Connect Claude to Google Ads with Read-Only Access MCP Server

Hello, my name is Neal Cole from Conversion Uplift. Today I'm going to show you how to connect to Claude to Google Ads. We're going to do it with Read only Access. This is partly protect the user's account, but you can always change this at a later date. This will allow you to read the account data in plain English,

investigate tracking and performance much faster than you can manually, but at the same time the account is protected with the Read Only Access. Also, it will work across linked accounts using a Manager account (MCC), so you will need to have a manager account in Google Ads.

There are four steps in this process. Firstly, set a Google Cloud project. This will give us the API access and the credentials. A Google Ads Manager account is necessary to get the Google Ads developer token to access client accounts. Then the Google Cloud secure

sign in on this computer and finally, Claude Desktop runs the Google Ads MCP server. To proceed with Connecting Claude, we'll need to have these resources ready. So you need the Google Manager Account (MCC) with access to your Google Ads account,

Cloud Desktop, Python, Pipx, and Git installed. See my Connect Claude to GA4 blog, or video, if you want to see how you do this. And you'll need Admin Access to Google Cloud workspace, and about probably now an hour to set up, possibilly more (it will take around half an hour if you have GCP and software already installed),

because there's often issues as you proceed through this process. But we'll do with those as we go. So the first thing we need to do is set up a Google Cloud project. We already have got one set up, and it's called the MCP Analytics Connection. Make sure you're in the same Google Cloud project

all the way through the process. It's quite easy sometimes Google switches projects as you go through. So the first thing we need to do is set up the enabling the Google Cloud API. So at the top of the screen there, there's a search box, so type in

Google Ads API. It's called their marketplace and click on that. And we need to just enable it. There's a couple of seconds. And now that's enabled

Google Ads API, already showing it was enabled. So next we'll go to the OAuth consent screen. And we need check to use the same project. So make sure we're in MCP Analytics Connection and we will need to enter information.

So give it a recognisable on name. So we'll start by getting started. And give it a recognisable name, such as Google Ads MCP. And you've

got these all you know, select your own email app and we'll click next. The audience is for internal use.

Now actually, that should be external. So, but it sets the implementation as external. And click on next. And then by the contact relation. So then enter our email address?

And then we'll click next. So when our it create the app it takes a few seconds, so next we need to go to the Audience on the menu.

And we need to publish the app, because otherwise the token expires after seven days, which could cause some issues, which just need to confirm that. Just wait a few seconds, and that's published.

We now go to Clients and we need to create a desktop app. We now create a new Client. We need to choose desktop as the Type of app, and I'll give it a name. So I'm going to type that as

Google Ads MCP And we create that. And now we need to get the key, and the ID.

So we'll save that somewhere. You should also download the JSON and secret to a key, because then you can use PowerShell to access it. Okay, so we're just, okay, that. Don't put it into any sort

of app or any public folder. So I'll need to create a new key because obviously this is now in public domain. Okay, that. Next we need to go to your Google Ads Manager account. So

this is where you manager all your inks to the different individual Google Ads accounts. So we need to go to the Admin and the API Center and complete the form. I've already completed it, but essentially you complete the API Access Access form.

You need to add your user monitored email address, company name, working website, and choose the agency, /SEM, as the company type. So, describe your use accurately, and read only reporting and diagnostics across the accounts you manage, but essentially

what we're going to be doing. So I've already got the token now set up. So again, copy that and can view token here. Copy that, save it somewhere secure, and you'll need that later. You then need to request

access to link your MCC account to client who you plan to work on thier Google Ads accounts. So this can take days or weeks, as in some cases, so the sooner you do this the better. So go to Accounts and you want Sub accounts here and you can simply

click on Plus here to link it to an account. So create a new account link request and link an existing account, plus what you want to do. And so you put the details here, an enter the account ID here, it's then basically paste the account ID in here and

then press send request. But as I say that can take a few days or weeks, so the sooner you do the better, so that will allow you to test the whole process. You need some accounts linked to your MCC account before you can actually test the process. But that's

why you could link to your own ads account too, which is what we've done so that you would be able to begin testing on your own ads account. Now we need to install Google Cloud installer it, so in the blog post below the video you'll see a link to it, so

just need to paste that into Google. So you've got two options, you can either download the install apps for Windows or you can use this command for PowerShell. So

we copy that, and then if we go to open Start, enter PowerShell, and it opens up a Windows. I'll drag it over here and we can paste

this into PowerShell, ignore the warning, just paste it anyway as that is just standard, and then it opens the installer in another window for you and then we can follow the process through.

Click next on this and then we just need to accept the terms conditions, so Agree and Next,

And Next, and Next again. Leave the keep Bundled Python clicked and then click Install and it takes a few seconds, so that's run, it takes a few seconds, so once it finishes,

we'll need to close all the PowerShell windows and its almost there, so I'm just leaving it to finish and pause for a few seconds. It's installed, so we'll click on that and I'll finish that. We need to close all the existing

PowerShell windows. We can then open a new one, so let's go to Start and type in PowerShell and open a new window, I'll just

drag one across and then in the blog post again, there's a prompt for the G Cloud version and that just confirms that the CLI has been downloaded successfully. We now sign in with

Ad Scope using the the script from the blog below. So here need to make sure the secret key location is correct for your device. So mine it's C:/ keys/ and then the name of the secret key, which I

saved and downloaded, and I called it Google-Ads-mcp and it's a JSON file. So we'll run that and this should open up a window to log into our Google Ads account. So click Continue, yes

and it opens up a browser, so I'll just try to pause here, so then it's all one of the things, so I'll just

do that again, so, this is the correct browser, correct email address. So we're just signing in and using my email address for our Google Ads account. Okay, I'll try again.

That's logging in. I will just try verification, so we'll just do this, we'll put the verification code in for Google, and that confirms that it's Google's Ads MCP. It wants access to Google's accounts, that's all good,

Just Confirm that, so I'll allow that. So this allows me to edit, create, delete, the Google Ads accounts, and you are now authenticated with Google Cloud CLI. That's good.

Sp we now get final step, where we add the server to Claude Desktop. We need to open the Claude app and go to the three lines at the top, the hamburger menu, and then go to File, then it's Settings and

then Developer, and then it's the Edit Config. So this opens up the Config file for Claude, or takes you to it and then you need to open it. Now if you've got completely empty Config file,

then you can just paste the full script thats in the blog post below, provided you have added your Google Project ID, your Google Ads developer token, and also the Google Ads Login Customer ID. That needs to be entered without the dashes, so it should

just be in pure numbers, and make sure that there are no empty spaces, particularly between the quotation marks for each ID or token. They often appear when you paste tokens or IDs, but it won't work if there's

any spaces. So we haven't got that situation, we've got quite a full config already, so what I tend to do is I copy and paste the whole Config script into Claude and ask it to basically come

back with a new Config script that incorporates the new MCP server, but doesn't break anything. So I do a Ctrl + C to copy it into Claude and then I'll make

sure that it's all checked out first before I change anything. So I'll close this down without saving anything. I'll go back to Claude and so close that one down.

And then I would paste it - the full script. So "This is the current Claude Config file - I need to add a new

Google Ads MCP script". So what we do is that I'll paste that in with the new script in. So then type "Can you modify the current script to include the Google Ads MCP"

So that's output, this is the new Google Ads MPC script.

Then I'll go to my document where I've got all the new script with all my IDs and tokens in and then I'll paste that into there and ask it to check as much as you do that while I pause this. So I just

let that run that for a second, and then it will go off and provide me with my new script. So that's generated the new script. Notice there was a missing brace, a closing brace, which is good to know. And so now we're back to File and Settings,

and Developer and Edit Config, it takes us to the files, we need to open that delete the existing script and paste in the new one, and then we need to do

File Save and close it completely. So make sure you do File Save, because otherwise if you close it with the X, it doesn't save it properly, and then we can close this down with that,

and then we need to close Claude down completely. So I find the best way to close Claude down completely is not just to close it with the X, we should really go to file and exit, and but I actually

find that it does not always seem to re-set everything. So I tend to do a Ctrl Alt Delete and use the Task Manager. So where has the Task Manager gone, it's over here? So I use the Task Manager

and then click on Claude and press Delete and that closes it completely and that's what you need to do and then you can re-open Claude and it should reset the Config file and you could again re-test it

by copying and paste the Config file into Claude, and ask it double check everything is correct but we're going to try and go to Claude, Claude's re-opened

and so if we click on the "+"here here and then go to connectors we should see the Analytics MCP in Claude, we just need to

check that it's actually definitely working by testing it and so we re-started Claude again because we didn't see Google Ads connector in the connectors in here, and so got lots of connectors, but didn't have Google

Ads here, but now it has appeared, and just shows that sometimes you need to restart a couple times so it has appeared now Google ads and you can also go back to the File in the menu

and go to Settings and then in the Developer section there is actually here it should show you the MCP connectors and we've got Google Ads MCP has appeared as well here now so the MCP is the GA4 MCP which you can review my blog

and video for setting up connection with GA4 separately so that actually looks really positive now it does seem to have saved but as I say I had to close down a couple times because it didn't work first time, and so now we can do a test to check its definitely

actually bringing in data so we start a new conversation in Claude and use the prompts that are in blog so we can ask it to look at the Google Ads server account and list successful

customers and show customer IDs so I will just pause as I run that just check that works and it's run that successfully come up with 23 customer IDs

accessible to your authenticated Google Ads account. So that's worked fine. That's great and so we can now start using our MCP server access. Now you've got the Google Ads MCP server setup it's really

down to you now to link as many of your clients Google ads accounts to your Manager Account so you can start using the connection with Claude to manage and audit and debug your Google ads accounts, so I hope you've found this video useful

and I'll be creating more videos soon to do with analytics and AI. Thank you, and goodbye.