Date: 2026-02-04
Attendees: Gilbert Barrongo, Mark Hope
Clients discussed: [1], [2], [3]
Weekly operations and advertising review covering three areas: (1) improvements to Doodle of Farms' inventory tracking spreadsheet, (2) Google Ads performance analysis for Adavacare and Reynolds Transfer & Storage, and (3) Amazon keyword and sales trends for Doodle of Farms. Mark also previewed a longer-term plan to build an API-connected inventory management app.
shipped/receiving in Total Inventory. The current sheet excludes inventory that has been shipped from the warehouse but not yet acknowledged by Amazon. This creates a blind spot that can trigger unnecessary reorders. All five inventory locations should be summed: at FBA, inbound to FBA, at AWD, inbound to AWD, and shipped/receiving.shipped/receiving column to Total Inventory calculation; recompute reorder thresholds accordingly.The existing spreadsheet sums FBA on-hand + inbound to FBA + AWD + inbound to AWD, but omits the shipped/receiving column — units that have left the warehouse but haven't yet been registered by Amazon. This gap can make stock appear lower than it is, prompting unnecessary reorders.
"The problem is that we keep on thinking, oh, we're almost out, but oh no, but there's actually some in a truck, but we're not counting it." — Mark
Fix: Add shipped/receiving to the Total Inventory formula. The five canonical inventory locations are:
1. At FBA
2. Inbound to FBA (Amazon-acknowledged)
3. At AWD
4. Inbound to AWD (Amazon-acknowledged)
5. Shipped/receiving (warehouse-dispatched, not yet in Amazon system)
| Threshold | Action |
|---|---|
| Approaching 2 months | Trigger reorder |
| Reorder quantity | Enough to reach 4 months |
| Hard ceiling | 4 months (carrying cost) |
| Hard floor | 2 months (stock-out risk) |
Top velocity SKUs where this matters most: black beans, popcorn, yellow cornmeal, Old World (four top sellers).
Carly currently receives unit counts and must manually convert to boxes and pallets — a manual step that introduces error risk. The proposed solution is a dedicated sheet that:
- Pulls the "quantity to ship" figure from the main inventory sheet
- References product data (units/box, boxes/pallet, box weight)
- Outputs: number of boxes, number of pallets (full + partial), total weight
This gives Carly everything she needs to execute a shipment order without doing any math herself.
Mark is planning an internal app with direct Amazon API access to manage inventory across all channels: Amazon FBA/AWD, physical warehouse, retail orders, and bulk orders. The spreadsheet approach continues in the interim.
Account context: Assisted living facilities in Milwaukee; ~10 facilities, ~3 open beds each, ~30 beds to fill. Average resident revenue ~$5,000/month with ~22-month average stay.
| Metric | Before (Jan 2025) | Recent |
|---|---|---|
| CPC | ~$2.63 | ~$6.00 |
| Impressions | ~24,000 | ~6,000 |
| Clicks | ~1,100 | ~400 |
| Conversion rate | ~2% | 5–7% |
| Conversions | ~13–24/month | ~23–24/month |
| Cost per conversion | Flat | Flat |
Root causes identified:
1. Competition: Industry-wide CPC for assisted living / elder care rose ~32% YoY (LocalIQ Healthcare Benchmarks). Milwaukee may be running even hotter. Auction Insights confirm a crowded landscape — Adavacare holds ~21% impression share; aggregators like A Place for Mom, Caring.com, and SeniorLivingNearMe.com dominate.
2. Budget tightening: Two poor-performing location campaigns were paused, which reduced impressions and clicks but improved overall conversion rate.
Strategic read: The surviving campaigns are performing well (5–7% CVR). The right move is to scale them, not to restore the paused campaigns. The CPC increase is largely an external market condition, not an optimization failure.
Next step: Gilbert to pull Auction Insights data and competitor analysis; Mark to send MCP/SpyFu findings to Sebastian (account manager) and ask him to loop in Gilbert.
Problem: Performance dropped sharply starting September 2025 — impressions, clicks, and total conversions all fell significantly. Cost per conversion jumped from ~$32 to over $100.
Conflicting signal: Conversion rate appears up, but total conversions are down and impressions are down. Mark flagged that these three metrics moving in that direction simultaneously don't add up and warrant closer inspection.
No obvious cause found: Gilbert reviewed the change history and found no significant account changes in September. No campaigns were paused or budgets cut at that time (unlike Adavacare).
Next step: Gilbert to dig into the account, reconcile the metric discrepancies, and send findings to Sebastian.
A 2-star review on cornmeal noted the packaging does not indicate the product is gluten-free. Mark noted this may be intentional — the cornmeal is ground in a shared facility with wheat flour, which could preclude a gluten-free claim. Gilbert to share the review with Carly to assess labeling options.
| Keyword | Direction | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Popcorn (brand purchase trend) | ↑ ~3x | Doodle of Farms #1 sponsored, #5 organic for "organic popcorn" |
| Cornmeal Organic (brand purchase trend) | ↓ ~50% | Caused by inventory stock-out; bids increased to recover |
| Amish popcorn (competitor) | Flat/declining | Sales flat; organic ranking dropped significantly; not appearing on "organic popcorn" search results page |
Competitive note: Amish popcorn brand appears to have lost its organic search placement — possibly related to prior concerns about unverified organic claims. Their 90-day sales trend is flat.