks — We break down how Google’s zero-click model is reshaping the internet and threatening entire business models. •...

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 influencers, and what does it mean for ad targeting? • Zuckerberg pulls back on content moderation — We dive into the actual data behind Meta’s shift in strategy. • Google&a...

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 ad tech to other retailers—friend or Trojan horse? Plus details from our comprehensive new PMax research: How Google’s Performance Max is finally shedding its “black box” labe...

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 profit risks Perplexity AI : Can it challenge Google by fusing search and shopping? Nike’s DTC misstep : When cutting out retail partners backfires Marketing strategy : Are you...

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 the emerging battleground between Amazon and Temu, Mike gives insight into how these seismic shifts might just redefine what we know about monopolies, m...

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 against Temu, and Netflix's advertising woes, which led to another VP dismissal just one day after earnings were reported. He also discusses how...

(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 tells how growth in the Beauty ecomm sector is shaping up, and which tech and consumer trends he's watching now. Plus, we get Rob's take on econ...

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 core ecommerce feature announcements like profit bidding, interactive Shopping ads, and improvements to asset and video reporting in Performance Max campa...

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 and making tech work for your marketing needs. We dissect the tech FOMO that grips the industry, using platforms like Roblox as cautionary tales, an...

Temu's advertising has been at the center of countless headlines in recent months. However, journalists don't know advertising well enough and don't have the data necessary to tell the full story. Mike has monitoring Temu for months – and mega-advertisers like Amazon, Wish, and eBay for years. He ties together all of his research on Temu so far into a single story exploring their dr...