How to manage Google Ads in Claude

Google ships its own MCP server and it is read-only. That is genuinely the safest option if you never want an assistant to touch anything, and if reporting is all you need, take it. Read-only integrations are safe partly because they are useless for the part of the job that takes real time: the changing.

Google Ads is also the account where changing things by hand hurts most. The interface is built for people who live in it, the search terms report is three clicks deep, and the fix for most problems is a small repetitive edit repeated forty times. That is exactly the shape of work worth describing in a sentence instead. Setup is below, and Muze previews every change before it runs.

Connect Google Ads to Claude in six steps

1. Create a Muze account

   Sign up for Muze. The free tier gives you 25 read-only tool calls per month across every platform you connect, with no credit card and no ability to change anything.

2. Authorize Google Ads over OAuth

   Connect Google Ads from your Muze account. You sign in with your normal Google Ads login and grant access to the accounts you choose. There is no developer token to apply for and no platform password shared with Muze.

   Anyone who has requested a Google Ads API developer token knows that it is a form, a wait and a rejection risk. This step is the reason the guide is ten minutes rather than ten days. Access stays scoped to the accounts you selected during authorization, and revoking it in Muze or in your Google account permissions cuts off the tools immediately.

3. Add the Muze connector to Claude

   In Claude, add Muze as a custom connector using the Muze MCP URL: https://backend.muzecmo.com/mcp. Claude will prompt you to sign in to Muze and authorize the connection.

   The same connector URL works in Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, ChatGPT and any other MCP-compatible client, so the account you set up once is reachable from whichever tool you are already working in. Nothing runs locally, so there is no config file to hand-edit and no process to keep alive on your machine.

4. Confirm which customer ID you are in

   Ask Claude to list your connected accounts. It calls get_my_accounts and list_google_customers and returns the customer IDs it can reach. Check the list before you ask for anything else, especially if you manage several accounts.

   This is the step agency operators should not skip. Google customer IDs look alike, and a report that quietly ran against the wrong client is worse than no report, because it is confidently wrong. Naming the account in your prompt for the first few sessions is cheap insurance: say the client name, and check that the ID in the response is the one you meant.

5. Run read-only work first

   Start with reporting and diagnosis. get_google_performance pulls performance, compare_google_performance diffs two periods, inspect_google_campaign_ads shows what is actually running, and list_google_conversion_actions tells you whether your tracking is set up the way you think it is.

6. Approve your first write

   On a paid plan Claude can pause a campaign, apply a campaign action, replace an underperforming asset or launch a new Search, Shopping or Performance Max campaign. Muze shows the exact change first, waits for your confirmation, and creates new campaigns paused.

Read-only is safe, and also a nicer spreadsheet

The uncomfortable part of the read-only argument is that finding the problem was never the expensive bit. Any competent operator can look at a search terms report and see the queries burning money. What eats the afternoon is adding forty negatives, restructuring an ad group and re-checking it next week.

So the interesting question is not whether an assistant can act, but what happens when it acts wrongly. Our answer is that it cannot act unattended: every write returns a preview of the specific change, campaigns are created paused, and access covers only the accounts you authorized. We would rather be the tool that asks than the tool that explains what went wrong afterwards.

What to hand over in the first week

Start with the recurring checks you already do and resent doing. A Monday performance summary across campaigns. A search terms pass to catch queries you never intended to buy. A conversion-tracking sanity check, because a Google account with a broken conversion action optimizes confidently towards nothing.

Then widen it. The reason to run Google through the same connection as Meta, Amazon and Shopify is that the useful questions are comparative, and none of them can be answered inside one channel. Working through a full account review is covered in the Google Ads audit guide.

Prompts that earn their keep

• “Summarize Google Ads performance for the last 30 days by campaign, and flag anything down more than 20% against the previous period.”
• “Show me the search terms that spent money last month without a conversion.”
• “Check my conversion actions and tell me which ones are actually recording conversions.”
• “Build a Search campaign for this landing page, keep CPC under $8, and leave it paused for review.”

Frequently asked questions

Does Google have an official MCP server?

Yes, and it is read-only. If you want an assistant that can report on Google Ads and can never change anything, that is the most conservative option available. Muze covers the same reads plus 18 write tools, all confirm-gated.

Do I need a Google Ads API developer token?

No. You authorize over OAuth with your normal Google Ads login. The API approval work is already done on the Muze side, so there is no developer application for you to file.

Can Claude create a Search or Performance Max campaign?

Yes, on a paid plan. Muze can launch Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Display, Demand Gen, Video and App campaigns. The build is shown to you first and the campaign is created paused, so nothing spends until you activate it.

I manage several accounts under an MCC. Will it touch the wrong one?

Access is scoped to the accounts you authorize, and every tool call targets a specific customer ID. Ask Claude to list the accounts it can reach before your first real request, and name the client in your prompt while you are getting used to it.

What does it cost?

The free tier includes 25 read-only tool calls per month. Write actions require a paid plan, priced as a flat monthly subscription. Muze never takes a percentage of ad spend.

Does it work in Claude Code and Cursor too?

Yes. The same connector works in Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, ChatGPT and any MCP-compatible client. You bring your own AI, so you are never charged for model tokens.

Keep going