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.
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