How to use the Google Ads MCP Setup agent skill

What the skill makes your agent do

An agent skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file with instructions that an AI assistant reads when a task matches the skill's description. This skill, from the google/skills repository (Apache-2.0 licence), tells the agent to guide you through setting up the official open-source Google Ads MCP Server.

The skill does not read your ads data itself. It checks that Python 3.12+ and pipx are present, helps install them if needed, checks that your five Google Ads API credentials are formatted correctly, installs the google-ads-mcp package with pipx, and verifies the install. After setup, the MCP server is what answers your questions about campaigns and reporting metrics.

Check the requirements and credentials before you install

The skill needs several things in place. Gather them first, because the skill stops if you do not have them.

The skill lists these prerequisites: Python 3.12 or newer, pipx, and outbound HTTPS access to googleads.googleapis.com and PyPI. It also expects five Google Ads API values, all of which must be digits only with no hyphens for the two IDs.

• Developer Token, from the API Center in your Manager account
• OAuth2 Client ID and Client Secret for a Desktop application, from the Google Cloud Console
• OAuth2 Refresh Token, generated through the OAuth consent flow
• Client Customer ID: the 10-digit ID of the target Google Ads account, for example 1234567890
• Login Customer ID: the 10-digit Manager (MCC) account ID, needed if your OAuth credentials belong to a Manager account administrator rather than directly to the client account
• If you do not have these yet, the skill tells the agent to stop and use the separate google-ads-api-quickstart skill first, then return.

Install the skill from the ZIP

Download the skill ZIP from this page and unzip it into one of two locations. Use ~/.claude/skills/ to make the skill available across your projects, or a project's .claude/skills/ folder to limit it to that project.

If you use the Claude apps instead of Claude Code, you can upload the skill under Settings, then Capabilities, then Skills.

• Personal install: unzip into ~/.claude/skills/
• Project install: unzip into the project's .claude/skills/ folder
• Claude apps: Settings, Capabilities, Skills, then upload

Trigger the skill with a natural request

You do not need to name the skill. The skill's description covers requests to connect an AI assistant to a Google Ads account so it can query campaigns or retrieve reporting metrics in plain language, so a request that matches that intent should load it.

Be specific about your goal and your setup. Say which assistant you use, whether you have a Manager account, and whether you already have the five credentials. This lets the agent skip the parts you have finished.

• Help me connect Claude Code to my Google Ads account using the MCP server.
• I have my Google Ads API credentials and want to set up the google-ads-mcp server in Cursor.
• Walk me through installing the official Google Ads MCP server with pipx. I use an MCC account.
• Which Google Ads API values do I still need before I can query my campaigns?

Follow the setup steps the agent runs

The agent first checks your environment. It runs python3 --version to confirm Python 3.12+ and pipx --version to see whether pipx is installed. If Python is too old, the agent asks you to upgrade it on your machine. If pipx is missing, the agent proposes an install command for your operating system.

Installing pipx also runs pipx ensurepath, which changes your PATH. The skill warns that the new PATH will not apply in the current terminal, so restart your terminal or reload your shell configuration before continuing. Then the agent installs the stable release from PyPI and verifies it.

• macOS: brew install pipx && pipx ensurepath (or pip install pipx && pipx ensurepath if Homebrew is not installed)
• Windows PowerShell: scoop install pipx (or pip install pipx && pipx ensurepath)
• Linux Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install pipx && pipx ensurepath

Verify the install and handle PATH problems

To verify the install, run the help command. If you see a command not found error, the install may still have worked. pipx places binaries in a local directory, typically ~/.local/bin, and your shell may not have picked up the change yet.

The skill tells the agent not to assume the install failed. It checks the absolute path instead. If that works, reload your shell configuration and try again.

• Reload your shell with source ~/.bashrc or source ~/.zshrc, or restart the terminal.
• The skill says to use the GitHub development version only if you explicitly request it.

Understand how the assistant connects to the server

The MCP server uses the Model Context Protocol over standard input/output (stdio) transport. Your host client, such as Cursor or Claude Code, launches the server as a background subprocess. The client must be configured with the command to run the server (google-ads-mcp) and the environment variables that hold your Google Ads credentials.

Because it uses stdio, the server does not open a network port such as HTTP or WebSockets. Communication happens through stdin and stdout. For that reason the server must not print ordinary log or debug messages to stdout, since that channel is reserved for protocol messages.