How to Connect Meta Ads to ChatGPT via MCP

💡 No install? Use cloud.anythingmcp.com directly. Sign in, click Connectors → Meta Ads, paste your credentials, mint an MCP API key and you're done. No Docker, no git clone, no local server.

Meta Ads + ChatGPT

Let your AI analyse your Facebook and Instagram ads: spend, reach, clicks and conversions by campaign, ad set, ad, age, country or placement, plus campaigns, creatives, audiences and change history. Can pause or activate ads and change budgets after confirmation.

Prerequisites

See the full setup instructions baked into the connector (visible in the in-app store when you select the connector). The required environment variables for this connector are:

META_ADS_ACCESS_TOKEN, META_ADS_ACCOUNT_ID

Step 1 — Get credentials

1. Open https://developers.facebook.com/apps/creation/ and create an app with the use case Create & manage ads with Marketing API, connected to your business portfolio. This adds the permissions ads_read, ads_management and business_management.
2. Recommended, a token that never expires: in Business Settings (https://business.facebook.com/settings) open Users → System users and add a system user (role Admin, or Employee for read-only). Under Assign assets, give it your ad account (Manage campaigns, or View performance for read-only). Click Generate token, pick the app, choose Never as expiry and tick ads_read, plus ads_management for status and budget changes. Meta can ask you to verify the business portfolio first (Business Settings → Security Center); until that is done, use the token of step 3.
3. Quicker, for a test: in the Graph API Explorer (https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer/) pick your app and a User Token with ads_read and ads_management. It lasts one or two hours, so open it in the Access Token Debugger (https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/accesstoken) and click Extend Access Token to get a 60-day token.
4. Paste the token into META_ADS_ACCESS_TOKEN (it starts with EA; paste it without the word Bearer). Put the ad account id into META_ADS_ACCOUNT_ID with the act_ prefix, for example act_1234567890. Ads Manager shows the number in the address bar (act=1234567890).
5. Install the connector and run meta_ads_list_ad_accounts. It lists every ad account the token can reach, with its status, currency and time zone.

Access level: a new app has Limited access (formerly Standard). That is enough for the ad accounts of your own business, but heavily rate limited. Ad accounts of other businesses need Full access (formerly Advanced) through App Review. Leave Require App Secret (App settings → Advanced) switched off: with it on, Meta refuses the connector's calls.

Confirm first: meta_ads_update_status pauses or activates a campaign, ad set or ad, and meta_ads_update_budget changes a daily or lifetime budget. Both act at once and change what you spend: activating starts spending, pausing stops delivery. The AI names the object (name and id), the current and the new value, and waits for your yes. An ad only delivers when the ad, its ad set and its campaign are all ACTIVE. Budgets are whole numbers in the minor unit of the account currency (2000 means 20.00 EUR); currencies such as JPY or KRW have no minor unit.

What it reads: ad accounts, campaigns, ad sets with their targeting, ads with the reason one does not deliver, creatives, custom and lookalike audiences, the change history (who changed what and when) and performance. Insights give spend, reach, clicks and conversions for the account or for one campaign, ad set or ad, for a preset such as the last 7 days or last month or for any dates up to 37 months back, per day if you like, and split by age, gender, country, region or placement.

Common errors: 190: the token is invalid or expired, so create a new one. 10 or 200 to 299: a permission is missing (294 means ads_management) or the token has no access to this ad account. 100: a parameter is wrong; with subcode 1487534 the request is too large, so shorten the period or drop breakdowns. 4, 17, 613, 80000 and 80004 are rate limits: wait a few minutes.

The connector creates nothing: it does not create or edit campaigns, ad sets, ads, creatives or audiences, upload media, or handle lead forms, pixels or the Conversions API.

Step 2 — Install the adapter

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelpCode-ai/anythingmcp/main/docker-compose.quickstart.yml -o docker-compose.yml
printf 'JWT_SECRET=%s\nENCRYPTION_KEY=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" > .env
docker compose up -d

Step 3 — Add the connector in ChatGPT

Your server URL: in AnythingMCP, open MCP Servers → the server this connector is on, and copy its URL (https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/…). Use it wherever this guide shows YOUR_SERVER_ID.

ChatGPT adds MCP servers as plugins on its Plugins page, on the web and on paid plans. Developer mode is no longer needed. In a Business workspace only admins and owners can add one; in Enterprise and Edu an admin can grant the Create plugins with MCPs permission.

1. Go to chatgpt.com/plugins, click +, then Add custom MCP server.
2. Enter a name, e.g. Name: Meta Ads.
3. Under Connection, enter the Server URL https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/YOUR_SERVER_ID and keep Authentication on OAuth.
4. Select I understand and want to continue, then Create as a plugin. When ChatGPT asks, sign in to AnythingMCP and allow access.
5. Install the new plugin from your personal plugins, then type @ in a chat and pick it.

Available tools

Example prompts

• "How much did we spend on Facebook and Instagram last month, and which campaign had the lowest cost per purchase?"
• "Break down the last 30 days of spend and clicks by age, gender and placement."
• "Which of our ads are not delivering right now, and why?"
• "Raise the daily budget of our best performing campaign by 20 percent, but show me the current and the new budget before you change it."

FAQ

Does the free ChatGPT plan work with custom MCP servers? OpenAI documents custom MCP servers for paid plans only; the Free plan is not on its list.

Next steps

• Connector landing page
• Connect to Claude
• Connect to Cursor
• Connect to Gemini
• Connect to Meta Muse