Resource centre

Win peak on Meta: the 2026 peak season playbook for retail brands

Black Friday is 27 November and the surge lasts days, not weeks. This is the playbook our strategists use to get retail Meta accounts peak-ready: fix, build, freeze, scale — plus the six priorities and the peak-day rules, built on Meta's 2026 festive research.

Agentic commerce: what agentic checkout, Universal Cart and UCP mean for Google Shopping

Google's agentic checkout and Universal Cart let shoppers buy without ever reaching your website. How the Universal Commerce Protocol works, what it does to Shopping ads and measurement, and the UK to-do list.

Media mix modelling for ecommerce: when MMM beats last-click

Last-click hands one channel the credit. MMM reads the whole mix. When each one is right for ecommerce budget decisions — and how to start before Q4 planning closes.

Black Friday 2026 PPC strategy: the first peak under Google's new controls

Black Friday lands on 27 November — the first peak since Google shipped four major control changes. The four-week countdown for UK retail accounts: what to audit, what to set, and what to freeze.

Meta's 2026 algorithm update: what GEM and Andromeda mean for retail advertisers

Meta rebuilt ads delivery around one central AI model and claims 18.9% more conversions — with no setting to check and no baseline to verify. What GEM, GenRecs and Andromeda change, and the number that's actually on your invoice.

Incrementality testing for retail PPC: how to prove true ROAS

Google has made Conversion Lift self-serve for Search and Performance Max. How to run holdout tests that separate the sales your ads caused from the sales you'd have made anyway.

PPC reporting in 2026: what metrics actually matter after the AI Max migration

September's AI Max migration quietly rewired how Search campaigns match and report. The metrics worth presenting now, the ones to retire from the board pack, and how to reconcile the change.

Google Shopping feed optimisation: the 2026 playbook for UK retail brands

PMax assembles your ads from your product data, so the feed decides which auctions you enter. A practical playbook for UK retail — and the 31 January 2027 image deadline to beat.

Performance Max channel prioritisation: the complete UK ecommerce guide

Google is rolling out channel prioritisation and budget allocation controls from 15 October. What UK retail teams can set inside PMax, what they still can't, and the February 2027 date to diary.

Why incrementality has replaced ROAS as the measure that matters

Finance is now asking a different question, and incrementality is the only lens that answers it.

What is Microsoft PMax, and how is it different from Google's?

The same automation concept as Google's, with different inventory, less signal and its own pacing. Where the two differ and why they should be managed separately.

How to run a Google Ads PPC audit

A method for retail media and paid search teams: what to pull, what to look for, how to read a finding, and how to decide which findings are worth acting on this quarter.

Google AI Max auto-upgrade: what changes on 1 September

Two Search features move into AI Max automatically between 1 and 30 September. What changes, which defaults switch on, and the checklist to run before the window opens.

Why the paid media market moves faster than teams can react

53% of PPC professionals say the job is harder than it was two years ago. The reason is not a skills gap: purchase intent now forms across more surfaces than any team can watch.

Safety supplies – performance marketing as reliable as their products

The Safety Supply Company are safety specialists, with in-depth experience of delivering safety equipment spanning two decades. With a reputation for reliability, flexibility and innovative solutions, they remain focussed on wholesale supply of PPE and workwear to customers across Europe.

Nordgreen

Scaling advertising across regions to sustainably support Nordgreen’s growth

Nordgreen is a Danish watch brand that strives to create more than a timepiece. Each model has a unique story, inspired by local design thought and sustainability, and blends Scandinavian minimalism with fine craftsmanship.

From zero to hero

From zero to hero – how a major online retailer turned around their least profitable marketing channel with Upp.ai

Our online marketplace customer was looking to scale as quickly as possible, with a spend versus revenue of zero. However, they didn’t have the insight into their performance marketing that they needed to make changes to reach this goal - even after they had done everything they could to optimise their Google Shopping.

B&Q lifts product visibility 40% across a catalogue of over one million SKUs

B&Q, the UK's leading home improvement retailer, moved 100% of its shopping spend to Performance Max with Upp.ai underneath, lifting marketplace product visibility by 40% and marketplace ROAS by 16% while its catalogue grew from 250,000 to over one million SKUs.

Secret Sales

Harnessing AI to accelerate growth at Secret Sales

Secret Sales, part of LRG Online, is the UK’s largest off-price marketplace. As Secret Sales expanded into new European markets and integrated newly acquired businesses, it needed a smarter, scalable way to plug into new markets and sustain growth efficiently — letting AI manage AI inside its Performance Max strategy.

The Outlet Group

Why the Outlet Group chose Upp.ai for Google Shopping

The Outlet Group has big ambitions and is working hard to ensure their sewing and crafting brands continue to grow, through offering true value to their UK consumers via specialist online outlets.

Charlies Stores rewrote its paid media playbook, and grew by letting go

Charlies Stores is a £100m bricks-and-mortar and ecommerce retailer with over 90,000 SKUs. By intervening less and trusting real demand to lead, they grew revenue 25% and lifted profit sevenfold.

The complete PPC audit checklist

A working pay-per-click (PPC) audit template: 56 checks that find where a paid search account leaks money and where it is being held back.

Answer engines don't click: what AEO and GEO mean for paid media

In two years, answer engine optimisation (AEO) and generative engine optimisation (GEO) have gone from SEO jargon to the fastest-rising discipline in search. The demand your campaigns bid on is increasingly read, and answered, by a model first. Here is what the answer layer means for paid media, and for the money behind it.

The 17 August bidding audit: is your outperformance strategy, or drift?

From 17 August, budget-limited campaigns on Target CPA and Target ROAS will deliver the number you typed, not the number you got used to. More configuration work has just landed on every media team. The winners will treat it as strategy.