Cordwainer Google Ads Account Audit Findings
Overview
During the 2026-03-18 weekly call, an AI agent performed a live audit of the Cordwainer Google Ads account and identified several critical structural errors that were actively degrading campaign performance. Many of these issues were fixed in real time during the demo. This article documents the findings, the fixes applied, and the remaining open issues.
Cordwainer is a lead-generation account (senior living / memory care) operating on a combined Google + Meta budget of approximately $2,000/month.
Source: [1]
Critical Issues Found
1. Wrong Bidding Strategy — Target ROAS on a Lead-Gen Account
Problem: The account was using Target ROAS as its bidding strategy. This strategy requires conversion values to function correctly. Because Cordwainer is a lead-gen account and no monetary values had been assigned to conversions, the algorithm was effectively blind — it had no signal to optimize against.
Fix Applied: Campaigns were switched to Maximize Conversions.
Principle: For lead-gen accounts without established conversion value data, Maximize Conversions is the correct starting strategy. Once sufficient conversion history exists and values are calibrated, the account can graduate to Target CPA or Target ROAS. See [2] for the general framework.
2. All Conversions Marked "Primary"
Problem: All eight conversion actions in the account were marked as Primary. Google's algorithm uses primary conversions to decide what to optimize for. When everything is primary, the algorithm has no meaningful signal — it treats a homepage scroll the same as a form submission.
Fix Applied: Conversion values were assigned to key actions (e.g., Form Submit: $100) to give the algorithm a relative weighting signal.
Remaining Issue: Six legacy "Smart Campaign" conversions are locked as Primary by Google and cannot be changed through the standard UI. These cannot be demoted to Secondary without Google support intervention.
Best Practice: Designate only 2–3 high-intent actions as Primary (e.g., form submission, phone call, appointment booking). All other micro-conversions (page views, scroll depth, etc.) should be Secondary — they inform reporting but do not drive bidding.
3. No Negative Keywords on Main Campaigns
Problem: The primary campaigns had zero active negative keywords. This means ad spend was being consumed by irrelevant search queries — competitor brand terms, unrelated service categories, and navigational queries that would never convert.
Fix Applied: The AI agent added:
- 16 competitor brand terms as negative keywords
- 5 brand terms (to prevent brand traffic from diluting non-brand campaign performance — brand traffic was moved to a dedicated campaign)
Best Practice: Every new account should receive a foundational negative keyword list before launch. For senior living / care categories, this includes competitor names, job-seeking terms ("careers," "jobs," "hiring"), and unrelated care categories.
4. Poor Landing Page Quality Scores
Problem: Ad traffic was being sent to the generic homepage. This results in low Quality Scores because the landing page content does not match the specific intent of the search query, leading to higher CPCs and lower ad rank.
Fix Planned (Not Yet Implemented): Sebastian has been tasked with creating a dedicated landing page for Cordwainer's Google Ads traffic. This is a prerequisite for improving Quality Scores and reducing cost-per-click.
Owner: Karly Oykhman → Sebastian
5. Broken Sitelink (404 Error)
Problem: One sitelink extension was pointing to a URL that returned a 404 error.
Fix Applied: The broken sitelink was identified and removed/corrected during the audit session.
Fixes Applied During the Audit Session
| Area | Fix |
|---|---|
| Bidding Strategy | Switched all campaigns to Maximize Conversions |
| Conversion Values | Assigned monetary values to key actions (e.g., Form Submit: $100) |
| Negative Keywords | Added 16 competitor terms + 5 brand terms |
| Brand Campaign | Created a new exact-match brand keyword campaign |
| Remarketing | Created remarketing audiences and attached to all campaigns |
| Budget | Optimized to ~$1,490/month (aligning with $2k/month total Google + Meta budget) |
| Broken Link | Fixed sitelink pointing to 404 page |
Remaining Open Issues
| Issue | Status | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| 6 legacy Smart Campaign conversions locked as Primary | Cannot be changed via UI; Google limitation | Mark Hope to investigate |
| Remarketing audiences newly created | Need time to populate before ads can serve | Gilbert Barrongo to monitor |
| Dedicated landing page | Not yet built | Karly → Sebastian |
| Call tracking not implemented | Research in progress | Karly Oykhman |
| Display creatives for remarketing | Not yet created | Karly → Design team |
| Confirm exact Meta ad spend | Needed to finalize Google budget split | Karly → Sebastian |
Monitoring Plan
- Maximize Conversions: Monitor for 2–3 weeks. If the homepage campaign does not show improvement, pause it.
- Remarketing: Check audience list sizes weekly; launch remarketing ads once lists are large enough to serve.
- Conversion tracking: Validate that form submissions and calls are firing correctly in Google Tag Manager before relying on conversion data for bidding decisions.
Generalizable Lessons
These findings are not unique to Cordwainer. The same structural errors have been identified across multiple accounts in audits run during Q1 2026:
- Bidding strategy mismatches (e.g., Target ROAS with no conversion values) are the single most common and highest-impact error in underperforming accounts.
- Conversion action hygiene — having too many Primary conversions — is nearly as common and equally damaging to algorithm performance.
- Missing negative keywords are a near-universal finding in accounts that were set up quickly or migrated from Smart Campaigns.
See also: [3] · [4] · [5]