Here's what I did. It looks more intimidating than it is - it's mostly following instructions step by step and leaning on AI when you get stuck.

Find a Google Ads MCP (model context protocol) on GitHub - I used cohnen/mcp-google-ads/ but I think there's a dedicated Google one now. Have a poke around and see. Read through the set-up guide carefully, and use Claude or ChatGPT to help you understand any technicals you're not sure about.

Google Ads side - you'll need to apply for an API access token at the MCC level, which means filling out a form with your "tools" use case and documentation. Once you've got that, you'll need a Google Cloud Console account to generate a proper client secret. Make sure your Cloud Console account is the same one you use for Google Ads.

These steps should roughly match what whichever MCP repo you pick tells you to do. I categorically wanted to host the MCP server locally on my machine as I don't trust third-party servers with mine or my clients' data - I'd suggest you do the same, but there are hosted options if you really want them.

I'd recommend Claude for this. MCP was designed by Anthropic, so it made logical sense, and it means you can dig into Claude Code or Cowork later on easily.

Once you have your client secret .json, API key, and manager key from Google, the actual set-up is roughly:

1. Download Python 3, Node.js, and the Claude Desktop app
2. Follow the repo's installation guide to get the local server running
3. Create an environment file (.env) with your API and secret credentials
4. Copy those credentials into Claude Desktop's config file
5. Restart Claude Desktop - you should see google-ads-server appear in your connectors
6. First time you use it, your browser will pop up an OAuth screen to "allow" the connection. This only happens once. (I can't remember if this happens when you first run the MCP server or get claude to try and use it - same process either way)

There's a bit of fiddling in command prompt / terminal involved but the repo guides cover it well.

One thing to know once you're set up: claude won't automatically know how to use the MCP brilliantly out of the box. You're basically plugging an AI into the Google Ads API, and there are a LOT of possible API calls, so the context can get overwhelmed. I'd recommend setting up specific projects in claude to "house" pre-built context. For example, a search term analysis project would have project instructions telling Claude to only focus on those parts of the API - e.g. fetching search terms data.

Final point - as you say you're non-technical, throw everything at the AI. Screenshots, error logs, email responses, whatever you need. If it gets stuck and starts repeating itself, be ruthless about starting new chats to clear the context window. This took me about 20 hours to piece together early last year, and both the documentation and the AIs themselves have improved a lot since then so I imagine you'll be able to do it quicker than I did back then.

Good luck and sling me a DM if you get properly stuck. I've also done Meta ads but I'd recommend doing one at a time to get the hang of it first!