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 strategy meetings with some of Europe's largest retailers. We are unpacking the exact playbooks, fears, and tactics dominating the boardrooms of the top 1% right now.
Forget the basic tutorials—this is what the mega-brands are actually testing. First, we tackle Google's controversial new push for "Demand Led Growth" (DLG). Are the top retailers really giving Google unlimited budgets, or is there a smarter way to use Target ROAS to capture demand spikes.
We also break down the reality of the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and why Europe's smartest marketing teams are obsessing over conversational feed attributes to win the AI search war. Finally, we reveal what CMOs are secretly telling their CFOs: With Chinese giants like Temu driving up costs, cheap incremental growth is dead. Discover why Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) is the new survival tool for 2026.
🔗 Resources & Links:
About Smarter Ecommerce (smec):
Smarter Ecommerce (smec) empowers e-commerce brands with AI-driven PPC automation that optimizes for profit and business outcomes while maintaining strategic control.
The platform activates first-party data - profit margins, customer lifetime value, and key business metrics - to automate campaign optimization toward goals like profitability and efficient growth, while detailed campaign insights provide full transparency and enable PPC teams to focus on strategic oversight rather than manual execution.
As a Google Premier Partner and three-time Microsoft Retail Partner of the Year, smec manages over €500 million in ad spend and drives €5B+ in annual e-commerce revenue for 350+ global retail clients including THG, Snipes, REWE, and Intersport.
Make sure to follow smec - Smarter Ecommerce for more performance marketing insights:
smec - Smarter Ecommerce: https://www.smarter-ecommerce.com
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/smarter-ecommerce-gmbh
Newsletter: https://smarter-ecommerce.com/en/newsletter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smarterecommerce/
