A guide for managing Google Ads campaigns through the Google Ads API using Python. An API is a software interface that lets code read and change advertising account data.

Creating ads and campaigns, checking performance, finding wasted spend, optimizing keywords, changing budgets, pausing underperforming keywords, and auditing account settings.

It helps avoid configuration mistakes, rejected ads, broken landing pages, wasted spending, and accidental changes to the wrong campaign or keyword.

google-ads — Skill for Claude Code and Codex by pbc-os/smb-starter-kit

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent

npx skills add pbc-os/smb-starter-kit --skill google-ads

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pbc-os/smb-starter-kit

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/pbc-os/smb-starter-kit/google-ads/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/pbc-os/smb-starter-kit/google-ads)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/pbc-os/smb-starter-kit/google-ads"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/pbc-os/smb-starter-kit/google-ads/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/pbc-os/smb-starter-kit/google-ads"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/pbc-os/smb-starter-kit/google-ads.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 39 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 2,633 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan A 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00039	$0.02633
Opus 5.5	$0.00016	$0.01053
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00008	$0.00527
Haiku 4.5	$0.00004	$0.00263

Measured 2mo ago against content hash d3f880238b35, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

google-ads scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2mo ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

curl -sI "https://your-landing-page.com/path" | head -2

skills/tier-4-growth/google-ads/SKILL.md · 356 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 356 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Google Ads Management Skill

Comprehensive skill for managing Google Ads accounts via the Google Ads API.

Why This Skill Exists

The Problem:
Google Ads management requires precise, methodical work. Missed settings cause wasted spend. Forgotten fields cause API rejections. Small mistakes compound into big losses.

The Solution:
This skill provides battle-tested checklists, query templates, and workflows for common Google Ads operations. It captures lessons learned from real production use — the gotchas that aren't in the official docs.

What it prevents:

Campaign creation with broken landing pages ($$ wasted on 404s)
RSA text rejections (character limits are strict)
Missing required fields that cause API errors
Pausing the wrong campaigns
Forgetting to set end dates on promotional campaigns

When to Use This Skill

Task	Use This Skill
Check campaign performance	✅ Yes
Create new campaigns/ads	✅ Yes
Find wasted spend	✅ Yes
Pause underperforming keywords	✅ Yes
Adjust budgets	✅ Yes
Audit account health	✅ Yes
Billing/payment issues	❌ No (use Google support)

Setup Verification

The agent should verify API access before proceeding:

# Check for API configuration
ls ~/.google-ads.yaml 2>/dev/null && echo "API config found" || echo "No API config — see references/api-setup.md"

# Check for SDK
python3 -c "from google.ads.googleads.client import GoogleAdsClient; print('SDK installed')" 2>/dev/null || echo "SDK not installed — run: pip install google-ads"

If API is not configured, guide the user through references/api-setup.md. The API approach is strongly recommended — it's reliable, automatable, and doesn't depend on UI changes.

Campaign Creation Checklist

⚠️ COMPLETE THIS BEFORE CREATING ANY CAMPAIGN

This checklist exists because every item has caused real-world failures:

1. Pre-Flight Verification

# ALWAYS verify landing page is live
curl -sI "https://your-landing-page.com/path" | head -2
# Must return: HTTP/2 200 or HTTP/1.1 200 OK

# Why? We've seen campaigns launch with 404 landing pages. 
# All ad spend went to a broken page. Verify FIRST.

Read the full file on GitHub · 356 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

2mo ago First seen · 356 lines · 39 tokens per session scan A d3f880238b35

Subscribe to this mod's changes

google-ads is a skill published in the GitHub repository pbc-os/smb-starter-kit (10 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 39 tokens to every session and 2,633 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

Analytics and metrics Marketing and SEO

google-ads next to 6 skills from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
google-adspbc-os/smb-starter-kit	Skill	10	5mo ago	MIT	A	39	Claude Code, Codex
imagegenopenai/codex	Skill	133k	yesterday	Apache-2.0	A	113	Codex
playwright-climicrosoft/playwright	Skill	99k	yesterday	Apache-2.0	A	19	Claude Code
local-ai-agentsmicrosoft/ai-agents-for-beginners	Skill	79k	4d ago	MIT	A	200	Claude Code, Codex
systematic-debuggingobra/superpowers	Skill	313k	3d ago	MIT	A	21	Claude Code
next-cache-components-adoptionvercel/next.js	Skill	143k	yesterday	MIT	A	95	Claude Code
next-partial-prefetching-adoptionvercel/next.js	Skill	143k	yesterday	MIT	A	103	Claude Code

google-ads