Google Ads MCP Server

This repo contains the source code for running an MCP server that interacts with the Google Ads API.

Tools

The server uses the Google Ads API to provide several Tools and Resources for use with LLMs and AI agents.

Tools available

• search: Retrieves information about the Google Ads account.

• get_resource_metadata: Retrieves metadata about a Google Ads API resource type, for example "campaign". This is useful to understand the structure of the data and what fields are available for querying.

• list_accessible_customers: Returns ids of customers directly accessible by the user authenticating the call.

Resources available

• discovery-document: Retrieve the Google Ads API discovery document. Provides the discovery document for the latest version of the Google Ads API, which describes the API surface, including resources, methods, and schemas. Host LLMs should access this resource to understand the structure of the Google Ads API and discover available features.

• metrics: Retrieve information about the metrics available for reporting in the Google Ads API.

• segments: Retrieve information about the segments available for reporting in the Google Ads API.

• release-notes: Retrieve the release notes for the latest version of the Google Ads API.

Notes

1. The MCP Server will expose your data to the Agent or LLM that you connect to it.

2. If you have technical issues, please use the GitHub issue tracker.

3. To help us collect usage data, you will notice an extra header has been added to your API calls: this data is used to improve the product.

Setup instructions

Setup involves the following steps:

1. Configure Python.

2. Configure Developer Token.

3. Enable APIs in your project

4. Configure Credentials.

5. Configure your MCP client.

Configure Python

Install pipx.

Configure Developer Token

Follow the instructions for Obtaining a Developer Token.

Your developer token must have at least Explorer access to query production accounts. New tokens may be automatically upgraded to Explorer access; if not, you can apply through the API Center. See the access levels documentation for details.

If you see the error "The developer token is only approved for use with test accounts", your token does not yet have access to production accounts. See the access levels documentation for how to request the access level you need.

Enable APIs in your project

Follow the instructions to enable the following APIs in your Google Cloud project:

• Google Ads API

Configure Credentials

Option 1: Using FastMCP OAuth Proxy

The server supports FastMCP's OAuth proxy feature for dynamic user authentication. This is useful when running the server as a web service.

To enable it, set the following environment variables:

• GOOGLE_ADS_MCP_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID: Your Google Cloud OAuth 2.0 Client ID.

• GOOGLE_ADS_MCP_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET: Your Google Cloud OAuth 2.0 Client Secret.

• GOOGLE_ADS_MCP_BASE_URL: (Optional) The base URL where the server is accessible (defaults to http://localhost:8080).

Once this is enabled, you can authenticate to the API through your MCP client: for example, in Gemini CLI, the command /mcp auth google-ads-mcp triggers the authentication flow.

When these variables are set, the server automatically switches to the streamable-http transport (SSE/HTTP) instead of stdio.

You will need to run the server as a separate process and configure your MCP client to connect to the SSE endpoint (e.g., http://localhost:8080/mcp).

Option 2: Configure credentials using Application Default Credentials

Configure your Application Default Credentials (ADC). Make sure the credentials are for a user with access to your Google Ads accounts or properties.

Credentials must include the Google Ads API scope:

https://www.googleapis.com/auth/adwords

Check out Manage OAuth Clients for how to create an OAuth client.

Here are some sample gcloud commands you might find useful:

• Set up ADC using user credentials and an OAuth desktop or web client after downloading the client JSON to YOUR_CLIENT_JSON_FILE.

  gcloud auth application-default login \
    --scopes https://www.googleapis.com/auth/adwords,https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform \
    --client-id-file=YOUR_CLIENT_JSON_FILE

• Set up ADC using service account impersonation.

  gcloud auth application-default login \
    --impersonate-service-account=SERVICE_ACCOUNT_EMAIL \
    --scopes=https://www.googleapis.com/auth/adwords,https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform

When the gcloud auth application-default command completes, copy the PATH_TO_CREDENTIALS_JSON file location printed to the console in the following message. You will need this for a later step!

Credentials saved to file: [PATH_TO_CREDENTIALS_JSON]

Option 3: Configure credentials using the Google Ads API Python client library.

Follow the instructions to setup and configure the Google Ads API Python client library

If you have already done this and have a working google-ads.yaml , you can reuse this file!

In the utils.py file, change get_googleads_client() to use the load_from_storage() method.

Configure your MCP client

Add the server to your MCP client's configuration. Below are examples for popular clients.

Gemini CLI / Gemini Code Assist

1. Install Gemini CLI or Gemini Code Assist.

2. Create or edit the file at ~/.gemini/settings.json, adding your server to the mcpServers list.

• Option 1: Using FastMCP OAuth Proxy (Streamable HTTP)

  You can run the server as a separate process and configure your MCP client to connect to the SSE endpoint (e.g., http://localhost:8080/mcp). This also allows using FastMCP's OAuth proxy feature for dynamic user authentication.

  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "google-ads-mcp": {
        "httpUrl":"http://localhost:8080/mcp",
        "env": {
          "GOOGLE_PROJECT_ID": "YOUR_PROJECT_ID",
          "GOOGLE_ADS_DEVELOPER_TOKEN": "YOUR_DEVELOPER_TOKEN"                        
        }
      }
    }
  }

• Option 2: the Application Default Credentials method

  Replace PATH_TO_CREDENTIALS_JSON with the path you copied in the previous step.

  We also recommend that you add a GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT attribute to the env object. Replace YOUR_PROJECT_ID in the following example with the project ID of your Google Cloud project.

  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "google-ads-mcp": {
        "command": "pipx",
        "args": [
          "run",
          "--spec",
          "git+https://github.com/googleads/google-ads-mcp.git",
          "google-ads-mcp"
        ],
        "env": {
          "GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS": "PATH_TO_CREDENTIALS_JSON",
          "GOOGLE_PROJECT_ID": "YOUR_PROJECT_ID",
          "GOOGLE_ADS_DEVELOPER_TOKEN": "YOUR_DEVELOPER_TOKEN"
        }
      }
    }
  }

• Option 3: the Python client library method

  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "google-ads-mcp": {
        "command": "pipx",
        "args": [
          "run",
          "--spec",
          "git+https://github.com/googleads/google-ads-mcp.git",
          "google-ads-mcp"
        ],
        "env": {
          "GOOGLE_PROJECT_ID": "YOUR_PROJECT_ID",
          "GOOGLE_ADS_DEVELOPER_TOKEN": "YOUR_DEVELOPER_TOKEN"
        }
      }
    }
  }

Login Customer Id

If your access to the customer account is through a manager account, you will need to add the customer ID of the manager account to the settings file.

See here for details.

The final file will look like this:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "google-ads-mcp": {
      "command": "pipx",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--spec",
        "git+https://github.com/googleads/google-ads-mcp.git",
        "google-ads-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS": "PATH_TO_CREDENTIALS_JSON",
        "GOOGLE_PROJECT_ID": "YOUR_PROJECT_ID",
        "GOOGLE_ADS_DEVELOPER_TOKEN": "YOUR_DEVELOPER_TOKEN",
        "GOOGLE_ADS_LOGIN_CUSTOMER_ID": "YOUR_MANAGER_CUSTOMER_ID"
      }
    }
  }
}

Other MCP clients (Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, etc.)

The mcpServers block format is the same across all MCP clients. Add the configuration shown above to the appropriate settings file for your client (e.g., ~/.claude/settings.json for Claude Code, .cursor/mcp.json for Cursor, .vscode/mcp.json for VS Code with Copilot).

Deployment to Google Cloud Platform

Instead of hosting this MCP server locally, you can host it on Google Cloud Run or on any other cloud-based infrastructure. This is useful if you want to share the server across different agents or run it as a web service.

Note that this only supports authentication with an OAuth Client ID and Client Secret pair through the OAuth proxy (Option #1 above).

Prerequisites

1. A Google Cloud project.

2. The gcloud CLI installed, authenticated, and active project set.

   gcloud config set project YOUR_PROJECT_ID

Step 1: Build and Push Docker Image

You can use Cloud Build to build and push the image to Artifact Registry without needing Docker installed locally.

1. Create a repository in Artifact Registry:

   gcloud artifacts repositories create mcp-servers --repository-format=docker --location=us-central1

2. Build and submit the image:

   gcloud builds submit --tag us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/YOUR_PROJECT_ID/mcp-servers/google-ads-mcp:latest .

   Replace YOUR_PROJECT_ID with your Google Cloud project ID.

Step 2: Deploy to Google Cloud Run

Make sure to set the required environment variables:

• GOOGLE_PROJECT_ID: Your Google Cloud project ID.

• GOOGLE_ADS_DEVELOPER_TOKEN: The developer token you want the MCP server to use (see above).

• GOOGLE_ADS_MCP_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID: The OAuth Client ID you want the MCP server to use.

• GOOGLE_ADS_MCP_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET: The OAuth Client secret you want the MCP server to use.

• GOOGLE_ADS_MCP_BASE_URL: The base URL where your MCP server is accessible: this will be automatically assigned by Google Cloud Run after your first deployment. You can update the environment variables after deployment.

• FASTMCP_HOST: Set this to 0.0.0.0 to allow FastMCP to accept connections from all IP addresses.

gcloud run deploy google-ads-mcp \
  --image us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/YOUR_PROJECT_ID/mcp-servers/google-ads-mcp:latest \
  --platform managed \
  --region us-central1 \
  --allow-unauthenticated \
  --set-env-vars="GOOGLE_PROJECT_ID=YOUR_PROJECT_ID,GOOGLE_ADS_DEVELOPER_TOKEN=YOUR_DEVELOPER_TOKEN,GOOGLE_ADS_MCP_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID=YOUR_CLIENT_ID,GOOGLE_ADS_MCP_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET=YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET,GOOGLE_ADS_MCP_BASE_URL=YOUR_BASE_URL,FASTMCP_HOST=0.0.0.0"

Step 3: Configure MCP Client

Once deployed, update your MCP client configuration (e.g., ~/.gemini/settings.json) to use the Cloud Run URL.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "google-ads-mcp": {
      "httpUrl": "https://your-cloud-run-url.a.run.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Try it out

Launch your MCP client. You should see google-ads-mcp listed in the available servers.

Here are some sample prompts to get you started:

• Ask what the server can do:

  what can the ads-mcp server do?

• Ask about customers:

  what customers do I have access to?

• Ask about campaigns

  How many active campaigns do I have?

  How is my campaign performance this week?

Note about Customer ID

Your agent will need and ask for a customer id for most prompts. If you are moving between multiple customers, including the customer ID in the prompt may be simpler.

How many active campaigns do I have for customer id 1234567890

Skills

This repository also provides Agent Skills, which are specialized workflows and instructions that give AI agents specific expertise.

Skills available

• account-performance-diagnostics: Diagnose account performance issues such as conversion loss, low lead flow, and lost opportunities. Located in ads_mcp/skills/account-performance-diagnostics.

How to install skills

To use these skills, you need to point your skills-compatible AI agent to the skill directory.

For example, if you are using Gemini CLI, you can install the skill by copying the folder to your skills directory or referencing it. See the Gemini CLI Skills documentation for detailed instructions.

While that guide is specific to Gemini CLI, Agent Skills are an open standard and can be loaded by any compatible agent or LLM tool that supports the format (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor).

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See the Contributing Guide.