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Google Gemini now passes UTM data to site owners, DoorDash launches agentic ordering for corporate clients, and Søstrene Grene posts 16% revenue growth.
Google Gemini just made AI traffic measurable for the first time — a quiet change with big implications for ecommerce analytics. Plus DoorDash bets on AI-driven B2B ordering and Søstrene Grene proves physical retail still scales.
In this episode:
The Digital Commerce Daily is a concise briefing for ecommerce, retail media and digital commerce professionals, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day.
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Your 8-minute briefing on the platforms, players, and profits driving digital commerce today. Hosted by Marco and Klara.
Marco: Three stories on the radar today — and they're all connected in ways that might surprise you.
Klara: We've got Google quietly changing how AI traffic gets measured, DoorDash moving further into the corporate world with AI ordering, and a Danish home goods brand that's somehow making physical retail look exciting again.
Marco: Busy morning. Let's go.
Marco: Google's AI assistant has started tagging the traffic it sends to websites — and for ecommerce teams, that's a bigger deal than it might sound.
Klara: Let's back up for a second. When someone uses an AI tool like Google Gemini to research a product, they sometimes click through to a website. Until now, that visit would show up in your analytics as "direct" traffic — meaning no label, no source, basically invisible. Ecommerce teams have been watching their unattributed traffic grow for years without any way to explain it.
Marco: That changes now. Google Gemini has started appending UTM parameters to the links it sends to websites. UTM parameters are small tags added to a web address — they tell your analytics platform exactly where a visitor came from. So instead of a mystery visit with no origin, you now see: this person came from Gemini.
Klara: And that is genuinely useful. For the first time, brands can open their analytics dashboard and say — here is how many people Gemini sent us this month, here is what they looked at, and here is whether they bought anything.
Marco: My take is this changes the budget conversation fast. If you can show that AI-driven discovery is sending you a thousand qualified visitors a week, that becomes an argument for investing more in the content and product feeds that Gemini actually reads.
Klara: I'd slow that down slightly. Knowing where traffic comes from is step one — but understanding why Gemini surfaces one brand over another is a completely different question, and we don't have a clear answer to that yet.
Marco: Fair — the data is new. The playbook for acting on it will take time to build.
Klara: But at least now we have something real to work with.
Marco: Next up, we've got another story worth your attention — let's get into that one now.
Marco: DoorDash is moving into the corporate world — and it's doing it with AI that places orders automatically, without anyone pressing a button.
Klara: So most people know DoorDash as a food delivery app. You open it, you order lunch, it arrives. But there's a whole separate side of this business that serves offices and corporate accounts — think companies ordering catering for meetings, or snacks for the team kitchen. That market works very differently from a consumer just picking a burger.
Marco: At its Dash Forward event in San Francisco, DoorDash announced it's rolling out what it calls agentic ordering for those corporate customers. Agentic ordering means an AI system is authorised to place orders on the company's behalf — automatically, on a schedule, or when a trigger is hit. No human review required. The coffee runs out, the AI reorders. The meeting is booked, the catering gets placed.
Klara: And here's what makes this interesting for brands. When an AI is doing the ordering, it isn't browsing and comparing like a human would. It's working from a set of defaults — products it's already been configured to choose. So whichever brand gets into those defaults first is essentially locked in. The AI reorders them again and again with almost no effort required to keep that customer.
Marco: That's why I think this is actually a bigger commercial shift than it looks. For food, drink, and office supply brands that are already on DoorDash's marketplace, this changes the priority. It's not just about being discoverable — it's about being the default.
Klara: I'd add some caution though. Most of DoorDash's volume is still US-based, and this B2B feature is very early stage. European brands shouldn't be restructuring their whole approach around it yet.
Marco: A story to watch, not sprint towards. Now, on to our third story.
Marco: Søstrene Grene — the Danish home goods retailer — just posted another year of record revenue, and the numbers are worth a closer look.
Klara: For anyone who hasn't come across them, Søstrene Grene sells affordable, design-led homeware and lifestyle products — think candles, craft supplies, kitchenware, that kind of thing. They've built a loyal following across Europe, particularly in markets like Germany and France, by making the in-store experience feel almost like a treasure hunt. You never quite know what you'll find.
Marco: The headline number is revenue growth of more than sixteen percent in their most recent fiscal year — another consecutive record. They opened seventy-two new physical stores during that period. And this is happening while most European retailers in the same space are pointing to weak consumer confidence as the reason their own sales are flat or declining.
Klara: What I find compelling here is the model itself. Søstrene Grene isn't treating stores and online as two separate things fighting for budget. The stores drive discovery — you walk in, you fall in love with something, and then that connection pulls you back online later for repeat purchases. Physical retail is doing the marketing work that digital finds increasingly expensive.
Marco: That's the part I'd underline for any brand watching this. The cost of acquiring a customer online keeps rising. A store visit is essentially a high-quality brand experience that the customer chose themselves. If it converts into a repeat online buyer, the economics can be very strong.
Klara: I'd be careful about reading this as a universal blueprint, though. Søstrene Grene has a very specific aesthetic and a deeply loyal customer base that was built over decades. Not every brand can open seventy-two stores and expect the same flywheel to spin.
Marco: True — but the core principle holds. Physical presence and digital retention working together, rather than competing, is clearly not a dead idea.
Marco: The thread connecting today — visibility is becoming something you have to build deliberately, whether that's in AI search, corporate ordering, or a high street that most brands gave up on.
Klara: So ask yourself: where are you just assuming you'll be found — and where do you actually need to show up on purpose?