EasyHive
CLAUDE RUNS MY BIZ / 15
THE SETUP GUIDE

Let Claude Run
Your Meta Ads

Meta ships its own ads MCP server, and it does more than read. Claude can create campaigns, edit budgets, build audiences and pull reporting straight from your ad account. This guide wires it up and hands you the audit prompt we use. Setup takes about 10 minutes.

Verified against Meta's official ads MCP server documentation, August 2026

What this actually gives you

Most ways of pointing an AI at Meta ads are read only. You ask a question, you get a number back, and then you still go into Ads Manager and click the thing yourself. Meta's own MCP server is different, because the tools it exposes include write access. Claude can make the change, not just describe it.

The server is hosted by Meta at mcp.facebook.com/ads. That matters. Your ad account credentials are not passing through some third party's servers, which is what happens with most of the community built Meta ads connectors floating around.

CATEGORY WHAT CLAUDE CAN DO
Ad creation and management Create and edit ads, ad sets, and campaigns.
Comprehensive reporting Pull detailed performance reporting to understand how campaigns are doing.
Custom audiences Create, update, and delete custom audiences.
Catalog management Create a catalog, add product data, troubleshoot feed and item visibility issues.
Signals and datasets Check signal health and quality, so you know where your tracking is weak.
A/B tests and lift studies Create and manage A/B tests and conversion lift studies.
Activity logs See account change history, mirroring the Ads Manager campaign history page.
Help and troubleshooting Search Meta Business Help Center articles relevant to what you are stuck on.
GOOD TO KNOW Meta is rolling out tool access gradually, so the exact inventory can differ between accounts. The fastest way to see yours is to just ask Claude "what Meta ads tools do you have access to?" once you are connected.
The setup, start to finish
About 10 minutes. You need a Meta ad account and Claude Code.

  1. Create your Meta developer account

    Go to developers.facebook.com and register with the Facebook account that already has access to your ad account. This is free.

    https://developers.facebook.com
    THE SHORTCUT NOBODY MENTIONS Owning a Meta app is not actually required. Meta supports a no app path through Facebook Login for Business, and their docs say so directly. We still recommend the app route below, because it gives you a stable client ID, it is the path that works cleanly with Claude Code, and it is what you will want the moment you add a second account.

  2. Create the app and add the ads MCP use case

    In the developer dashboard, create a new app or open an existing one. Then in the left navigation click Use cases, then Add use cases.

    In the popup, click Ads and monetization, select Create & manage ads with ads MCP server, and click Save.

    This use case is the whole point. Without it, the app exists but the MCP server will not talk to it.

  3. Grab your app ID

    It is on the app dashboard, a long number. You need it for the next command. Meta calls it the App ID, and it is not a secret in the way a token is, but treat it as yours.

  4. Connect it to Claude

    This is the command. Run it in your terminal, swapping in your own app ID:

    claude mcp add --transport http --client-id <META_APP_ID> meta-ads https://mcp.facebook.com/ads
    USE THIS EXACT COMMAND Both flags start with two hyphens, which some fonts display joined together. Copy paste it rather than retyping. There are also versions circulating that drop the --client-id flag and rename the server. Those are not from Meta. The line above is the one in Meta's own documentation, flag order and all.

  5. Authorize once

    The first time Claude reaches for the server, it sends you to the Facebook Login for Business dialog. Approve it and pick the ad account you want it working on. After that it stays connected.

  6. Test it

    Open a fresh session and ask for something small and factual:

    TRY THIS
    List my active Meta campaigns with their spend and ROAS for the last 7 days.

    Real numbers coming back means you are done. Everything past this point is what you can now do with it.

IF YOU RUN ADS FOR OTHER PEOPLE Managing your own ad accounts needs no App Review at all. If you manage data on behalf of other businesses, as an agency or a partner, you do need to request Advanced Access on the ads_mcp_management permission and submit the app for review. Use cases screen, Customize on the ads MCP use case, Permissions and features tab, then Go to app review.
The audit prompt

This is the one worth saving. It makes Claude go through the account the way a media buyer would on a Monday morning, and it ends with a score so you can tell whether last week helped.

THE WASTE AUDIT
Audit my Meta ad account for the last 30 days.

1. List every active ad set spending more than $50 with zero conversions.
2. Flag any ad set where CPA is more than 1.5x the account average.
3. Find audiences overlapping enough that I am bidding against myself.
4. Show me creatives with frequency above 3, ranked by spend.
5. Check my signal quality and tell me what is degrading attribution.

For each finding give me the dollars at stake and the specific change you would make. Then score the account 1 to 100 on how efficiently it spends, and tell me the single highest impact fix.

Do not change anything yet. Show me the plan first.
KEEP THAT LAST LINE Do not change anything yet. This server has write access, so an audit prompt without that sentence can turn into an audit that pauses things. Read the plan, then approve the parts you want.
Prompts worth keeping

The morning report. Run it daily and you stop opening Ads Manager to check.

TRY THIS
Give me yesterday's Meta performance versus the prior 7 day average. Spend, CPA, ROAS, and anything that moved more than 20% in either direction. Three sentences, then the table.

Scaling without breaking learning.

TRY THIS
Which ad sets have enough conversion volume to survive a budget increase this week? For each one tell me how much I can raise it without resetting the learning phase.

Before you launch anything new.

TRY THIS
I want to launch a new campaign for [offer] at [budget] per day. Check my existing audiences for overlap, tell me what already worked for this offer, and draft the campaign structure. Do not create it yet.
If something goes wrong
WHAT YOU SEE WHAT TO DO
Claude says it has no Meta tools Start a new session. Connectors are picked up when a conversation begins, not mid chat.
The command runs but nothing connects Check the use case. Create & manage ads with ads MCP server has to be added and saved on the app first.
Authorization never appears Ask it to do something that needs the ad account. Login is triggered on first real use.
It connects to the wrong ad account You picked the wrong one in the Login for Business dialog. Re authorize and choose again.
Permission errors on a client account That is the Advanced Access case. Managing other businesses' data needs App Review.
Then install the skill

The connection above gives Claude the hands. This gives it the checklist. Claude Ads is a free open source skill that turns a vague "audit my account" into a repeatable, scored review, and it covers 12 ad platforms, not just Meta.

https://github.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-ads

Inside Claude Code, install it with the native plugin flow:

/plugin marketplace add AgriciDaniel/claude-ads
/plugin install claude-ads@ai-marketing-hub-claude-ads

Then you get a set of commands. These are the ones you will use most:

COMMAND WHAT IT DOES
/ads setup Set up your client, account, KPIs and guardrails once.
/ads audit meta Run a full evidence backed audit of the account and score it.
/ads monitor Check pacing, delivery, tracking, creative fatigue and policy issues.
/ads optimize --draft Draft the changes it recommends, without touching the account.
/ads report Render the run as a clean report you can send to a client.
WHY THIS PAIRS WELL The skill is read only by default and every command that would change your account ends in --draft until you approve it. So you get the scoring and the flagging from the audit, and you stay the one who decides what actually ships.
ONE HABIT WORTH KEEPING You just gave an AI the ability to spend money. Ask for the plan before the action, especially on anything touching budgets, and check the activity log after a session where you approved changes. The log tool exists precisely so you can see what moved.

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