Weekly Call — Inventory & Performance Marketing (2026-03-18)

Overview

Weekly team call reviewing record-breaking Amazon performance, defining the Pop Popcorn launch logistics, resolving Google Merchant Center data quality issues, and demoing an AI agent that audited and fixed critical structural errors in the Cordwainer Google Ads account in real time.

Attendees: Gilbert Barrongo, Karly Oykhman, Mark Hope, Sebastian Gant
Source: Fathom Recording

Key Decisions

• Pop Popcorn bag order: Order the 25k bag minimum and run the minimum production quantity to manage the 6-month shelf life constraint.
• Pop Popcorn fulfillment split: Ship directly from TS Foods to FBA for Amazon orders; ship one pallet to the DFO warehouse to support bundled website orders. MCF is not preferred here because mixed-product website orders (e.g., beans + popcorn) get messy without warehouse stock.
• Product data consolidation: The Doodle Farms master spreadsheet is the single source of truth for all ASINs, SKUs, UPCs, dimensions, and pricing — not Lucy's separate sheet. Gilbert to merge Lucy's data into the master.
• Cordwainer bidding strategy: Switched from Target ROAS (inappropriate for a lead-gen account with no conversion values) to Maximize Conversions. Monitor for 2–3 weeks; pause homepage campaign if performance doesn't improve.
• Conversion values: Assigned monetary values to key Cordwainer conversion actions (e.g., Form Submit: $100) to give Google's algorithm meaningful signals for value-based bidding.
• Do not create products in Merchant Center before inventory exists — premature listings corrupt the feed.

Amazon Performance

March Projection: Record $136k

Organic units are rising sharply while ad cost is falling — a strong signal that ranking and brand awareness are compounding. Subscribe & Save is also up.

Top Products (30-Day Sales)

Popcorn now accounts for 43% of total sales (~$52k of $121k). This is with some popcorn variants out of stock — upside remains if inventory is fully stocked.

Organic Rankings

Old World's rank improvement is significant but fragile — inventory stockouts directly cause rank to drop. Daily rank tracking is being implemented.

Inventory Status

• In stock (high-velocity): White popcorn, yellow popcorn, black beans, yellow cornmeal
• Out of stock: Old World White Popcorn — incoming inventory already in transit to FBA
• Risk: Stockouts on high-velocity items will erode organic rank gains

Google Merchant Center — Doodle Farms & Old World

Problem

The Doodle Farms product data spreadsheet was outdated and incomplete, causing feed errors in Google Merchant Center. Issues included missing product sizes, incorrect UPC/GTIN formatting, and out-of-stock products missing price data (which triggers feed errors even when OOS is acceptable).

Resolution

Mark worked through the Merchant Center API directly (the WooCommerce plugin did not handle everything). Fixes applied:

• Added missing product sizes (Emmer, Blue Haven variants)
• Corrected UPC → GTIN formatting (prepend 00 to UPC)
• Added price data to out-of-stock products
• Fixed weight fields missing unit-of-measure labels

Current Status

Old World feed should be fully live within a day or two pending Google's two-stage review process.

Structural Rule

A single master spreadsheet must be the source of truth for all product data across Amazon, the website, and Google feeds. Lucy's separate sheet should be merged into the master — not maintained in parallel.

Pop Popcorn Launch Strategy

Competitive context: Skinny Pop, Boom Chicka Pop, and Garrett are dominant brands in this category. Realistic first-month expectation is 1,000–5,000 units, scaling over 3–6 months. The 25k bag minimum is manageable at that pace.

Google Ads Optimization — Cordwainer Account (AI Agent Demo)

Mark demoed a locally-run AI agent that performs full Google Ads audits and executes fixes autonomously. The Cordwainer account was used as a live example.

Audit Findings (Pre-Fix)

AI-Executed Fixes

Remaining Issues

• Legacy Smart Campaign conversions: Six conversions are locked as "Primary" by Google and cannot be changed via the API — a known Google limitation.
• Remarketing audiences: Newly created; need time to populate before remarketing ads can run. Design team needs to produce display creatives.
• Landing page: Traffic is still going to the homepage. A dedicated landing page is needed to improve quality scores. Sebastian is being tasked with this.
• Call tracking: No call tracking in place. Karly to research solutions.

Conversion Value Framework (General Principle)

For lead-gen accounts, conversion values must reflect realistic lead economics — not default to $1. Formula:

Lead Value = (Average Deal Size × Close Rate) × Margin

Example for Cordwainer: ~$7k/month contract × 12 months × 10% close rate = $8,400 lead value. Setting this correctly allows Google to bid aggressively enough to generate meaningful volume.

See also: ^[1]

Action Items

Related

• ^[2]
• ^[3]
• ^[4]
• ^[1]
• ^[5]
• ^[6]