Google is testing channel controls in Performance Max: sliders that let you tell PMax how much YouTube, Maps or Display matter to your business.

It is the biggest change to PMax since PMax launched — and it is not a tick box. Unlike Demand Gen, where you opt a channel in or out, channel controls give you a slider per channel that adjusts how much the campaign prioritises conversions from that channel. A positive adjustment relaxes the CPA target for that channel. A negative one tightens it.

Mike Ryan and Chris Scharmueller work through what that actually does to a live campaign. Google says the campaign still optimises toward your overall target CPA — and also says adjusting the sliders will directly impact performance. Both cannot be true without a trade-off somewhere else. Push YouTube up, and something else has to tighten. The interface gives you no numbers to predict which.

They also take on the claim from Jyll Saskin Gales that channel controls prove PMax was a failed experiment. Mike argues PMax has lost its identity as Demand Gen moves down funnel and Shopping gets upgraded with AI Max. Chris argues it is not failure but forced evolution: adoption stalled, the market pushed, Google conceded.

Then the bigger question — if the most advanced ad platform in the world had to hand control back, what happens to Advantage+, TikTok, Amazon and every other "Max" built on the same thesis?

The upside: skill matters again. Two accounts run by the same AI used to be a coin flip. With levers like these, the better operator can win.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Channel controls are sliders, not switches — you cannot zero out a channel, only reprice it. A positive adjustment relaxes that channel's CPA target; a negative one tightens it.

• Google's help text contradicts itself: the campaign still optimises to your overall target CPA, yet the sliders "directly impact performance". Push YouTube up and something else has to tighten.

• YouTube defaults to low importance for a reason — CPM-based, reach-oriented inventory that converts through view-through and remarketing. Pushing it up is unlikely to find the volume you want.

• Most advertisers will use it backwards: dragging YouTube, Maps and Display down to make PMax behave more like a Shopping campaign.

• There are no numbers on the slider. Without them, the risk is that it feels like control rather than being control.

• Failed experiment or forced evolution? PMax 2026 has more control layers than Smart Shopping ever did — and if Google had to concede, Advantage+ and every other "Max" will follow.

Growing Ecommerce is brought to you by smec (Smarter Ecommerce). We help ecommerce brands move from platform-driven to business-driven PPC — 350+ global retailers, €680M+ in annual ad spend, AI-powered software plus human PPC expertise.

Resources & links: 

▶ Subscribe for new episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Smarter-Ecommerce 

▶ All episodes and show notes: https://www.smarter-ecommerce.com/en/podcast/ 

▶ Follow smec on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/smarter-ecommerce-gmbh/ 

▶ Mike Ryan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeryanretail/

▶ Chris Scharmueller on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-scharm%C3%BCller/ 

▶ How smec manages Google Ads for retailers: https://www.smarter-ecommerce.com/en/

#PerformanceMax #GoogleAds #GrowingEcommerce #PPC #Ecommerce #GoogleShopping #PaidSearch

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/

The FTC says Amazon put a bidder that does not exist into its ad auction — for seven years — so the CPCs you paid on Amazon Ads were never the price the auction produced.

Mike Ryan and Chris Scharmüller break down the FTC's case against Amazon Ads: what Amazon is accused of doing to its own auction, what it cost advertisers, and why Amazon's defense is not a denial. 

Then the story Amazon would rather talk about — its demand-side platform plugging into ChatGPT ads, and what that does to targeting on a brand-new surface.

For in-house PPC and ecommerce teams buying on Amazon, Google and now AI surfaces.

Key takeaways:

1. A second-price auction only delivers its benefit if the auctioneer is trusted. The design makes honest bidding safe; a dishonest auctioneer turns that honesty into exposure.
2. The alleged mechanism is blunt: a bidder that does not exist, placed between the real second bid and the winner. The FTC says it ran from 2019 and extracted tens of billions.
3. The damage per click was small by design — calibrated to stay under advertisers' minimum acceptable return, which is why it went unnoticed for seven years.
4. Amazon's defense is not "we didn't." It is "no one was harmed, because targeting gains were pushing CPCs down anyway."
5. Precedent says spend does not move: nobody left Google after the DOJ hearings.
6. Meanwhile, Amazon's DSP brings real first-party targeting to ChatGPT ads — plugging that inventory's biggest gap and giving OpenAI a way to monetise intent it currently leaks to Google.

Resources & links:
▶ Subscribe for new episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@smarter-ecommerce
▶ All episodes and show notes: https://www.smarter-ecommerce.com/en/podcast/
▶ Follow smec on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/smarter-ecommerce-gmbh/

▶ Mike Ryan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeryanretail/
▶ Chris Scharmueller on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-scharm%C3%BCller/
▶ How smec manages Google Ads for retailers: https://www.smarter-ecommerce.com/en/

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/

Google's August 17 bidding update didn't move CPCs. It moved advertiser behaviour — and most of the market reacted to a change that never touched them.

The update removed the conservative buffer that artificially lowered bids on campaigns limited by budget. Those campaigns had been quietly over-delivering efficiency for years by picking up cheap, high-value clicks. Google's position: performance now trends toward the target you actually set, over one to two conversion cycles.

Mike Ryan pulled the first data across smec's managed accounts. CPCs have not moved in any notable way — anyone showing you day-after impact is showing you noise. Nobody opened their budgets either; the share of campaigns flagged as limited by budget stayed flat. Instead, advertisers raised their targets: the median tROAS in affected campaigns moved 4% the week before the change and 12% the week of it.

Then it gets strange. Campaigns that were never limited by budget — 75 to 85% of the population, and an enormous share of total spend — raised their targets by a median of 9%. No tool prompted them. No exposure. They tightened out of fear. Spend fell roughly 10% that week.

Which is where the opportunity sits. If a large share of the auction has gone defensive for no reason, the slack is available to whoever doesn't follow. Full data drops mid-to-late September.

Key Takeaways

- Google isn't raising your CPCs — it stopped artificially lowering your bids on budget-limited campaigns.

- No notable CPC movement yet, and conversion data is still too green to read.

- Advertisers chose targets over budget: median tROAS up 12% in affected campaigns, while the limited-by-budget share stayed flat.

- Campaigns that were never affected raised targets 9% anyway. A fear reaction, not a strategy.

- Market spend fell around 10% that week — the opposite of what the change was designed to achieve.

- If your campaigns aren't limited by budget, hold your targets or push harder. Expect the window to close going into Q4.

Resources & Links

- Mike Ryan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeryanretail/

- Chris Scharmueller on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-scharm%C3%BCller/

- smec Campaign Orchestrator: https://smarter-ecommerce.com/en/platform/

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/

ChatGPT Ads are live in 31 European markets — but your account can't use tROAS, remarketing, demographics or an API yet. Here's what to actually expect.

OpenAI announced on 18 August that ChatGPT Ads are rolling out across Europe, and advertiser demand is already enormous. Mike Ryan and Chris Scharmueller go through what advertisers really get on day one — and where the expectation gap is going to hurt.

The headline: this is not a self-serve platform in Europe yet. Right now you need a certified agency or ad tech partner to run ChatGPT Ads, with self-serve promised "later this summer" (at the time of recording, that window is closing fast). Advertisers already live on self-serve in markets like the US can target Europe today, which makes international teams the unintentional early winners.

Then we go feature by feature against Google Ads, using our own comparison table:

Keyword targeting: doesn't exist. You get contextual hints, roughly equivalent to Google's search themes — and there's a real question whether OpenAI ever adds keywords, because keyword targeting would make ChatGPT look like Google Search.

Demographics: not available. No age, gender or income targeting, at a time when Google is giving that control back even in PMax.

Geography: country level only. No region, postcode or radius targeting — workable for national brands, a problem for anyone local.

Customer Match: hashed emails and phone numbers, but with a ~25,000-match minimum that rules out most SMB lists. Google has no minimum.

Remarketing and lookalikes: not available.

Bidding: CPM, CPC and a conversion objective (oCPC) — but no tROAS and no value-based bidding of any kind. Nothing that connects your bids to your actual margin.

Measurement: pixel plus a conversions API, Meta-style, with up to a two-day lag — against Google Tag's near real-time data and enhanced conversions.

Product feed: genuinely good. OpenAI's ACP feed specs are strong enough that Google has borrowed from them. This is where they're closest to parity.

Campaign management: no public API yet.

The one structural advantage ChatGPT Ads have in Europe: Google hasn't launched ads in AI Mode here. For now, ChatGPT is the only way to buy placement next to an AI answer — and that window will close.

Which leads to the real argument of the episode: if every platform claims your revenue, you need a measurement layer above the platforms. Marketing mix modelling stops being a nice-to-have and becomes priority number one — including a live client example where MMM showed Meta contributing far more than platform reporting suggested.

Our take: arrive at the party early, but don't judge it by quarter-one performance, and don't spend a euro you can't attribute independently.

Key Takeaways:

• Europe gets the stripped-down version. No keyword targeting, no demographics, country-level geo only, no remarketing or lookalikes, no tROAS or value-based bidding, and no public API. Add a 25,000-match minimum on Customer Match and most SMB lists are out. Plan your test around what the platform can actually do, not around what you assume it does.
• The one real advantage is temporary. Google has not launched ads in AI Mode in Europe, so ChatGPT Ads are currently the only way to buy a placement next to an AI answer. Expect Google to close that gap in Q3/Q4 — so if that is your reason to test, test now.
• Measurement is the decision, not the channel. Every platform will claim your revenue, and ChatGPT will be no different — on a pixel plus conversions API with up to a two-day lag. Marketing mix modelling stops being a nice-to-have: without an objective layer above the platforms, you cannot prove whether ChatGPT Ads are incremental or just re-attributing clicks Google would have won anyway.
• Three months is not a verdict. Demand right now is FOMO-driven and expectations are running ahead of the product. Go in framed as a test, give it longer than the usual quarter, and do not shift performance budget until incrementality is proven.

—

Resources & Links:

• Access all our webinars, reports, and playbooks in our Knowledge Hub: https://smarter-ecommerce.com/en/knowledge-hub/
• How is your industry stacking up in the market? Find out with smec's Google Ads Benchmarks: https://smarter-ecommerce.com/en/smec-market-observer/
• Earlier episode on OpenAI's CPC model and the $60 effective CPM: Don't Buy ChatGPT Ads Until You Watch This (Plus: The Google Cloud vs AWS Cage-Match)

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/

We got Google wrong this year — and episode 50 is where we admit it, correct it, and share the one thing every advertiser should double-check in their own account. Chris and Mike mark 50 episodes with a "summer school" retrospective: the calls they got wrong, the lessons they're taking into H2, and a rapid-fire lightning round to close it out.

The confession: earlier this year, both hosts were flatly bearish on Google's AI outlook, at a moment when the consensus view across the industry was the same. That call was wrong — Google's AI-powered search business turned into one of its strongest growth stories, and the hosts hold themselves accountable for it on air, along with an equally wrong lowball prediction on OpenAI's ad revenue trajectory (they said it wouldn't hit $100 billion; they now think it's headed toward double that).

There's also a real, correctable mistake here for advertisers: an earlier assumption that a change to Target ROAS functions would apply across all campaign types. It doesn't — it only affects campaigns limited by budget, and if you assumed otherwise, this is worth checking against your own account.

From there, the conversation turns to a broader lesson about pace: even Google's own teams may be struggling to keep up with how fast AI-driven search and shopping behavior is changing — which means FOMO-driven, reactive decision-making is a real risk for advertisers right now. The fix the hosts land on isn't more hustle, it's a "correction layer" — a person, podcast, or process that keeps you honest about what's actually changed versus what's just noise — paired with a reminder that the fundamentals (data strategy, clean data feeds, solid paid search structure) still matter most.

The back half is lighter: personal "chalkboard" lessons (including "ROAS is a lever, not a goal" — a line straight out of smec's own playbook), a debate about whether AI-assisted writing is making everyone sound the same, and a desert-island lightning round covering which ad platform, which app, and which single KPI (spoiler: not cost per click) the hosts would keep if they could only pick one.

Growing Ecommerce is brought to you by smec (Smarter Ecommerce). Thanks for 50 episodes — see you after a short summer break.

#PPC #GoogleAds #Ecommerce #DigitalMarketing #ROAS

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/

Google's AI Max is now serving 1 in 4 of your exact-match ad impressions — and it's quietly reshaping Search and Performance Max campaigns. Chris and Mike deliver the AI Max deep-dive they promised last episode, breaking down exactly how that number gets generated and what it costs you in control.

Picking up where Alphabet's Q2 earnings call left off, this episode unpacks Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler's claim that AI Max is "unlocking billions of net-new searches that weren't really monetizable before." The mechanics: when there isn't enough auction competition for a search term, Google either skips serving an ad or falls back to ad-rank thresholds — AI Max exists to monetize that gap by expanding matching beyond your exact and phrase match keywords, using what's effectively broad match under a new name (officially "search term matching").

The numbers back it up. Across AI Max campaigns, roughly 80% of the additional impressions come from exact match terms and 20% from phrase match — and once AI Max is activated in a campaign running mostly exact match, about 1 in 4 impressions against those exact-match keywords now originate from AI Max instead of the keywords you actually chose. 

Chris and Mike weigh the real trade-off here: advertisers who deliberately chose exact match for control are being nudged toward broad-match-style reach, though the ad-group-level opt-out is a meaningful safety valve. Revenue uplift is real per in-platform attribution — but it's driving volume, not necessarily matching Google's claimed efficiency.

The second half tackles a related head-scratcher: click-through rates on Shopping and Max campaign types have climbed roughly 17-20% year-over-year for over a year — the opposite of what the "zero-click," AI-Overviews-kill-CTR narrative predicts. Chris and Mike test a mechanical hypothesis (impressions falling 10-12% YoY while clicks hold steady would produce this exact pattern) without claiming it's confirmed, and discuss why ecommerce commercial queries may be more shielded from the zero-click trend than informational, publisher-facing searches — for now.

If you manage Google Ads campaigns and want to understand what AI Max is actually doing to your account's match types, this is the episode.

Growing Ecommerce is brought to you by smec (Smarter Ecommerce).

Learn more: https://www.smarter-ecommerce.com

Try smec's free Market Observer benchmarking tool: https://smarter-ecommerce.com/en/smec-market-observer/ 

Catch last episode's Q2 earnings breakdown for context: https://youtu.be/yaSBRm-pEFo

👥 Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/smarter-ecommerce-gmbh/

Mike Ryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeryanretail/

Christian Scharmüller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-scharm%C3%BCller/

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/

Meta, Google, and Amazon just posted Q2 2026 earnings — and the numbers reveal exactly where ad costs are headed next for advertisers. Plus: Shein's IPO filing shows what happens when ad dependency meets a broken profit model.

Chris and Mike break down all four Q2 earnings calls that matter for anyone running paid search or social budgets right now. Meta's ad revenue jumped roughly 27% year-over-year, but almost none of that growth is coming from new users — it's coming from higher ad load and rising frequency on existing accounts, which is why per-unit ad costs are climbing even as impressions go up. CapEx grew 55% year-over-year and net income actually dropped 14%, which is part of why the stock got punished despite the growth headline.

Google/Alphabet told a different story: search ad revenue is up 17% to over $60 billion, even as growth decelerated for the first time in years — still one of the strongest showings of any company this size. Cloud revenue is up 80%, and Google tied its ad growth directly to AI Max, which the company says is monetizing "billions" of net-new search terms that weren't served by ad inventory before. Chris and Mike table the "how does AI Max actually work" deep-dive for next week's episode — subscribe so you don't miss it.

Amazon's ad business grew 26% to roughly $19.8 billion, led by sponsored products, with no signs of slowing. And Shein's newly filed IPO prospectus reveals a business that's almost entirely dependent on paid advertising — 95% of its 2025 marketing budget (around $6 billion) went to ads, growth has stalled since the U.S. de minimis exemption ended, and the company isn't hitting the "Rule of 40/50" profitability-plus-growth benchmark institutional investors look for.

This is a market-earnings recap for PPC managers, in-house ecommerce marketers, and agencies who need to know what's actually driving ad costs and platform strategy this quarter — not just headline numbers.

Growing Ecommerce is brought to you by Smarter Ecommerce (smec).

Learn more: https://www.smarter-ecommerce.com
Subscribe for the AI Max deep-dive next episode
Follow us on LinkedIn

#PPC #GoogleAds #Ecommerce #MetaAds #DigitalMarketing

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/

Everyone selling in Europe has heard the pitch: use a third-party CSS and get a "20% discount" on your Google Shopping bids. Mike Ryan and Chris finally settle what that number actually means — and it’s not a discount at all. They break down the real math behind Google Shopping Europe’s mandatory margin, whether a multi-CSS strategy still makes sense in 2026 (spoiler: it doesn’t), and why the fear of "bidding against yourself" across multiple CSS partners is a myth Google has gone out of its way to debunk.

Then: a lesson for every advertiser, EU or not. If bid is the only real differentiator between a PMax shopping ad and a Standard Shopping ad serving the identical product, what happens when you run both at once? Mike shares fresh CPC data across shopping-only, hybrid, and PMax-only accounts suggesting the answer is: your account gets hotter. Whether or not you technically "bid against yourself," running overlapping campaign types may be quietly inflating your CPCs — and Google’s new Channel Diagnostics report might be a tacit admission of exactly that.

In this episode:

• Myth #1: the "20% discount" claim — it’s purchasing power, not a discount

• The real math: how Google Shopping Europe’s mandatory margin actually hits your bid

• Do you still need a third-party CSS in 2026? (Yes — here’s why)

• Myth #2: does a multi-CSS strategy still make sense, or is it a "last-mover penalty"?

• Myth #3: are you bidding against yourself with multiple CSS partners?

• The bigger lesson: what happens when bid is the only ad rank differentiator?

• Fresh CPC data: shopping-only vs. hybrid vs. PMax-only accounts

• Google’s new Channel Diagnostics report for PMax — a tacit admission?

• The verdict: hybrid PMax + Shopping setups can work, but only with a real strategy

Growing Ecommerce is brought to you by smec (Smarter Ecommerce). Learn more: https://www.smarter-ecommerce.com

👉 Running PMax and Shopping side by side? Tell us what you’re seeing in your CPCs — drop a comment.

#GoogleAds #CSS #GoogleShopping #PerformanceMax #PPC #Ecommerce #GrowingEcommerce #SmarterEcommerce

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/

A 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 from publishing to shopping, consumer protection, and the product recommendations AI assistants are already making every day.

Then: a victory lap. Five weeks ago we called it — the EU’s July 1st de minimis change would break the business model of Temu, Shein & AliExpress in Europe. Now the data is in (and quoted by Reuters): Temu fell from 70%+ of advertisers facing daily competition down to just 23%. Shein dropped to 5%. We cover what the €3-per-item fee actually does, why one major German fashion retailer is overspending by 70% to grab the open market, and why UK retailers should brace for what comes next.

In this episode:

• The German libel ruling: why Google’s AI disclaimer didn’t protect it

• "Those are your own words" — hallucinations as legal exposure

• Why the precedent could spread to shopping, consumer protection & false advertising

• The feed as deterministic anchor: why Google grounds its AI in merchant data

• The €3 de minimis fee — and why it’s worse than a 10% tariff

• smec’s data in Reuters: Temu 70% → 23%, Shein down to 5% of advertisers

• The playbook: profitable CPCs are on tap — but maybe not for long

• Shein’s IPO trouble, the shift to Europe & the warning for the UK, Canada & Australia

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/

We 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 delay (now pushed to early 2027) proof it still has a job to do, or is final URL expansion the reason AI Max wins the AI-search era?

🥊 Round 2: Performance Max vs. Standard Shopping — Standard Shopping is getting text customization, new AI-native ad formats, and its own DSA-style final URL expansion. Does that close the gap with PMax, or does PMax's built-in dynamic remarketing still make it the better fit for top sellers?

🥊 Round 3: Target ROAS vs. Maximize Conversion Value — is "maximize conversion value" just Google asking to be trusted with your budget, or is a demand-led bid strategy the more productive way to think about ROAS once you zoom out past the daily noise?

No hedging, no both-sides-it — Mike and Chris each pick a side and defend it.

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/