Cordwainer Remarketing Campaign Strategy

Overview

During the ^[1], an AI-powered Google Ads audit agent was run live against the Cordwainer account. As part of a broader set of structural fixes, remarketing audiences were created and attached to all active campaigns. This article documents the remarketing setup, current status, outstanding requirements, and launch criteria.

Background

Prior to the audit, Cordwainer had no remarketing audiences configured. The account had several structural problems — including a mismatched bidding strategy (Target ROAS on a lead-gen account with no conversion values) and no negative keywords — that were resolved in the same session. Remarketing was identified as a high-value addition given the account's lead-generation focus and the relatively small monthly budget (~$1,490/month Google, within a $2k/month total Google + Meta envelope).

See ^[2] for the full set of issues found and fixed in this session.

Remarketing Audiences

What Was Created

The AI agent created remarketing audiences and attached them to all active Cordwainer campaigns during the audit session. These are standard website visitor audiences built from Google Ads tags / Google Analytics data.

Current Status: Audience Population Lag

Audiences are newly created and not yet populated. Google requires a minimum audience size before remarketing ads can serve. Until that threshold is reached, remarketing campaigns cannot go live.

"Remarketing audiences are newly created and need time to populate before ads can run."

Action required: Monitor audience size in Google Ads → Audience Manager on a regular cadence. Do not attempt to launch remarketing ads until lists have reached a serviceable size.

Owner: Gilbert Barrongo

Display Creative Requirements

Remarketing campaigns require display image assets. These have not yet been produced.

Action required: Karly Oykhman to task the design team with creating display images for the Cordwainer remarketing campaign.

Recommended Display Ad Sizes

Standard Google Display Network sizes to cover:

Format	Dimensions
Leaderboard	728 × 90
Medium Rectangle	300 × 250
Large Rectangle	336 × 280
Half Page	300 × 600
Large Mobile Banner	320 × 100
Billboard	970 × 250

Responsive display ads (using headline, description, logo, and image assets) are an acceptable alternative if static sizes are not feasible in the short term.

Launch Criteria

Do not launch remarketing ads until all three of the following are true:

Audiences are populated — Audience Manager shows lists above Google's minimum threshold (typically 100 users for Display, 1,000 for Search).
Display creatives are ready — Design team has delivered approved image assets.
Maximize Conversions is stable — The primary campaigns have been running on Maximize Conversions for 2–3 weeks with observable conversion data. Launching remarketing before the base campaigns are stable adds noise to the learning period.

Integration with Broader Campaign Structure

The remarketing audiences were attached to all campaigns as part of the same audit session that made the following changes:

Bidding: Switched from Target ROAS to Maximize Conversions across campaigns
Negative keywords: Added 16 competitor terms and 5 brand terms
Brand campaign: Created a new exact-match brand campaign
Conversion values: Assigned monetary values to key actions (e.g., Form Submit: $100) to enable value-based bidding
Budget: Aligned to ~$1,490/month Google spend

Remarketing should be treated as a complementary layer on top of this restructured base, not a standalone initiative.

Known Constraints

Legacy Smart Campaign conversions: Six conversions from legacy Smart Campaigns are locked as "Primary" by Google and cannot be changed via the API or UI. This limits the cleanliness of conversion optimization but does not block remarketing.
Landing page quality: Traffic is currently being sent to the generic homepage, which has poor quality scores. A dedicated landing page is in progress (Sebastian to build). Remarketing creative and landing page messaging should be aligned when both are ready.
Call tracking: Call tracking for Cordwainer is not yet implemented. Karly is researching solutions. Phone call conversions should be incorporated into the conversion setup before or alongside remarketing launch.

Open Action Items

Action	Owner	Status
Monitor remarketing audience growth in Google Ads Audience Manager	Gilbert Barrongo	Ongoing
Launch remarketing ads once audience lists are large enough	Gilbert Barrongo	Blocked — awaiting audience population
Task design team with creating display image assets	Karly Oykhman	Open
Confirm landing page owner; coordinate with Sebastian	Karly Oykhman	Open
Implement call tracking for Cordwainer	Karly Oykhman	Open
Monitor Maximize Conversions performance for 2–3 weeks; pause homepage campaign if no improvement	Gilbert Barrongo	Ongoing

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