How to connect Claude to Google Ads

Adding it to Claude

You need a Google account that already has access to the ads account, and a Claude plan that offers custom connectors. You do not need a developer token, a Google Cloud project or an OAuth client of your own — a hosted connector exists to absorb those.

Signing in with Google is the same for every AI client, so it is written once, on the MCP server page. The connector URL is the same for everyone — https://mcp.adcopilot.cloud/mcp — and the Claude-specific half is below.

1. Add AdCopilot as a custom connector. Open Claude's settings and find the list of connectors. Adding one asks for two things: a name of your choosing, such as AdCopilot, and a remote MCP server URL. Paste https://mcp.adcopilot.cloud/mcp — the same URL for everyone, with no key or token in it. Leave the optional OAuth client ID and secret blank.
2. Sign in with Google. The first time Claude uses the connector it opens Google's own sign-in in your browser. Approve the Google account that has your Google Ads access, and choose which accounts the connector may reach. AdCopilot never sees your password — Google hands back the authorisation. This step is identical for every AI client and the long version is on the MCP server page.
3. Start a new conversation and ask what it can see. Claude settles which tools a conversation has when the conversation begins, so open a fresh one rather than returning to the chat you had open while setting this up. Ask which Google Ads accounts it can see. It should list exactly the accounts your Google login can reach.

https://mcp.adcopilot.cloud/mcp

Claude Desktop, claude.ai and Claude Code

Three things carry the Claude name and they do not behave identically. The connector is the same in all three; where it lives and how you check on it is not.

• claude.ai in the browser and Claude Desktop. A custom connector is added in settings and belongs to your account rather than to the app in front of you, so one added in the browser turns up in the desktop app as well. The desktop app can also run MCP servers installed on your own machine, which the browser cannot — not something you need here, because AdCopilot is a remote server and there is nothing to install.
• Claude Code. A terminal command rather than a settings screen. Claude Code also scopes MCP servers, so one added inside a project stays with that project unless you add it more widely; claude mcp add --help names the current flag. Inside a session, /mcp lists the servers, whether each one connected, and the tools it offered.
• Team and enterprise plans. An administrator may control whether members can add their own connectors. On a work account, “there is no option to add one” is more often a policy than a fault, and the person to ask is whoever administers the workspace.

claude mcp add --transport http adcopilot https://mcp.adcopilot.cloud/mcp

The same address works in any MCP client that speaks streamable HTTP — Gemini CLI, Cursor, OpenCode, GitHub Copilot, all of which are on the other clients page — and there is a ChatGPT walkthrough too.

Where the tools appear

In claude.ai and Claude Desktop the connector shows up under the name you gave it in the tool menu on the composer, with its tools listed beneath. That menu is also where you turn it on and off, which is worth knowing: a connector can be correctly saved and still be switched off for the conversation you are in.

The thing that costs people the most time is not in a menu at all. A conversation that was already open when you saved the connector will never see it, because the available tools are settled when the conversation begins. Start a new one. In Claude Code the equivalent view is /mcp, which reports the connection state as well as the tool list.

Quicker than reading either: ask Claude which tools it has from the connector. On the full tier the honest answer is thirty-two; on the read-only tier it is three — search, list_accessible_customers and get_resource_metadata. If it names them, the connection is working and the rest is your account, not your setup.

Your first questions

Ask something you can verify. The point of the first five minutes is to calibrate your own trust, not to test the software.

• “Which Google Ads accounts can you see?”
• “What did we spend last month, by campaign?”
• “List search terms from the last 90 days that cost more than £50 and produced no conversions.”
• “Which ad groups have only one active ad?”
• “Show me every change made to this account in the last week.”

All of those work on the read-only tier as well, because reading is all they need. That last one is worth running early, so you know what normal looks like before anything changes.

What it can change

For its week the trial runs on the full Pro tier, so Claude works the account end to end — thirty-two tools rather than the three that reading needs: campaigns and Performance Max, ad groups, responsive search ads, keywords and negatives, assets and their links, geography, ad schedule and device bid adjustments. Every one of them is listed, with what it does, on the MCP server page.

Deletion is not among them: the four destructive tools in the underlying server are removed from the hosted connector entirely, so a misread instruction has nothing to grab. What is left — pausing, adjusting, adding, negating — you can undo. That boundary, and what is left standing around it, is set out on the security page.

Withdrawing access takes one of three routes and none of them needs our cooperation: remove AdCopilot from your Google account's third-party access page, delete the connector in Claude, or ask us to switch your connection off. All three are described in full under how to withdraw access.

If Claude can't see it

These are the failure modes peculiar to Claude. The ones that are not — the address, the Google sign-in, the tier — are on the MCP server page, because they are the same in every client.

• You saved it and nothing changed. Almost always the conversation you are in was open before you saved. Start a new one and check again before touching anything else.
• The connector is listed but Claude never uses it. Check it is switched on in the tool menu for that conversation, then ask in a way that makes the tool the obvious route — “using the Google Ads connector, list …” rather than a question it could answer from memory.
• Claude Code cannot reach it. Run /mcp, which reports the connection state directly. If the server is not listed at all, it was probably added at a scope this session is not in.
• There is no option to add a connector. That is the plan or the workspace policy rather than the connector. Claude Code takes the same address, and so does every other MCP client.

Frequently asked questions