Cursor + Google Ads: MCP Setup That Works

Cursor takes the Google Ads connector as a four-line entry in mcp.json, reached through Settings → MCP. The setup is two minutes; the reason to do it in Cursor rather than a chat app is what sits next to the tools — your codebase, in the same Agent session as your ad account. Per-client config for every other client lives on the MCP clients pillar; this page is Cursor's specifics.

Add the server

Open Cursor Settings, find the MCP section, and add a new server — Cursor edits mcp.json for you, or you can write it directly:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "adcopilot": {
      "url": "https://mcp.adcopilot.cloud/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Cursor-specific details that matter:

• The field is url for a remote server — Cursor detects the transport from the endpoint, so streamable HTTP needs no extra flags.
• Two possible homes: ~/.cursor/mcp.json (global, every project) or .cursor/mcp.json (this project only). Use the global one. The project file lives in the repo and repos get shared; the URL holds no secret — access is your Google sign-in, not the URL — but keeping the server out of the repo means each teammate adds their own and signs in as themselves. The security model explains how access follows your Google grant.

Back in the MCP settings page, the server should show as connected with a tool count in the thirties — reads like the GAQL query, writes like campaign creation and adding negative keywords. Toggle it on if it is not already.

First prompts — in Agent mode

MCP tools run in Cursor's Agent mode, not plain autocomplete or a bare chat. Open an Agent chat and start with reads:

List the Google Ads accounts you can see.

In account <account>: last 14 days of spend, conversions and cost per
conversion by campaign. Then the top 10 search terms with cost and no
conversions. Read-only — change nothing.

Reads change nothing, so allowing them is safe. The first write — adding a negative, creating a paused campaign — makes Cursor stop and show the tool call for your approval before running it. Keep that behaviour: auto-run belongs to read-only servers, and the reasoning — which calls to graduate, which to gate forever — is the approval workflow.

The actual point: ads and code in one session

Everything above works in any client. What Cursor adds is that the agent holding your ad account also holds your repository, and real tasks live across both:

Read the hero copy and pricing section of app/landing/page.tsx. Now pull
the responsive search ads in campaign <campaign> from account <account>.
Where do the ads promise something the page no longer says? Propose ad
copy updates — show me before creating anything.

We renamed the /pricing route in this repo. Which enabled ads or
sitelinks in account <account> still point at the old URL? List them,
then create replacement sitelinks on the new route for the ones I
confirm — I'll retire the old links in the Google Ads UI.

Message-match audits, URL drift after refactors, drafting a campaign for the feature you just shipped from the code that implements it — these are one-session jobs in Cursor and multi-tool afternoons anywhere else. Audit output can land in the repo too: ask for findings written to a markdown file and commit it, the same file-based pattern that makes terminal clients good at recurring checks.

Quirks

• Agent mode only — if the tools seem missing, check which mode the chat is in before debugging config.
• JSON errors fail silently — a stray comma and Cursor just ignores the file. The MCP settings page showing the server is your parse check.
• Restart-ish — config changes usually surface on toggling the server or reopening settings; a full restart is the reliable fallback.
• Same address everywhere — the URL works unchanged in Gemini CLI, Claude and Copilot. One connector, many clients; if it connects nowhere, that is a troubleshooting matter, not a Cursor one.

Five-minute version: paste the JSON into the global mcp.json, open an Agent chat, run the two read prompts, and try the message-match audit on a page you actually ship. No connector yet? Start free — sign in with your own Google account, and Cursor is one paste from your ad account. Seven days on the full Pro plan for a new workspace, no card.