Weekly Call w/ Gilbert — Doudlah Inventory & Google Ads Strategy (2025-11-12)

Attendees: Gilbert Barrongo, Mark Hope
Client: ^[1]
Date: 2025-11-12

Overview

Weekly check-in covering two main areas: (1) Doudlah Farms' Amazon inventory situation — specifically the fallout from AWD unreliability and a new aggressive coupon policy to clear aging stock — and (2) Google Ads performance, including conversion tracking discrepancies and a planned AI Max pilot on underperforming accounts.

November sales were trending strong at ~$131k (vs. $116k in October), but inventory mismanagement from the AWD experiment is forcing disposal of expired product and demanding tighter controls going forward.

Key Decisions

1. Abandon AWD; Ship All New Inventory to FBA

Amazon's AWD service has been unreliable — replenishment failures, full warehouses, and expired stock flagged for disposal. The decision is to route all new shipments directly to FBA and keep inventory levels at ≤4 months on hand. AWD may be revisited later for fast-moving SKUs like popcorn, but not until things stabilize.

"We'll stay away from AWD for a few months, try to get everything stabilized, and then maybe for the really fast-moving stuff like popcorn, we'll try it again." — Mark

2. Aggressive Coupon Policy to Clear Aging FBA Stock

A tiered coupon policy is now in effect to liquidate excess inventory before it expires:

Products immediately affected include 1-lb Pinto Beans, 1-lb Kidney Beans, 25-lb Great Northern Beans, 25-lb Yellow Popcorn, and Whole Wheat Flour.

"We'd rather sell it at a 20% or even a 30% discount than throw it away." — Mark

3. Old World Popcorn: Target Organic Competitors Only

Old World Popcorn ads will be refocused exclusively on organic popcorn competitors. Targeting non-organic brands (e.g., Orville Redenbacher at ~10¢/oz vs. Old World at ~31¢/oz) is not viable given the 3x price gap. The goal is to own the organic popcorn segment rather than compete on price with conventional brands.

"If you target those guys that are a third of your price, it's going to be difficult." — Mark

4. Google Ads AI Max Pilot on Adavacare

Gilbert will test Google's AI Max optimization tool on ^[2] — an underperforming account — before rolling it out to high-revenue accounts like Doudlah or Firestone. This de-risks the experiment while still generating learnings.

Action Items

• [ ] Gilbert — Increase coupons on 1-lb Pinto Beans and 25-lb Great Northern Beans to 20–25% per the new tiered policy
• [ ] Gilbert — Audit all Doudlah SKUs; apply 20% coupon to any inventory 6–12 months, 25% to any >12 months (including 25-lb Yellow Popcorn)
• [ ] Gilbert — Update Old World Popcorn ad targeting to organic competitors only; remove non-organic competitor targets
• [ ] Gilbert — Press Anup to permanently fix Google Ads conversion tracking discrepancies (e.g., 6 conversions in Ads vs. 10 in Analytics over 30 days)
• [ ] Gilbert — Launch AI Max pilot on Adavacare Google Ads account
• [ ] Gilbert — Increase Google Ads optimization cadence to bi-weekly to monitor conversion goals more closely
• [ ] Mark — Confirm Carly's upcoming Doudlah order ships directly to FBA (not AWD)

Topic Notes

Doodla Amazon Inventory

• AWD warehouses are full; Amazon has flagged several SKUs for disposal due to expiration:
• 1-lb Pinto Beans — ~1,000 units at AWD, will not sell through in time
• 1-lb Black Beans — already expired per Amazon's 2-month threshold; disposal imminent
• 25-lb Kidney Beans — 26 units flagged for disposal
• Root cause: over-shipped into AWD during initial stocking; AWD then became unreliable for replenishment
• Going forward: FBA only, max 4 months inventory on hand
• November sales trending to ~$131k (11-day extrapolation); October was $116k
• Account margin currently 31–37%; target is 40%. Gilbert to look for ad spend efficiency gains.

Old World Popcorn

• Sales have plateaued since coupons were removed (coupons were pulled due to low inventory, not by choice)
• Review score has dropped from 4.4 → 4.0 due to packaging issues with current production run
• Current FBA stock: ~162 units white, ~79 units yellow — approximately 2–3 months of inventory
• Fix: next production run needs improved packaging; Carly has been notified to expedite
• Ad strategy pivot: organic-only competitor targeting (see Key Decisions above)
• No coupons needed on popcorn currently — selling well at full price

Google Ads Performance

• Conversion tracking discrepancies persist across accounts — Google Ads and Google Analytics reporting different conversion counts (example: 6 vs. 10 over 30 days)
• Gilbert is messaging Anup weekly with specific fixes; increasing optimization cadence to bi-weekly
• AI Max is a Google optimization tool Gilbert wants to pilot; strategy is to test on low-revenue / underperforming accounts first (Adavacare selected as first candidate)
• General optimization work ongoing: negating poor search terms, promoting high-performers, adding dynamic images to responsive search ads

Related

• ^[3]
• ^[4]
• ^[5]
• ^[6]
• ^[7]