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 payments across platforms.

This has become an infrastructure war: Google is pushing UCP as an open-source standard versus OpenAI’s ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol) and Anthropic’s MCP (Model Context Protocol). Big retailers such as Walmart and Zalando are already experimenting with UCP right now.

In this episode of Growing Ecommerce, Mike Ryan and Christian Scharmüller unpack what “Agentic Commerce” means as AI shifts from generating text to taking actions in online shops—and what that implies for your data feed strategy.

In this episode, we cover:

• The Rise of UCP: how agents “negotiate” capabilities like discovery and checkout—similar to early standards wars (e.g., electricity).

• Adoption Reality Check: will consumers let AI buy their sneakers? Mike forecasts ~10% of UCP-based transactions within 2 years; Chris estimates ~5%.

• The Protocol War: how partnerships with giants (Walmart, Zalando) help Google try to win the standard.

• New Merchant Responsibilities: to reduce hallucinations, Google plans 10–12 new feeds/attributes, pushing more structured-data work back to retailers.

About the hosts:

Mike Ryan (Austria; originally Boston) is Head of Ecommerce Insights at Smarter Ecommerce (smec), with 10+ years in retail and PPC.

Christian Scharmüller is CCO & Managing Director at smec, a long-time PPC/ecommerce leader and frequent speaker (e.g., SMX, OMR).

Smarter Ecommerce (smec) helps e-commerce brands optimize PPC with AI-driven automation focused on profit and business outcomes, leveraging first-party data like margins and LTV.

Follow smec for more performance marketing insights:

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/smarter-ecommerce-gmbh

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#eCommerce #GoogleAds #UCP #AgenticCommerce #AI #DigitalMarketing #RetailTrends #GoogleMerchantCenter

smec is a Google Premier Partner and three-time Microsoft Retail Partner of the Year, managing €500M+ in ad spend and driving €5B+ in annual e-commerce revenue across 350+ global retail clients (incl. THG, Snipes, REWE, Intersport).

More:

Website: https://www.smarter-ecommerce.com

Newsletter: https://smarter-ecommerce.com/en/newsletter/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smarterecommerce/

Why it matters: if agents become the new storefront, whoever sets the protocol shapes access to customers, data standards, and product visibility—so feed quality and structured attributes really matter.

About smec (Smarter Ecommerce):

At smec - Smarter Ecommerce, we specialize in transforming business goals into optimized ad campaigns. With over 16 years of experience in Google & Microsoft Ads, our intelligent software and expert services help retailers achieve superior results.

We're committed to giving you the tools and insights needed to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of digital advertising.

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/

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 pivot toward transparency to the "Naughty List" players who frustrated the industry. Mike reveals details about his behind-the-scenes meeting with Temu, while Chris explains why Mark Zuckerberg is on his bad side this year.

Plus, we look ahead to 2026. Will CPCs finally slow down? What is "Gen 2 Commerce," and how will AI reshape the shopping experience next year?

In this episode, Mike and Chris cover:

• The 2025 in Review: Highs, lows, and navigating information overload. 
• The Naughty & Nice List: Why Google’s PMax updates won us over, and why Meta’s ad strategy is failing agencies. 
• The Temu Report: Mike’s personal experience meeting with Temu reps. 
• 2026 Predictions: Economic outlook, AI commerce features, and the future of media buying.

Ready to grow your Ecommerce business? Visit us at: https://smarter-ecommerce.com

About smec (Smarter Ecommerce):

At smec - Smarter Ecommerce, we specialize in transforming business goals into optimized ad campaigns. With over 16 years of experience in Google & Microsoft Ads, our intelligent software and expert services help retailers achieve superior results.

We're committed to giving you the tools and insights needed to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of digital advertising.

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/

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 optimization decisions on ad platform data when their final bottom-line evaluation comes from a different source? Mike calls this the "optimization gulf".

The hosts argue that this disconnect is a major tactical issue that is driving platforms like Google and Meta to pursue cross-channel solutions to regain trust.

Key discussion points include:

• The Single Source of Truth (SSOT) Problem: Why using last-click attribution and optimizing within channel silos led to platforms taking 100% credit for the same purchases.
• The iOS 14.5 Inflection Point: How Apple's anti-tracking policies broke Meta campaigns, leading to the rise of "magic pixels" (Triple Whale, Northbeam) to fix reporting.
• Marginal ROAS vs. Average ROAS: Why optimizing only for average ROAS is a "massive flop" and why you need to understand the concept of marginal return to avoid spending beyond your optimal point.
• Google's Contradiction: We break down Google's claim that its bidding system (PMax) finds the cheapest conversion across all networks, and the subsequent contradiction of why the performance of those individual channels often looks bad in segmented reports.

About smec (Smarter Ecommerce):

At smec - Smarter Ecommerce, we specialize in transforming business goals into optimized ad campaigns. With over 16 years of experience in Google & Microsoft Ads, our intelligent software and expert services help retailers achieve superior results.

We're committed to giving you the tools and insights needed to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of digital advertising.

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/

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 12% drop in Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). But the real trouble is profitability. Mike reveals an exclusive chart showing how the average gross profit margin dropped by 9 percentage points in the final week of November.

What else is covered in this data-driven post-mortem:

• The Dilution of Demand: Why Black Friday search volume has been on a secular decline since peaking in 2018, and why the "doorbuster" concept is dead.
• The Hourly Opportunity: A never-before-seen hourly analysis that pinpoints the exact time when Cost Per Order (CPO) cools down and conversion rates peak, revealing the best time to run your budget.
• Competitor Strategy: A look at how Amazon is continuously ramping up spend, while the competition from Teemu drastically fell off on Black Friday itself.
• The Final Warning: Why the relentless increase in CPCs is the single biggest threat to the middle-of-the-pack online retailer.

About smec (Smarter Ecommerce):

At smec - Smarter Ecommerce, we specialize in transforming business goals into optimized ad campaigns. With over 16 years of experience in Google & Microsoft Ads, our intelligent software and expert services help retailers achieve superior results.

We're committed to giving you the tools and insights needed to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of digital advertising.

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/

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 on the wrong item, unaware that your user cross-shopped into a lower-margin alternative or a different brand entirely. The result? You might be hitting your ROAS targets on paper, but your actual profit is bleeding out.

The duo reveals the only technical fix for this—Conversions with Cart Data—and debates the ultimate trust exercise: is it finally time to share your Cost of Goods Sold (CoGS) with Google to bid on true profit?

About smec (Smarter Ecommerce):

At smec - Smarter Ecommerce, we specialize in transforming business goals into optimized ad campaigns. With over 16 years of experience in Google & Microsoft Ads, our intelligent software and expert services help retailers achieve superior results.

We're committed to giving you the tools and insights needed to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of digital advertising.

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/

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 Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and a higher Cost Per Conversion (CPA) compared to traditional broad match campaigns in retail.
• The conversions AI Max drives are often at a lower Average Order Value (AOV), raising questions about incrementality versus cannibalization.

Mike predicts that Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) is on its way to being fully sunset/upgraded to AI Max by early 2026. The shift signals Google’s move to consolidate broad automation into AI Max and the visual discovery into Demand Gen. The hosts also warn that many advertisers are creating unnecessary data fragmentation and overlap by running AI Max, DSA, and PMAX concurrently.

The key discussion focuses on the Demand Gen Strategy: Demand Gen is best used as a visual discovery engine to compete with Paid Social/Meta and is heavily driven by video ads across YouTube and Shorts. Learn how to use it strategically as a mid-funnel tool to feed Performance Max (PMAX).

What to do now: AI Max is here to stay. Mike and Chris offer advice on how to use AI Max's built-in controls (like negative keywords) to make the feature work smarter for your business.

About smec (Smarter Ecommerce):

At smec - Smarter Ecommerce, we specialize in transforming business goals into optimized ad campaigns. With over 16 years of experience in Google & Microsoft Ads, our intelligent software and expert services help retailers achieve superior results.

We're committed to giving you the tools and insights needed to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of digital advertising.

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/

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 shifts to Amazon, which has truly become a services business (Cloud and Ads), with its retail component no longer the core driver of its wealth.

But the big story isn't the growth—it's the crisis. Mike and Chris reveal a dangerous surge in ad costs: CPCs in PMAX and Shopping are up an alarming 30% year-to-date (since week one of the year), with Shopping CPCs specifically soaring by 36% YoY. Chris warns that this kind of inflation is a "real threat" to Google's business model because it is "forcing especially small and middle businesses out" of the auction. 

They discuss whether a competitor like OpenAI could challenge Google by offering "massively discounted CPCs" to eat into market share. Finally, Mike introduces the free smec Market Observer tool that helps online retailers benchmark their CPCs and check competition levels from giants like Amazon and Temu.

About smec (Smarter Ecommerce):

At smec - Smarter Ecommerce, we specialize in transforming business goals into optimized ad campaigns. With over 16 years of experience in Google & Microsoft Ads, our intelligent software and expert services help retailers achieve superior results.

We're committed to giving you the tools and insights needed to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of digital advertising.

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/

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," especially for businesses with paper-thin margins. They debate whether Google is responsible or if it's purely a market-level crisis, and why Google must find a solution to prevent mid-sized players from running out of money.

The second major theme is the AI search disruption. The hosts discuss the pervasive uncertainty among retailers—from small shops to enterprise clients—about the future of search behavior and the need for a stronger Data Density strategy. They reveal the huge structural change that the average search query in AI mode is 2.5x longer than in standard search. Finally, they discuss the evolving role of the PPC manager, emphasizing the need for system thinking and an openness to human-machine collaboration to thrive.

About smec (Smarter Ecommerce):

At smec - Smarter Ecommerce, we specialize in transforming business goals into optimized ad campaigns. With over 16 years of experience in Google & Microsoft Ads, our intelligent software and expert services help retailers achieve superior results.

We're committed to giving you the tools and insights needed to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of digital advertising.

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/

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-in nor an opt-out for these new properties. This means your existing ad budget is being automatically pushed into this new environment—a fundamental shift in search since the smartphone.

But the real disruption isn't just Google—it's OpenAI. They've launched an aggressive e-commerce shopping assistant model, complete with in-chat checkout and integrated with giants like Walmart and Target.Our hosts explain why this completely changes the game, essentially turning the AI into a marketplace. They discuss the only way retailers can survive this new reality: providing maximum information density (feeds, structured data, landing pages) to be visible to the AI, even as you are forced to compete in its new commission-based ecosystem.

About smec (Smarter Ecommerce):

At smec - Smarter Ecommerce, we specialize in transforming business goals into optimized ad campaigns. With over 16 years of experience in Google & Microsoft Ads, our intelligent software and expert services help retailers achieve superior results.

We're committed to giving you the tools and insights needed to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of digital advertising.

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/

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 serious about profitability and why relying solely on order value is a massive, costly mistake for your advertising campaigns.

But don't panic! We offer the smart, proactive solution: leveraging off-channel first-party data. 

Mike and Chris explain how you can integrate return rate data into your campaigns using tools like Conversions with Cart Data and even Google’s Product Return Rate Predictor. Plus: Mike and Chris take a look at how Google is leading the pack with virtual try-on technology to stop returns before they even happen. 

Finally, the boys tackle the all-important Black Friday strategy, discussing the dilution of the sales event and Google's new "triple peak week" thesis: Surging Sunday, Black Friday, and Cyber Sunday.

Links mentioned in this episode:

https://smarter-ecommerce.com/en/smec-market-observer/
https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/generative-ai/docs/model-reference/virtual-try-on-api
https://github.com/google-marketing-solutions/product-return-predictor

About smec (Smarter Ecommerce):

At smec - Smarter Ecommerce, we specialize in transforming business goals into optimized ad campaigns. With over 16 years of experience in Google & Microsoft Ads, our intelligent software and expert services help retailers achieve superior results.

We're committed to giving you the tools and insights needed to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of digital advertising.

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/