Mike Ryan
Head of Ecommerce Insights
Smarter Ecommerce
Mike Ryan leads ecommerce insights at Smarter Ecommerce and co-hosts Growing Ecommerce. His work draws on retail, product management and digital advertising experience. He publishes analysis of Google Shopping, Performance Max and bidding, helping retailers assess campaign behaviour and connect advertising decisions with commercial performance.
Explore Mike’s work
Shows, ideas and places to learn from Mike Ryan.
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Channels & websites1
Articles1
Reading the evidence on Smart Bidding and budget limits
Mike Ryan examines changes in CPCs and impression-share loss around Google’s August bidding change using smec campaign observations. The analysis compares campaigns with different budget constraints and considers how losses to budget and rank can change the interpretation of auction performance. It is useful for deciding which account signals to investigate before adjusting targets. Read the charts and their limitations together: conversion attribution was still incomplete at publication, so the early observations do not establish a final return-on-ad-spend outcome.
Image: Smarter EcommerceNewsfeed11
After August’s bidding change, segment before judging CPCs
Mike Ryan’s follow-up analysis reports diverging CPC trends between budget-limited and non-limited campaigns after Google’s change to target-based bidding. Google dates the rollout to 17–27 August, so this is new analysis of an earlier change.
Image: Original source media
Rising Shopping CTR can hide falling ad impressions
Mike Ryan reports rising Shopping ad click-through rates alongside falling impressions. He suggests that changes in when Google shows AI Overviews could be one explanation, but the post does not establish causation. Advertisers should read CTR alongside impressions, clicks and conversion outcomes before treating an increase as improved campaign performance.
Image: Mike Ryan / smec
AI Max rewrites over a quarter of exact match impressions, smec data shows
Smarter Ecommerce analysed 383 million Search impressions with AI Max activated. Over 25% of exact match keyword impressions were served on AI Max's expanded matching rather than the keyword as written.
Image: Via the Paid Media Collective newsletter. Original visual creator unverified.This is a collection of published credits and official links, not an exhaustive CV or a points total. A guest appearance is different from hosting a show. Community and event links identify the named organiser; they do not imply membership or a speaking appearance.
Contribution ranking & points 46 pts
Contribution points
46 contribution points · 10 credited works · #27 in the Lifetime contribution ranking.
Uncapped points calculated from published source credits. Expertise is not assessed for this editorial profile. These are separate from registered members’ verified scores, lifetime achievement points and levels.
See every credited work and its points →17 weekly mentions
Reported in the newsletter’s 2025 annual review. This is historical recognition, separate from member points. The weekly source issues have not been independently recounted.
Read the original recognition