A PPC practitioner on r/PPC described using Claude Code and Codex not for summaries or ad copy ideas but for operating accounts: pulling data, inspecting tracking, finding wasted spend, drafting search ads and sometimes pushing changes back.
How to automate negative keywords with Claude Code
The setup connects the Google Ads API, GA4, Search Console, the CRM, offline conversions and, where relevant, Meta. His main lesson is that Google Ads alone is not enough context: the platform can say a keyword converted but not that sales later marked the lead useless, so a model that only sees Ads will confidently optimise the wrong thing.
The most useful routine is the boring one. A script pulls the search term report, another pulls spend by campaign and ad group, another pulls CRM outcomes, and the agent compares them and lists negative keyword candidates with a reason for each. He also built a tracking check covering GA4, tag manager, conversion actions, forms and offline uploads, because many apparent ads problems are really tracking problems. He finds Codex stronger on data and Claude Code stronger on language.
His guardrails matter as much as the tooling. Open ended prompts produce invented answers, so he only trusts output generated from saved files and scripts, has a second model review the findings, and allows write access only with staged actions, a change log and a stated reason.
Why it works
Small accounts rarely get deep weekly analysis because the hours do not pay. When an agent does the first pass, the human reviews decisions instead of digging.
How to copy it
Start read only. Script one search term plus CRM comparison and run it weekly before letting anything write.
Credit: u/kaancata on Reddit