Let Claude Watch Your Meta Ads

You saw me connect Claude to my ad account and set it to check every campaign each morning. This is that, for you: the link, the five steps, and the exact instruction to paste.

Five minutes to connect. Two minutes to automate. You do not need code, a developer account, or an API key.

The instruction you will paste is further down, after the connection. It does nothing until the connector is live, so do these steps in order.

What you need: a Claude account with a paid plan, and admin access to a Meta ad account.

1. The link

This is the part you cannot get from watching a video. It is Meta's own official server, not a third-party tool:

https://mcp.facebook.com/ads

Copy it. You will paste it once, in step 3.

2. Open your connectors

In Claude, open Customize, then Connectors. (Older guides say Settings. It moved.)

Click the + next to Connectors, then choose Add custom connector.

✓ You'll know it worked when a small window opens asking for a name and a URL.

3. Add it

Two fields, nothing else:

Name: anything you want. "Ads manager" is fine.
URL: the link from step 1.

There is an advanced section asking for a client ID and a secret. Leave both empty. Meta's server handles the login by itself.

Click add, then click the connector you just made to start the sign in.

✓ You'll know it worked when Claude sends you to a Facebook login screen.

4. Log in and choose your accounts

Log in with the Facebook account that manages your ads. Meta will ask which business portfolios Claude is allowed to reach, rather than picking ad accounts one by one.

Read this screen properly. One portfolio can hold several ad accounts, and ticking it hands over every one of them. Tick only the portfolio that holds the ads you want watched.

✓ You'll know it worked when you land back in Claude and the connector shows as connected.

5. Test it before you automate anything

Open a new chat and ask it something simple and read-only:

Which of my campaigns are currently active, and what did each of them
spend in the last 7 days?

If it answers with your real campaigns, you are connected.

✓ You'll know it worked when the names it gives you match what you see in Ads Manager.

Now automate it

This is the whole point. One instruction, running every morning, so you stop opening dashboards looking for problems.

Use Cowork for this. In the Claude desktop app open the Cowork tab, go to Scheduled tasks, click New task, then Set up manually. Set it to run daily, pick your time, and paste the instruction below.

Cowork runs it on Anthropic's machines, so it fires whether your laptop is open or not. On ChatGPT the same feature is also called scheduled tasks. Either way this part needs a paid plan.

(You will also see something called Routines in the app. Skip it. That one is built for scheduling work on code, and it will ask you for a GitHub repository you do not have.)

Check every campaign that is currently live in my Meta ad account.

Give me a short brief: what is running, what changed since yesterday,
and what is on track.

Then flag anything that needs my attention today. Specifically:
- a campaign that has stopped spending or is badly under-delivering
- cost per result climbing for three days in a row
- an ad set that has stopped delivering
- anything that looks broken or unusual

Keep it short. If nothing needs my attention, say so in one line.

Quote the numbers exactly as the connector returns them. If you are
unsure of a figure, say so instead of estimating.

Do not make any changes to my account. Do not pause, edit, or create
anything. Review and report only.

✓ You'll know it worked when the first brief arrives at the time you set, and it names your actual campaigns.

The one line that matters most

The last paragraph of that prompt is not optional:

"Do not make any changes to my account. Review and report only."

This connector can edit campaigns, pause things and create new ones. That is genuinely useful later. It is not what you want on day one, running unattended, while you are asleep.

Start read-only. Let it run for a couple of weeks. Decide later whether you want to hand it the steering wheel, and if you do, watch the first few times it drives.

Skip for now

You will read about all of this. None of it is needed to get value today:

Catalog and product feed tools. Only relevant if you run ecommerce shopping ads.
Signal and pixel diagnostics. Worth doing eventually, not while you are setting this up.
Letting it create or edit campaigns. See above. Later.
Self-hosting your own server. There are third-party versions of this you can run yourself. You do not need one. The official server does the job and it is Meta's.

What else it can do, once you trust it

Same connection, no extra setup. Just ask:

"Write my weekly report" the way you would want it, then save it as a skill so you never explain the format again.
"Which of my ads are getting tired?" and let it read frequency and performance decay.
"Compare this month to last month and tell me what actually changed."
"What is my worst performing ad set and why?"

If it does not work

The connector will not add. Check the link character for character, and make sure you left the client ID and secret boxes empty. If it still refuses, remove it and add it again.
It connects but says it cannot see your ads. In a new chat, click the +, choose Connectors, and switch the Meta one on. It is off by default in fresh chats.
It sees the wrong ads, or none. You ticked the wrong business portfolio in step 4, or you logged in with a personal Facebook account that does not manage the ads. Remove it and redo step 4.
The routine never fires. Check the time zone on the routine, not the prompt. This catches everyone once.

Your five minutes, right now

Do not read anything else. Do this:

Copy the link.
Customize, connectors, the + button, add custom connector, paste, add.
Log in, pick your business portfolio.
Ask it which campaigns are live.

If it answers, you are done with the hard part. The routine takes two more minutes and you can do it tomorrow.