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The 2026 Q4 Playbook: Scale Google Ads through the Holiday Peak
In 2025, we welcomed PPC whizz Chris Scharmueller to the Growing Ecommerce family – doubling our firepower and freshening our take. Now, Mike Ryan and Chris dig into the real pain points and opportunities facing online retailers today.
They’re joined by industry leaders in ecommerce, digital marketing, and data science to share fresh trends, practical tactics, and cautionary tales. Ready to see what’s really working (and what’s overhyped)? Tune in to solve tomorrow’s challenges with insights you can put into action today.
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A German Court Just Made Google Liable for Its AI | Plus: Temu & Shein Fall Off a CliffA small regional court in Germany just handed down a ruling with global consequences: Google is liable for what its AI Overviews say. The "AI can make mistakes" disclaimer? Insufficient. Text generated by Gemini counts as Google’s own words — and Mike Ryan and Chris break down why this precedent could quickly spread…
AI Max vs DSA, PMax vs Shopping, tROAS vs Max Conv. Value | Google Ads World CupWe turned Google Ads into a World Cup bracket. Three head-to-head rounds, two hosts, no referee — just the campaign types and bid strategies advertisers argue about most. In this episode of Growing Ecommerce, Mike Ryan and Chris go feature vs. feature: 🥊 Round 1: AI Max for Search vs. Dynamic Search Ads — is DSA's sunset…
Google's Smart Bidding Change: Why Your ROAS Is About to DropStarting August 17th, Google is quietly rewriting how Smart Bidding treats campaigns that are limited by budget — and if your account is currently over-delivering on Roas, this affects you directly. In this episode, Mike Ryan and Chris break down Google's upcoming change to budget-limited campaigns, why "over-delivering" Roas is being treated…
Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) Explained: What Every Ecommerce Brand Must KnowAI is coming for your checkout — and the infrastructure behind it is called Universal Commerce Protocol. In this episode, Mike Ryan breaks down exactly what UCP is, why Google and Shopify built it together, who's already on board, and what ecommerce brands actually need to do to prepare. Whether you're being pressured…
Google Goes a Box Too Far — Plus Why OpenAI’s $100B Ad Dream Doesn’t Add UpGoogle just announced the biggest change to search in its history — and not everyone is happy. At Google I/O, the search bar became a search box, signaling a full shift toward conversational, Gemini-powered search. The market is already reacting: DuckDuckGo rocketed from around position 400 to the top 100 in the app stores almost…
Google's AI Now Picks Which Product You Sell | Plus: ChatGPT Shopping Ads Arrive TooGoogle's new AI-powered Shopping ads can now decide which of your products wins the click — and it's optimizing for the user, not for your margin, your brand, or your strategy. This Gemini-built format writes its own product descriptions and may re-rank which product gets shown, beyond your bid. Mike Ryan and Chris…
The EU Is Breaking Temu & Shein — Plus Google's Hidden AI MetricThe EU is finally using its teeth on Chinese e-commerce — and the auction landscape is already shifting. Mike and Chris break down what falling CPCs in Europe mean for your accounts, why the July 1st customs change could matter more than any fine, and the playbook for grabbing market share before the window closes. Then: a major Google…
Meta Overtakes Google in Ad Spend & What It Means for Ecommerce │GML 2026 RecapMeta has overtaken Google in ad budgets - and for ecommerce advertisers, that changes everything. It means Google is on the offensive. It means the pressure to split your budget between platforms is about to intensify. And it means that if you're not set up correctly on Google's AI surfaces right now, you're already losing…
