For anyone who use Google Ads

Most Google Ads managers run 3 campaign segments when they could run 15. It isn't a budget problem. It's a UI problem. Building 15 properly segmented ad groups with tailored keywords, negatives, and RSA copy for each audience takes days of clicking through nested menus. I hit this wall a few weeks ago. Google Ads Editor handles bulk uploads for simple structures, but I needed conditional logic: different negatives per geo, cross-referencing keywords against GA4 data, ad copy reflecting each service's positioning. So I tried something different. I use Claude Code to write Python scripts that call the Google Ads API directly. I describe what I want: "Create 3 campaigns split by geo, 2 ad groups each, with these keywords, negatives, and RSA variations per audience." Claude writes the script. I review it, run in dry-run mode to preview every change, then run for real with --apply. Two days of campaign setup, done in a couple of hours. Setup takes some effort: Google Cloud project, OAuth credentials, developer token. After that, each new script takes minutes to run. The API is free. For reads (metrics, search terms, performance), I use MCP. Fast, no script needed. For writes, MCP is limited. Google's official server is read-only. Third-party MCPs like AdLoop can write, but changes live inside the AI's context window and disappear when you close the conversation. I wanted every change as a permanent file I could inspect, rerun, or hand to a different AI tool. So I use dated scripts for every account change. add\_negatives\_may07.py. update\_may06.py. create\_campaign\_apr22.py. Last week, conversion rate dropped. I asked Claude Code to cross-reference my recent scripts with daily metrics. It found a broad-match negative I'd added recently was blocking a converting search term. The script had the exact change, the metrics had the impact. That tracing gets harder when changes live inside a chat thread. I also built an automated monitoring routine: a scheduled job pulls Google Ads and GA4 data 3x/week, cross-references them, flags anomalies. I review the report and act on what matters. 📊 Early results: 11.23% CTR at ₹23 CPC. Small test budget, so the sample is thin, but the direction is strong. But here's what I keep learning: none of the tooling replaces judgment. Claude's first campaign script failed 4 times: wrong data types, hallucinated parameters. Even working scripts do exactly what you tell them. They won't catch that your landing page contradicts your ad copy, or sense that a keyword is technically relevant but wrong for your brand. Budget changes, campaign go-live, ad copy updates: all go through me. The tooling removed the ops drag. Every strategic decision is still mine.