Smarter Ecommerce (smec)

In-depth research and analysis of ecommerce advertising trends. I serve as a strategic partner for our clients, as well as our own Product, Marketing, and Executive teams. Externally, I share knowledge online and at conferences, and have guided reporters at the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, ADWEEK, Bloomberg, Forbes, Business Insider, Modern Retail, AdExchanger, and more.

Duties:
• Research and analysis of ecommerce models, platform trends, and consumer behavior
• Aggregation and analysis of ad channel data for benchmark reports and novel research
• Custom data projects on market entries, competition analysis, price analysis, category forecasting
• Sparring partner for Product and Marketing teams; intel and trend detection for Management Board
• Drive smec's market presence by leading with innovative ideas through various media channels

Head of Ecommerce Insights

I managed our core revenue product including the usual PM tasks and artifacts. I launched & monetized a big-bet feature that had been stuck. I helped extend the product lifespan in the face of critical platform changes, and I was instrumental in conceiving the successor product.

Product Manager

At the CEO's request, I served as our Head of Marketing and joined the Board. Highlights included a rebrand (a good & necessary one), and bringing over 400 brands & retailers to join our headquarters for our company conference. This is not my calling, however, so we agreed upfront on a limited tenure.

Head of Marketing & Board Member (Interim)

Product Marketer

Yale Appliance and Lighting

End-to-end process management for purchase orders, showroom inventory and displays, backorders, returns and buybacks, and electronic catalog maintenance.

Purchasing Agent

Lowe's Companies, Inc.

Key account management and market penetration in business-to-business and business-to-government sales, with an emphasis in building materials and construction.

Comercial Sales Specialist

I have an uncommonly deep understanding of ecommerce and digital marketing, which I use to deliver insights and create software that helps our clients succeed.

Here on LinkedIn, I share my knowledge, data, and opinions as generously as possible. I've been featured as a subject matter expert by Adweek, the Financial Times, Modern Retail, Bloomberg, and more – and I've spoken at a number of industry conferences, webinars, and podcasts over the years.

I bring with me a strong mix of cognitive, digital, and interpersonal skills including a gift for analysis and a strong ability to synthesize information and learn.

I value unorthodoxy, curiosity, and decisiveness.

I like to help.

With just one week till Black Friday, there's been another dramatic shift in Google Shopping competition: AliExpress has surged in paid visibility, overtaking both eBay and Temu to become, in all likelihood, Europe's second-largest spender after Amazon.

What this means is that just a month ago AliExpress (Alibaba's international retail arm) was only relevant for about one-quarter of advertisers. But now, they've doubled their presence and compete with more than half! What I can't yet answer with certainty is whether Temu is letting up spend, and AliExpress is picking up the slack, or if AliExpress is just applying brute force to Temu's market share.

Either way, ecommerce players all across Europe are trading one insurgent Chinese advertiser for another. CPCs are already elevated leading into peak season, and, should a bidding war result, this could get really uncomfortable really fast.

It has already been a wild year in the battle amongst billions-spending advertisers:

Early this year, I spotted Temu's global advertising stop, which made international headlines in relation to Trump's tariff policies. And over the summer I reported Amazon's own Shopping exit.

Do you ever wonder how I spot this stuff? Well, I'm bringing this data to you as an excerpt from Smarter Ecommerce (smec)'s free tool, 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗢𝗯𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗿.

Just in time for the holidays, we've freshly rebuilt this tool to include more data than ever, plus:

• new metrics including AOV, ROAS, and impression share
• competition data for Amazon, Temu, eBay, and AliExpress
• showing actual values instead of just YoY values
• quarterly trend data and clearer channel views

tbh it's pretty crazy that we give this thing away for free, and even the PRO version is free, you just need to register. PRO offers segmentation for 8 industries and even more competition data, plus date range controls. 

Yes, we're crazy here at smec – but you don't need to say thanks, please repay the favor by spreading the word far & wide! 🙇🙇🙇

Mike Ryan

Head of Ecommerce Insights at Smarter Ecommerce (smec)

We've done something a bit crazy for Black Friday this year (very on-brand for us 😆). We've added a pipeline of hourly data for Google Ads CPC, CTR, impressions, and clicks to our smec Market Observer: https://lnkd.in/dac34Zuw

Use this data to keep track throughout the day, and stay tuned for next week when I'll unpack the full dataset including transaction volume and revenue figures! I've added a giant 8-hour blocker on Monday Dec 1st to do nothing else but work on this, and will be sharing back you ASAP here on LinkedIn and elsewhere, including the Growing Ecommerce podcast.

How does the keywordless technology in AI Max work? Well, I had a look at a pool of one million AI Max impressions and what I found is that it effectively "broad-matchifies" exact match and phrase match keywords.

This is not surprising, since Google also explains it this way:

"Search term matching expands on existing keywords with broad match and keywordless technology to find more relevant and high-performing search queries."

You can really see this come to life in the chart below, where exact match and phrase both get broadened by AI max, whilst broad match isn't affected at all – because it's already broad. This also aligns with Google's statements that campaigns & accounts which rely heavily on exact match will see the strongest volume uplift. AI Max search term matching is rather starved of opportunity to find new impressions if broad match is the dominant targeting model.

I think this "broad-match-ification" also helps to explain the commonly observed phenomenon of AI Max bidding against competitor terms. My hypothesis here is that advertisers often use exact match keywords for their own brand terms, and then AI Max comes along and says "Aha! This other term is broadly related!" Yet, that other term is categorically different: it's a competing brand.

I also looked at the range of typical outcomes. Here I learned that exact match expansions usually accounts for between 27% and 89% of AI Max match type impressions. The 80% average below skews a bit high in that range, but ultimately the results observed in any given campaign will depend on the specific keyword match strategy and keyword volumes.

As a reminder, search term matching is only one feature of AI Max. It just happens to be the feature that I'm studying right now.

Data courtesy of Smarter Ecommerce (smec).

I reviewed over €2.5M spent on PMax and Shopping in those 24 maddening hours known as Black Friday, data courtesy of Smarter Ecommerce (smec), and here are my 4 biggest findings:

𝗩𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗲 & 𝗘𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 (0:00-2:20)

Revenue was up 15% year-over-year, and that's where most headlines would begin and end. However, order sizes were 6% smaller this year, and ad spend was up 31%, with CPCs up 24%. Ouch!

This means that advertisers got what they needed, but at great cost.

𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻 (2:20-3:50)

Discounting and tight competition saw GPM dropping from a healthy avg 35% in October to 27% by end of November. This is the typical margin crunch of Black Friday as seasonal demand gets concentrated into a feeding frenzy of coupons and discounts.

Is it even worth it? Well, in the era of "Black Friday Month," you can't exactly opt out, can you?

 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 (3:50-5:40)

Revenue share, conversion rates, and cost-per-order all showed different seasonality throughout the day. Revenue peaked in the evening hours as shoppers got home from work, conversion rates had very early and very late peaks (early birds and late birds exhibiting high urgency), while cost-per-order peak mid-day and relaxed in the final push.

Moral of the story: keep budget available for the full day to capture high intent late birds after other advertisers have let up the pace.

𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (5:40-7:40)

There were 12% more unique competitors this year, which shows just how tight competition has become. And whilst Amazon has stopped running Shopping ads in the US, here in Europe they're as strong as ever. Temu took the day off for the second year in a row, and while AliExpress showed signs of ambition earlier in the month, that was limited to Singles Day promos. A Mean Girl might say: "Stop trying to make Singles Day happen!"

Black Friday was an absolute meat grinder in 2025, and that's the hard reality you won't read in the headlines!

What did you see this year??

Another year, another collage. But we've still got some work left to do, haven't we? I just wanted to grab you while I can and say thanks!

Thank you for the conversations, feedback, and support. LinkedIn has a reputation for being a bit plastic, a bit of a sales parade, but I don't see it that way at all. I learn things here every day. It's a place where i can share findings, test ideas, be right or be wrong, and get smarter. Thanks for that.

This year I helped break two news stories with the advertising departures of Temu and Amazon, I wrapped up years of research in the State of PMax report, and I opened new lines of inquiry into Demand Gen and AI Max.

My goal is to provide high-quality data, information, and opinion that you cannot get from anyone else, least of all a robot.

If this content matters to you, give me a follow to stay informed, and you can also vote for me at 𝗽𝗽𝗰𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘆.𝗰𝗼𝗺 to recognize my expertise 

I'm not done for the year – publishing a new Google Ads script on wednesday!
Stay in touch ✌ 

𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 𝗪𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗱:
1,419,680 views
385,431 people reached
12,230 reactions
7,083 new followers
3,450 bookmarks
1,731 comments
724 DM shares
171 reposts

Thanks again! I added my recap collages from 2023 & 2024 just for fun

Google Ads Data Recap 2025 (Another year, another collage)

Cooking up one last thing this year… another Google Ads script. Some insights for under your tree 🎄🎁 We are almost ready to ship, so stay tuned.

Current mood: festive, giving 
Currently listening: Last Christmas 
Currently with: Ivan Petrov

I've been speaking privately with a lot of advertisers about Ads in AIO & AI Mode, and I decided it just makes sense to share this info more widely. So, bit of a surprise, I'm going live to discuss this and answer questions – next week!

Advertising within Google's AI surfaces is a volatile and intransparent topic right now. That's why a lot of what I'm doing is clearing misconceptions, de-hyping the topic ever so slightly, and also sharing my opinionated view on what might be next. 

Attendance is free
𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟰𝘁𝗵, 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗻: 𝟮:𝟬𝟬 𝗣𝗠, 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗬𝗼𝗿𝗸: 𝟵:𝟬𝟬 𝗔𝗠
🔗  https://lnkd.in/dSj6mbPb

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁:

Understand the AI Ads Landscape: Get a clear breakdown of where Search, Shopping, and PMax ads are appearing across AI Overviews (AIO) and AI Mode.

The New Relevance Model: See how relevance is expanding from the traditional keyword-ad-landing-page triangle to incorporate the AI content itself

Demystify Google's AI “Power Pack”: Get an overview of PMax, Demand Gen, and AI Max, including the pros and cons of using these for AI surfaces

Actionable Preparation for AI: Discover non-negotiable practices to ensure your ads are eligible and competitive, especially the critical need for robust product feed hygiene

FAQ: Hear an independent interpretation of Google’s answers to commonly asked questions about ads in AI surfaces

Hope to see you there, let me know in the comments if there are any questions you'd like to see covered

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