Doodla Farms: Google Ads Quality Score Optimization Audit

Overview

During the January 2026 weekly review, Gilbert and Mark identified that Doodla Farms' Google Ads performance was being constrained by two fixable issues: a misconfigured primary conversion goal and unchecked Quality Score (QS) degradation across campaigns. Gilbert initiated a formal QS audit process — starting with another client (Tracti) and rolling it out to Doodla next — with the goal of lowering CPC and improving ad effectiveness across all accounts.

This article documents the audit methodology, findings, and action items specific to Doodla Farms, as well as the broader QS optimization framework being applied agency-wide.

Why Quality Score Matters

Quality Score is Google's rating (1–10) of the relevance and quality of your keywords, ads, and landing pages. It directly affects:

• Cost per click (CPC): Higher QS = lower CPC for the same ad position.
• Ad rank: Poor QS means losing impression share to rank, not budget.
• Overall effectiveness: A high-quality ad pointing to a poor landing page wastes spend regardless of bid strategy.

"Quality scores determine, to a large extent, your cost per click. They also are going to determine the effectiveness of your ads."
— Mark Hope

The key diagnostic signal: check impression share lost to rank vs. impression share lost to budget. If rank is the culprit, the root cause is almost always landing page quality or keyword misalignment.

Audit Methodology

Gilbert created a QS checklist to be applied campaign-by-campaign and ad-group-by-ad-group. The checklist covers three core QS components:

1. Expected Click-Through Rate

• Review historical CTR by keyword and ad.
• Identify underperforming keywords dragging down expected CTR.
• Tighten ad copy to match keyword intent more precisely.

2. Ad Relevance

• Ensure each ad group contains tightly themed keywords.
• Keyword cannibalization check: Identify keywords appearing in more than one campaign. Each keyword should live in exactly one campaign; it should be added as a negative keyword in all others.
• AI can be used to scan all campaigns for a client and flag any keyword appearing in multiple places.
• Example from Tracti: "boat and RV storage builders" keywords were found in both a canopy-focused campaign and a contractors campaign, causing the campaigns to compete against each other.

3. Landing Page Experience

• Assess whether the destination URL is relevant to the keyword and ad.
• Flag accounts where landing pages are generic, slow, or mismatched to ad intent.
• Escalation path: Gilbert will schedule meetings with account managers to push for landing page improvements. If landing pages are critically poor, the recommendation is to pause ads until they are fixed.

"If you have a bad landing page, it doesn't matter how good the ad is... You should even say, I'm going to recommend we turn the ads off until you fix the landing page because we're just wasting money."
— Mark Hope

Doodla Farms: Specific Findings & Actions

Budget Constraints

Several campaigns were flagged as limited by budget. Resolution:

• Action: Increase total daily budget by $20/day.
• Apply to the Performance Max (Pmax) campaign and two additional campaigns currently capped at $10/day each.
• Owner: Gilbert Barrongo

Conversion Goal Misconfiguration

A warning was visible in the account: "Targeted goal is missing a primary conversion action."

• Root cause: The primary conversion action was not explicitly set at the campaign level.
• Correct configuration for Doodla Farms (e-commerce):
• Primary conversion action = Purchase
• Secondary (acceptable but not primary): Add to Cart, form fills, calls
• Action: Set "Purchase" as the primary conversion action on all affected campaigns.
• Owner: Gilbert Barrongo

"Conversion action for Doodla Farms is a sale... Our primary conversion is purchase."
— Mark Hope

Note: For lead-gen clients (e.g., Tracti, Advanced Health & Safety), the primary conversion should be a form fill or phone call — not a purchase.

Quality Score Audit (Pending)

• Gilbert began the QS checklist with Tracti and will proceed to Doodla next.
• Doodla is flagged as a high-priority account for this audit given its spend level.
• Action: Complete QS audit for Doodla — keyword cannibalization, ad relevance, and landing page review.
• Owner: Gilbert Barrongo

Inventory ↔ Ads Dependency

A critical operational note surfaced during this review: running ads when inventory is stocked out is wasteful and potentially harmful to ranking recovery.

• Doodla's Dec/Jan ROAS drop to $3.28 (from ~$4.00) was directly tied to stockouts of top-selling ASINs (Yellow Cornmeal, Popcorn, Black Beans), not ad quality.
• The correct response when inventory runs out on Amazon: pause the affected campaigns immediately.
• Conversely, Google Ads for Doodla Farms' website are less affected by this since inventory exists at the farm level — but Amazon-targeted spend should be monitored against FBA stock levels.

See also: ^[1] for the daily Sellerize review process and reorder thresholds.

Agency-Wide QS Framework

This audit process is being standardized across all Asymmetric accounts:

Gilbert will develop additional checklists beyond QS, covering:
- Ad copy improvement
- Conversion rate optimization signals

Action Items

• [ ] Increase Doodla Google Ads daily budget by $20 — apply to Pmax + 2 campaigns at $10/day (@Gilbert Barrongo)
• [ ] Fix primary conversion goal: set "Purchase" as primary action in Doodla account (@Gilbert Barrongo)
• [ ] Complete QS checklist audit for Doodla campaigns (keyword cannibalization, ad relevance, landing page) (@Gilbert Barrongo)
• [ ] Schedule meetings with account managers to review landing page quality for all clients with low QS scores (@Gilbert Barrongo)
• [ ] Pause Amazon ads for any ASIN with zero FBA inventory (@Gilbert Barrongo)

Related

• ^[1]
• ^[2]
• ^[3]
• ^[4]