Bray's tip to be more present with your team and clients, with a little help from AI

What is this?

You know how you have to log into Facebook Ads Manager, click around, and try to work out why your ads did or didn't work?

You can now skip that. You can just ask.

Facebook (Meta) built a proper, official connection between your ad account and AI chat tools like Claude. Once it's set up, you type a normal question and get a normal answer.

That's it. No spreadsheets. No exports. No pivot tables.

Is this safe?

Yes, if you use the official one. This is the important bit, so read this section even if you skip the rest.

There are lots of dodgy AI tools out there that promise to run your Facebook ads. Some of them get your whole Business Manager account shut down. Meta doesn't like tools that pretend to be a person clicking around.

This guide only uses Meta's own official connection. It's the front door they built themselves. It's the safe one.

Think of it like your salon's back door. You give a key to your staff. You don't leave it unlocked for whoever wanders past.

What you need before you start

Before you start

Three things. With them, the setup below takes ten minutes.

• A Facebook Business accountWhere you can already see and edit your ads yourself
• A Claude accountThe free one works. It just limits you to one connected tool at a time
• Ten minutesOnce. You never have to do this part again

If you can't do something yourself in Ads Manager, the AI can't either. It only ever gets the same keys you have.

How to set it up

The whole thing, at a glance

Ten minutes, once. Step 6 is the one people rush.

• Open Claude. Settings, then Connectors
• Add custom connector. Paste mcp.facebook.com/ads
• Log in to Facebook. Check you are in the right account
• Choose read only. Look, don't touch, for now
• Tick your accounts only. Say no to “all current and future”
• Ask it a test question. “Show me my ad accounts”

Anything it builds for you starts switched off. Nothing goes live and nothing spends a cent until you turn it on yourself.

1. Open Claude. Go to Settings, then Connectors.
2. Click Add custom connector.
3. Give it a name. Type: Meta Ads
4. Copy this address in exactly: https://mcp.facebook.com/ads
5. Click save. Facebook will pop up and ask you to log in.
6. Stop and check which Facebook account you're logged into. This is the step people get wrong. If you look after more than one salon or more than one business page, make sure you're in the right one before you click.
7. Choose how much the AI is allowed to do. Facebook offers three levels:
   • Read onlyStart here It can look, but not touch.
   • Read and write It can look and make changes to your ads.
   • Read, write and money It can also do financial things.
   Pick “read only” for now. You can always give it more later. Let it prove itself first.
8. Choose which businesses and ad accounts to connect. It will offer to connect everything you have now and everything you get in future. Say no to this. Tick the specific accounts you actually want. It takes ten extra seconds and it means the AI can never wander somewhere it shouldn't.
9. Done. Go back to Claude.

Check it worked

Open a new chat and type:

Show me my Facebook ad accounts.

If it lists your salon, and only your salon, you're connected properly. Then try:

Show me how much I spent and how many bookings I got from each ad in the last 14 days.

Things worth asking it

Copy and paste any of these:

• Which ads are costing me money and getting me nothing?
• Why did my results drop last week?
• Am I showing the same ad to the same people over and over?
• Which of my ads gets the cheapest bookings?
• Explain this to me like I don't work in marketing.
• What should I stop spending money on?

That last one is the best value in the whole list.

What it can and can't do

The safety net

Here's the reassuring bit: anything the AI creates starts switched off.

If you ask it to build a new ad, it builds it and leaves it paused. Nothing goes live and nothing spends a cent until you go in and turn it on.

So the worst case isn't “it blew my budget overnight.” The worst case is “it built something silly and I didn't use it.”

Four rules to keep you out of trouble

1. Look before you touch. Spend the first couple of weeks just asking questions. Don't give it permission to change anything yet. Honestly, the questions are where most of the value is anyway.
2. You are still the boss. Read what it suggests. Decide yourself. It's a very fast assistant, not a replacement for your judgement.
3. Don't let it fiddle constantly. Facebook's system needs time to learn who your customers are. If you change budgets every day, you reset that learning and your ads get worse. Leave things alone.
4. It answers questions fast. It doesn't know what question to ask. It won't tell you your offer is weak, your photos are dated, or your prices are wrong. That's still your job.

What does it cost?

Nothing. The connection is free while it's in testing. You still pay for your ads as normal, but the tool itself is free. Meta hasn't said what it'll charge later, if anything.

If something goes wrong

To turn it off: remove the connector in Claude and disconnect it in your Facebook Business settings. Do both, not just one.

In one paragraph

Go to Claude → Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste https://mcp.facebook.com/ads → log into the right Facebook account → choose read only → tick only your own ad accounts → start asking questions. It's free, anything it builds stays switched off until you say so, and it can't do anything you couldn't already do yourself.

This is Meta's official tool and it's still fairly new, so bits of it may change. If a step doesn't look right, search “Meta Ads AI connectors” in Facebook's Business Help Centre for their current instructions.