AdLoop README

[!TIP] AdLoop Cloud is the hosted version of this project, with a free plan that needs no credit card. Connect Google in two clicks and use the full toolset from claude.ai, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, or Gemini. No Google Cloud project, no API access application, no OAuth verification wait. EU-hosted, GDPR-first, DPA included.

📚 Documentation: docs.getadloop.com — setup guides per AI client, toolsets, the safety model, and troubleshooting for both editions.

Cloud or Self-Hosted?

Both versions run the same tools with the same safety model. The difference is who handles the plumbing:

Not sure? Start with Cloud — it's the fastest way to see what AdLoop can do, and it's the only way to use AdLoop from claude.ai or ChatGPT. Self-host when you want everything on your own machine or need to modify the code. And if you're here to hack on AdLoop itself: welcome, keep scrolling.

What It Solves

AdLoop exists because managing Google Ads alongside your code is a mess. These are the specific problems it handles:

• "My conversions dropped and I don't know why." AdLoop cross-references Ads clicks, GA4 sessions, and conversion events in one query. It detects whether the gap is from GDPR consent rejection, broken tracking, or an actual landing page problem — before you waste hours checking each dashboard separately.

• "I'm wasting ad spend on irrelevant searches." Pull your search terms report, identify the junk, and add negative keywords — all from a single conversation in your IDE. No context-switching to the Ads UI.

• "Is my tracking even working?" Compare the event names in your actual codebase against what GA4 is receiving. Find the mismatches: events you fire that GA4 never sees, events GA4 records that you didn't know about.

• "I need to create ads but the Google Ads UI is hostile." Draft responsive search ads, create campaigns, add keywords — all through natural language. Every change shows a preview first. Nothing goes live without your explicit confirmation: in Claude, ChatGPT and VS Code the preview is an approval card, and only your click on Apply changes the account (the AI cannot press it). New ads and campaigns start paused.

• "My landing page gets paid traffic but nobody converts." AdLoop joins your ad final URLs with GA4 page-level data. See which pages get clicks but no conversions, which have high bounce rates, and which ones are orphaned from any ad campaign.

• "Are conversions even being tagged on every page?" AdLoop reads your live Google Tag Manager container, joins it against the events in your codebase and the events firing in GA4, and tells you exactly which conversions are being captured, which tags are paused, which page-scope filters are too narrow, and which codebase events have no tag at all — the kind of three-way audit GTM Preview can't give you in a single view.

• "I don't know if my EU consent setup is causing data gaps." In Europe, 30-70% of users reject analytics cookies. AdLoop accounts for this automatically — it won't diagnose a normal GDPR consent gap as broken tracking.

Built From Real Usage

Every tool exists because of an actual problem hit while running real Google Ads campaigns. The cross-reference tools exist because we kept manually asking the AI to "get Ads data, then get GA4 data, then compare them" — so we automated the join. The Broad Match + Manual CPC safety rule exists because the AI once created that exact combination and wasted budget. The GDPR consent awareness exists because the AI kept diagnosing normal EU cookie rejection as broken tracking.

The best features come from real workflows. If you're using AdLoop and find yourself wishing it could do something it can't, open an issue describing your situation — not just "add feature X" but "I was trying to do Y and couldn't because Z." The context matters more than the request.

All Tools

Quick start: pip install adloop or git clone https://github.com/kLOsk/adloop.git && cd adloop && uv sync && uv run adloop init — or zero setup on AdLoop Cloud

Diagnostics

GA4 Read Tools

Google Ads Read Tools

Brand lists — a list is a SharedSet of type BRANDS; attaching it to a campaign is a CampaignCriterion.brand_list (negative=true excludes, false restricts), not a CampaignSharedSet like negative keyword lists. remove_from_brand_list and detach_brand_list_from_campaigns remove for real — SharedCriterion has no status field.

Brand targeting — brand criteria (brand lists, brand exclusions) target a brand's Commercial Knowledge Graph ID, not its display name. Use suggest_brands for a single name or check_brand_names for a shortlist to get the ID; exact_match marks a candidate whose name matches apart from case and punctuation, everything else is a Google suggestion.

AI Max is the container for Search brand exclusions — Google rejects a brand list on a plain Search campaign with "For search advertising channel, brand lists can only be applied to exclusive targeting, broad match campaigns for inclusive targeting or PMax generated campaigns." draft_prepare_brand_exclusions sets the state that makes the exclusion usable without handing Google the automations: AI Max on, search term matching off per ad group, text and final-URL automation opted out. draft_ai_max_settings is the general form when only parts of that state should change — it refuses a plan that would leave an automation on unnoticed, and asks for a second confirmation when that automation was requested explicitly.

Custom conversion goals — a named set of conversion actions that a campaign can be pointed at. get_custom_conversion_goals shows the goals with their actions and a campaign's current goal config; draft_custom_conversion_goal creates a set, draft_update_custom_conversion_goal renames or replaces its actions, draft_assign_custom_conversion_goal points a campaign at it and draft_clear_custom_conversion_goal puts the campaign back on the account-level goals. Only the goal and the campaign's goal config are touched — conversion actions, bidding and budgets stay as they are.

Compact mode — get_campaign_performance, get_keyword_performance, get_search_terms, and get_ad_performance accept compact=true: account totals, breakdowns, top-10 rows, and pre-computed offender lists (zero-conversion spenders, low-QS keywords, negative-keyword candidates, thin RSAs) instead of every row. ~90% smaller responses — built for account audits so raw tables don't flood your AI's context.

Cross-Reference Tools (GA4 + Ads Combined)

These tools call both APIs internally and return unified results with auto-generated insights. They're the core of what makes AdLoop different from having separate GA4 and Ads tools.

Tracking Tools

Google Tag Manager Tools

These tools read the live GTM container and join it with the codebase + GA4 to find tracking gaps that pure GA4 inspection can't catch — page-scoped triggers, paused tags, dynamic event names, brittle CSS selectors, and codebase events with no tag wired up at all.

GTM write tools (opt-in)

Off by default. Set gtm.write_enabled: true in ~/.adloop/config.yaml and restart; the next call asks you to re-consent with the Tag Manager edit + publish scopes, which are never part of the default grant. Everything follows the usual draft → preview → confirm_and_apply flow, and tag/trigger edits only touch a workspace until you publish it.

Safety gates specific to GTM:

• Custom HTML runs arbitrary JavaScript on your site, so creating or editing an html tag — or publishing a workspace that adds or changes one — is refused unless gtm.allow_custom_html: true is also set. Pausing or deleting one is always allowed.
• No stale writes. Updates and deletes pin the entity's fingerprint from the preview, and publish pins the workspace's pending changes; if someone edits the container in between, apply refuses and you re-draft.
• Publishing stops on merge conflicts or GTM compiler errors. The dry run runs a Tag Manager quick preview first (Tag Manager has no validate-only mode), so compiler errors surface before a version is even created. That preview is a POST and stores a preview version in the container — nothing is published and no live tag changes; the rest of the dry run only reads.
• The publish and rollback results name the version they replaced (previous_live_version_id), so rolling back is one step: draft_rollback_gtm_version with that id. If the version was created but publishing it failed, the error carries both the created version id and the still-live one.
• Per-operation names for safety.blocked_operations: gtm_create_tag, gtm_update_tag, gtm_delete_tag, gtm_create_trigger, gtm_update_trigger, gtm_delete_trigger, gtm_publish_workspace, gtm_rollback_version.

The Google account also needs Edit permission on the container (and Publish to publish) under Admin → User Management.

Setup for GTM tools — Enable the Tag Manager API v2 in your GCP project, then add your AdLoop credentials' email (the OAuth user, or the service account email if using a service account) as a Read user on the GTM container under Admin → User Management. Service accounts pick up access on the next call. OAuth users upgrading from an earlier AdLoop version must re-authorize once: the GTM scope is new, so delete ~/.adloop/token.json and run any tool to re-consent — until then GTM tools return a permissions error.

Search Console Tools

Web Performance Tools

Merchant Center Tools

Setup for Merchant Center tools — Enable the Merchant API in your GCP project (the Content API for Shopping is deprecated). The Merchant API has no read-only scope; AdLoop uses it strictly read-only. Upgrading OAuth users re-authorize once.

Setup for GSC tools — Enable the Search Console API in your GCP project. Upgrading OAuth users must re-authorize once for the new scope (delete ~/.adloop/token.json, run any tool). The killer combo: cross-reference organic queries with get_keyword_performance to find paid/organic cannibalization and untapped keyword opportunities.

Reddit Ads Tools

A second ad platform, same safety model. Reddit is a separate connection: its own developer app, its own OAuth, no developer token and no approval process. Every tool takes ad_account_id (defaults to reddit.ad_account_id).

Setup for Reddit Ads tools — In Reddit Ads Manager open Business Manager → Developer Application → Create app (business admins only; no approval wait). Register the redirect URL exactly as http://localhost:8765/callback, then run adloop init and complete the Reddit Ads step: it opens Reddit's consent page (scopes adsread + adsedit, permanent grant), stores the refresh token at ~/.adloop/reddit_token.json, and lets you pick the default ad account. Reddit rate-limits per user (reporting: 60 requests/min) and requires a descriptive User-Agent, which AdLoop builds from your app id and Reddit username. Reddit has no validate-only mode, so confirm_and_apply(dry_run=true) re-reads the target and re-checks the safety caps instead.

Image Uploads

An image on your computer, or one you attached in the chat, has no public URL, and an AI app cannot hand the file to a tool. upload_images gives it a way in.

The upload ids go into draft_image_assets(upload_ids=[...]), or as upload:<id> into the image fields of draft_reddit_ad on AdLoop Cloud.

Planning Tools

Google Ads Write Tools

All write operations follow a draft → preview → confirm workflow. Nothing executes without explicit approval.

Orchestration Rules

AdLoop ships with orchestration rules that teach the AI how to combine these tools — marketing workflows, GAQL syntax, safety protocols, GDPR awareness, and best practices. Without rules, the AI has tools but doesn't know the playbook.

• Cursor: .cursor/rules/adloop.mdc (canonical source)
• Claude Code: .claude/rules/adloop.md (synced from Cursor rules via scripts/sync-rules.py)

The rules include:

• Orchestration patterns for common workflows (performance review, conversion diagnosis, campaign creation, negative keyword hygiene, keyword discovery, tracking validation, budget planning, landing page analysis)
• GAQL quick reference with syntax, common queries, and gotchas
• Safety rules including Broad Match + Manual CPC prevention and pre-write validation
• Ad copy character limit guidance (30-char headlines are shorter than you think)
• GDPR consent awareness to prevent false tracking diagnoses in EU markets

Slash Commands (Claude Code)

AdLoop includes pre-built slash commands in .claude/commands/ for common workflows:

Safety Model

AdLoop manages real ad spend, so safety is not optional.

• Approval cards. In apps that show MCP Apps (Claude, ChatGPT, VS Code and others), every change appears as a card with Test run and Apply. Only the click applies it: the AI's own confirm_and_apply(dry_run=false) is refused with APPROVE_ON_CARD, whatever it was told in the chat.
• Confirmation dialogs. Apps without cards that support elicitation (Claude Code, for example) get a dialog from AdLoop itself before every real change. The AI cannot answer it; declining changes nothing.
• Two-step writes. Every mutation returns a preview first. A separate confirm_and_apply call is required to execute.
• Dry-run by default. Even confirm_and_apply defaults to dry_run=true. Real changes require explicit dry_run=false.
• Two-phase apply (optional). With safety.two_phase_apply: true, confirm_and_apply refuses dry_run=false until the plan has completed one dry-run pass — preview-then-apply becomes server-enforced instead of a convention.
• Budget caps. Configurable maximum daily budget — the server rejects anything above the cap.
• Audit log. Every operation (including dry runs) is logged to ~/.adloop/audit.log.
• New campaigns and ads are PAUSED. Nothing goes live without manual enablement.
• Destructive ops are flagged for double confirmation. Removing entities or large budget increases come back with extra warnings, and the AI is instructed to confirm twice.
• Broad Match without Smart Bidding caught. The #1 cause of wasted ad spend: draft_campaign refuses BROAD keywords unless the campaign uses Smart Bidding, and draft_keywords / draft_ad_group mark them as dangerous in the preview, so the AI has to raise it before anything is applied.
• Pre-write validation. Before any write, the AI checks bidding strategy, conversion tracking status, and quality scores. If the campaign is fundamentally broken, AdLoop warns you instead of making things worse.
• Structured error handling. All tools return actionable error messages with hints instead of raw exceptions. Auth errors include specific re-authorization steps.
• API version pinning. The Google Ads API version is pinned to prevent silent breaking changes from library updates. health_check warns when a newer version is available.
• Ask mode compatibility. Read tools declare so they work in Cursor's Ask mode without switching to Agent mode.

Setup

AdLoop uses your own (free) Google Cloud project for OAuth. The adloop init wizard walks you through it — a one-time setup of about 5 minutes, with no shared user caps and no waiting on anyone's verification review. AdLoop does not ship built-in OAuth credentials.

Prefer zero setup? AdLoop Cloud is the hosted version: connect Google in two clicks — no Cloud project, no API access application, EU-hosted.

(Upgrading from ≤0.9 with built-in credentials? Those sign-ins were retired in 0.10 — run adloop init once to switch to your own project.)

[!IMPORTANT] Seeing deleted_client: The OAuth client was deleted. or invalid_client? The shared Google Cloud project behind AdLoop ≤0.9's bundled credentials has been shut down, so its stored sign-ins no longer refresh. Two ways forward: AdLoop Cloud (connect Google in two clicks, nothing to configure) or stay self-hosted with pip install -U adloop && adloop init to set up your own free Google Cloud project. Details in the pinned issue (#49).

Install

From PyPI:

pip install adloop
adloop init

From source:

git clone https://github.com/kLOsk/adloop.git
cd adloop
uv sync
uv run adloop init

What adloop init does

The wizard first asks whether to set up Google. Answer no to run AdLoop on Reddit Ads alone: it skips steps 1 to 6 and goes straight to the Reddit step. Otherwise it walks you through:

1. Google Cloud setup — creates a project, enables the three APIs, generates an OAuth client (see Custom Google Cloud Project Setup below for the exact steps the wizard refers you to)
2. Google Ads API access — applied for on your Cloud project's Google Ads API Overview page; the legacy developer-token prompt can be left empty
3. MCC Account ID — optional, only if you reach several accounts through a Manager Account
4. OAuth sign-in — opens a browser to sign in with Google (or prints a URL for headless servers)
5. Auto-discovers your accounts — finds your GA4 properties and Ads accounts automatically
6. Optional services — pin a GTM container, a Search Console property (both auto-discovered too), and a PageSpeed API key; skip any of them with Enter
7. Reddit Ads — optional next to Google, required without it: your own Reddit developer app, sign-in, and the default ad account
8. Safety defaults — budget cap and dry-run preference
9. Toolsets — optionally expose only part of the tool catalog to your AI client (see Toolsets)
10. Editor config snippets — prints MCP configuration for both Cursor and Claude Code, including your toolset selection

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• A Google Ads account (a Manager Account is optional; you only need one to reach several accounts through one login)
• Google Ads API access on your Google Cloud project (see below)

Google Ads API access

Since 9 September 2026, Google Ads API access belongs to the Google Cloud project that owns your OAuth client. Developer tokens are sunset: the API ignores the header, the wizard's token prompt is optional, and you no longer need a Manager Account to get access.

Apply on your project's Google Ads API Overview page in the Cloud Console:

Projects on a Cloud free trial or with billing disabled are refused Explorer and Basic; use a project with billing set up.

Getting CLOUD_PROJECT_NOT_APPROVED_FOR_PRODUCTION? Your project is at Test level. Open the Overview page above and apply for Explorer access.

Headless Servers

Running on a server without a browser (VMs, Docker, SSH)? The wizard automatically detects this and falls back to a manual flow: it prints an authorization URL you can open on any device, then you paste the redirect URL back into the terminal.

Custom Google Cloud Project Setup

The wizard refers to these steps — do them in your browser before running adloop init (or while it waits at the OAuth prompt).

Step 1 — Google Cloud Project

1. Go to console.cloud.google.com and create a new project
2. Enable these three APIs (search for each in the API Library):
   • Google Analytics Data API — for GA4 reports and events
   • Google Analytics Admin API — for listing GA4 properties
   • Google Ads API — for all ads operations

Step 2 — OAuth Credentials

1. In your Google Cloud project, go to APIs & Services → Credentials
2. Click Create Credentials → OAuth client ID
3. Select Desktop app as the application type, give it any name
4. Download the JSON file and save it as ~/.adloop/credentials.json

Service accounts are also supported — just place the service account key JSON at the same credentials_path. AdLoop detects the file type automatically.

Step 3 — Connect to Your Editor

Cursor — Add to your project's .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "adloop": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/adloop/.venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["-m", "adloop"]
    }
  }
}

Then copy .cursor/rules/adloop.mdc from this repo into your project's .cursor/rules/ directory.

Claude Code — Run:

claude mcp add --transport stdio adloop -- /absolute/path/to/adloop/.venv/bin/python -m adloop

Or add to your project's .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "adloop": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/adloop/.venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["-m", "adloop"]
    }
  }
}

Then install the orchestration rules + slash commands globally so every Claude Code session inherits them:

adloop install-rules

This writes a managed block to ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md and copies the slash commands (prefixed adloop-*) into ~/.claude/commands/. The block is delimited by sentinel comments so it's safe to run multiple times — re-running just refreshes the content. Two install modes:

• inline (default) — full rules embedded in ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md. Reliable but adds ~10K tokens to every Claude Code session.
• lazy (adloop install-rules --lazy) — small directive in CLAUDE.md pointing at ~/.claude/rules/adloop.md. Cheaper baseline cost; the LLM reads the rules file only when AdLoop tools are in scope.

To refresh after upgrading AdLoop: adloop update-rules. To remove cleanly: adloop uninstall-rules — only the managed block and adloop-* commands are touched, never your own content.

If you'd rather manage things by hand instead, copy .claude/rules/adloop.md and .claude/commands/ from this repo into your project's .claude/ directory.

Claude Desktop / claude.ai has no programmatic rules location. Run adloop install-rules and it will print the rules content for you to paste into Project settings → Custom instructions on claude.ai.

Use It

Ask your AI assistant things like:

• "How are my Google Ads campaigns performing this month?"
• "Which search terms are wasting budget? Add them as negative keywords."
• "My sign-up conversions dropped — check GA4 and Ads to find out why."
• "Draft a new responsive search ad for my main campaign."
• "Which landing pages get paid traffic but don't convert?"
• "Is my tracking set up correctly? Compare my codebase events against GA4."
• "Audit my Google Tag Manager container — which conversions are being captured and where are the gaps?"
• "What keywords should I target for [product]? Find ideas and estimate the budget."
• "How much budget would I need for these keywords in Germany?"
• "Create a new search campaign for [product feature] with a €20/day budget."

Configuration Reference

All configuration lives in ~/.adloop/config.yaml. See config.yaml.example for a documented template.

Toolsets — trim the context footprint

Most MCP clients (claude.ai, ChatGPT, Cursor, …) load every tool schema into the model's context at the start of every conversation. With AdLoop's full catalog that's a noticeable share of the context window, paid before you type a word. If you only use part of AdLoop, expose a subset with the ADLOOP_TOOLSETS environment variable in your MCP client's env block (the adloop init wizard offers this and writes it into the snippets for you):

"env": { "ADLOOP_TOOLSETS": "ads,ga4" }

Google Ads can be narrowed further. Use one of these instead of ads:

health_check and confirm_and_apply are always included, whatever you select. Unset = the full catalog; unknown names fail at startup with the valid list. The effect is real: ads:read,ga4 costs about 40% of ads,ga4 for audits and diagnosis, and an ads:plan-only client for keyword research pays about 5% of the full catalog. Toolsets are per client, not per install: one AdLoop config can serve a trimmed Cursor and a full-catalog Claude Code side by side.

On AdLoop Cloud, the same feature is per API key: pick toolsets when creating a key in the dashboard, and that key's tools/list is trimmed server-side for whichever AI client uses it.

Project Structure

src/adloop/
├── __init__.py        # Entry point — routes 'adloop init' to wizard, otherwise starts MCP server
├── server.py          # FastMCP server — every tool registration with safety annotations and toolset tags
├── config.py          # Config loader (~/.adloop/config.yaml)
├── auth.py            # OAuth 2.0 flow (user-supplied credentials, headless fallback) + service accounts; GA4 / Ads / GTM scopes
├── cli.py             # Interactive 'adloop init' setup wizard
├── crossref.py        # Cross-reference tools (GA4 + Ads + GTM combined analysis)
├── tracking.py        # Tracking validation + code generation tools
├── ga4/
│   ├── client.py      # GA4 Data + Admin API clients
│   ├── reports.py     # Account summaries, reports, realtime
│   └── tracking.py    # Event discovery
├── ads/
│   ├── client.py      # Google Ads API client (version-pinned) + retry/backoff for rate limits
│   ├── gaql.py        # GAQL query execution with human-readable error parsing
│   ├── read.py        # Campaign, ad, keyword, search term, negative keyword, shared sets, recommendations, audience reads
│   ├── pmax.py        # Performance Max tools — campaign/asset group performance, asset labels, top combinations
│   ├── write.py       # Draft campaign, RSA, keywords; pause, enable, remove, confirm
│   └── forecast.py    # Budget estimation + keyword discovery via Keyword Planner API
├── gtm/
│   ├── client.py      # Google Tag Manager API v2 client
│   └── read.py        # Live container fetching, tag/trigger/variable parsing, workspace diff, version history
├── reddit/
│   ├── auth.py        # Reddit OAuth2 (own app, permanent refresh token, loopback flow for adloop init)
│   ├── client.py      # Reddit Ads API v3 REST client — bearer refresh, per-user rate limits, pagination
│   ├── read.py        # Accounts, campaigns, ad groups, ads, performance reports, pixels, targeting lookups
│   └── write.py       # Draft/preflight/apply for status, budget, bid, targeting, and PAUSED creation
└── safety/
    ├── guards.py      # Budget caps, bid limits, blocked operations, Broad Match safety
    ├── preview.py     # Change plans and previews
    └── audit.py       # Mutation audit logging

Roadmap

What's been shipped and what's next:

• GA4 read tools ✓
• Google Ads read + write tools with safety layer ✓
• Cross-reference intelligence (campaign→conversion mapping, landing page analysis, attribution comparison) ✓
• Tracking utilities (validate events against GA4, generate gtag code) ✓
• Budget estimation + keyword discovery via Keyword Planner ✓
• Shared negative keyword lists (SharedSet API) ✓
• Retry/backoff for API rate limits ✓
• Setup wizard (adloop init) ✓
• Claude Code support ✓ — CLAUDE.md, .mcp.json, .claude/rules/, .claude/commands/, CLI wizard snippets
• Claude Desktop one-click install — adloop install claude-desktop (and/or a .dxt extension bundle) that writes the AdLoop MCP entry into claude_desktop_config.json automatically, so Claude Desktop + Cowork users don't have to hand-edit JSON
• PyPI package ✓ — pip install adloop
• AdLoop Cloud ✓ — the hosted version: no Google Cloud project, no API access application, connect Google in two clicks (EU-hosted, GDPR-first)
• Headless server support ✓ — manual URL copy-paste flow for servers without a browser
• Behavioral eval suites ✓ — prompt-and-expectation tests in tests/evals/ covering read, write, tracking, and planning workflows
• Google Tag Manager integration ✓ — read tools for tags, triggers, variables, workspaces, and version history, plus the audit_event_coverage three-way join across codebase events, GTM tags, and GA4 actual fires
• Community launch — HN, Indie Hackers, r/cursor, Twitter
• Video walkthrough

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines. The short version: open an issue describing your situation first, then submit a PR if you want to build it.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Privacy

The open-source version runs entirely on your machine. No data is collected, stored, or transmitted to any server. See PRIVACY.md for the full privacy policy. AdLoop Cloud has its own privacy policy and DPA.