During the [1], Mark demoed a new AI agent that performed a live audit of the [2] Google Ads account. The agent identified several critical structural errors and executed fixes in real time — work that would typically take hours of manual review. The session surfaced a pattern of misconfigured accounts that likely applies across multiple clients.
The account was running Target ROAS on a lead-generation account with zero conversion values assigned. This made the bidding algorithm effectively blind: Google had no signal to optimize toward and was unable to bid competitively.
"You can't have a $1 value per conversion and then optimize for conversions because Google's going to say, oh, these are only worth a dollar, so I'm only willing to pay 10 cents for them." — Mark
Fix applied: Switched all campaigns to Maximize Conversions.
All eight conversion actions in the account were marked as Primary. Google's algorithm cannot determine what to optimize for when every action carries equal weight.
Recommended structure:
- Primary (2–3 actions): High-intent actions only — e.g., form submission, phone call, meeting booking
- Secondary (all others): Page views, scroll depth, soft engagement signals
Remaining blocker: Six legacy Smart Campaign conversions are locked as Primary by Google and cannot be changed via the API or UI. This is a known Google limitation with no current workaround.
No negative keywords were active on the main campaigns. This allowed budget to be consumed by irrelevant search terms.
Fix applied: Added:
- 16 competitor brand terms as negative keywords
- 5 Cordwainer brand terms as negatives on non-brand campaigns (to prevent cannibalization)
Quality scores were poor, attributed to sending all ad traffic to the generic homepage rather than intent-matched landing pages.
Fix applied (partial): A dedicated landing page has been requested but not yet built.
Action: [3] to task Sebastian with creating a dedicated landing page for Cordwainer. See #Open Action Items.
No dedicated brand campaign existed, meaning Cordwainer was not protecting its own branded search terms.
Fix applied: Created a new exact-match brand campaign.
No remarketing audiences were attached to any campaigns.
Fix applied: Created remarketing audiences and attached them to all campaigns.
Current blocker: Audiences are newly created and need time to populate before ads can serve. Display creative is also needed.
Action: Design team to create display images for the remarketing campaign.
No monetary values were assigned to conversion actions, preventing value-based bidding from functioning correctly.
Fix applied: Assigned estimated values to key actions. Example:
- Form Submit → $100
Note on methodology: For lead-gen accounts, conversion value should reflect estimated lead value, not revenue. A rough formula:
Lead Value = (Average Deal Size × Close Rate) × Gross Margin
For Cordwainer specifically, a client relationship is estimated at ~$6,000–$7,000/month. At a 10% close rate, a lead is worth ~$7,200 annually — far above the $1 placeholder that was previously in the account.
One sitelink was pointing to a 404 page.
Fix applied: Corrected the broken URL.
The AI agent optimized the Google Ads budget to approximately $1,490/month, calibrated against Cordwainer's total digital ad spend of $2,000/month (Google + Meta combined).
Action: Karly to confirm exact Meta spend with Sebastian to validate this split.
| Issue | Status | Blocker |
|---|---|---|
| Smart Campaign conversions locked as Primary | ⚠️ Unresolved | Google API limitation — cannot be changed |
| Remarketing audiences need to populate | ⏳ In progress | Needs ~2–4 weeks of traffic |
| Display creative for remarketing | ⏳ Pending | Design team task |
| Dedicated landing page | ⏳ Pending | Sebastian to build |
| Call tracking | ⏳ Pending | Karly researching solutions |
| Homepage campaign performance | 👀 Monitoring | Pause if no improvement in 2–3 weeks |
The issues found in the Cordwainer account — misconfigured bidding, over-assigned primary conversions, missing negative keywords — are consistent with patterns Mark identified across other client accounts during recent audits (e.g., Reynolds Transfer). These are systemic risks worth auditing across the full client portfolio.
Related: Mark to run Q2 OKR audits for all clients, which will include a Google Ads structural review.
See also: [4] · [5]