How to give an AI tool read-only access to Google Ads

Why the access level matters more than the tool

When you connect an AI tool to Google Ads, you sign in with a Google account. From then on the tool can do anything that account can do. A tool that promises to "only read" is making a promise in its code; the access level is a promise Google keeps for you.

The five levels

From Google Ads Help, About access levels:

• Email only: receives notifications and reports, cannot sign in to the account.
• Read only: views campaigns, billing and users, and runs reports, but cannot edit campaigns.
• Standard: everything Read only can do, plus editing campaigns.
• Admin: everything, including adding users.
• Billing: manages payment details.

Set it up

1. Pick or create a Google account that will be used only by the AI tool.
2. In Google Ads, an admin opens Admin, then Access and security, and invites that account with Read only.
3. Accept the invitation from that account.
4. Connect the AI tool while signed in with that account.

For agencies with a manager account, the same levels exist on the manager account (Manager account access levels).

What you give up

With Read only the tool can find problems but can't fix them. That is the point: fixes come back as a file or a list, you read it, and you apply it. Ads MCP is built this way: every fix is a file for Google Ads Editor, and the server itself never sends a change to Google.