Before the first check: registration
Merchant Center’s API needs the calling Google Cloud project registered with each account. Until that is done, every request fails with a message that the project is not registered. The Bot can do the registration for you, but it must run under a Google login with admin access on that Merchant Center account, and it is needed once per account.
After that, connect Merchant Center in the MCP Ads dashboard (it shares the Google sign-in with Google Ads and GA4, with its own permission). More on the tool set is on the Merchant Center MCP page.
Connect it in a minute
Before you paste it, open the MCP Ads dashboard, go to Connect MCP → API keys and create a key. It is shown once, so copy it then. Make one key per Bot, so you can revoke one without breaking the others. Grok Bot's sign-in flow for custom servers does not complete today, which is why the Bot uses the key header; in Grok chat or Grok Build you can instead add a custom connector at grok.com/connectors with the same URL and sign in with the browser.
Then paste this into Grok Bot:
Connectors in Grok are account-wide, so once MCP Ads is added every Bot you make can use it. The Bot sees only the platforms and ad accounts you connected in MCP Ads, under the same workspace scope as the web app. MCP Ads is a free trial, then $49/month flat; Grok bills its own usage separately. The full setup is on the Grok Bot page and in the quickstart.
- Add a custom MCP connector:
- - Name: MCP Ads
- - URL: https://mcp-ads.com/mcp-slim
- - Header: Authorization: Bearer <paste your mcp_live_ key>
- Then list my Merchant Center accounts, check that each is registered for the API, and give me the count of disapproved products per country.
What the Bot can read
Product health: a status summary per country and destination (Shopping ads, free listings and so on) with counts of approved, pending and disapproved products and the top issues; individual products with their status and item-level issues; and, for any product, the issue rendered as Merchant Center shows it, with an explanation, impact and fix steps.
Account health: account-level issues such as suspensions, policy warnings and missing settings, also available with Google’s explanation and steps; programs and whether each is enabled; terms of service still to accept; business info, homepage claim status, shipping settings and return policies.
Performance: top products by clicks, impressions, click-through rate, conversions or conversion value for a date range, and a report query for anything more specific. Plus data sources, promotions and their approval status, and local or regional inventory for a product.
| Question | What the Bot uses |
|---|---|
| How many products are disapproved, and why? | Status summary with top issues |
| What exactly is wrong with this product? | Product issues rendered with fix steps |
| Is the whole account at risk? | Account issues |
| Which products earn the clicks? | Product performance by clicks or conversions |
| Did the feed update? | Data sources and file upload results |
Prompts to give the Bot
The morning check is the one that pays: disapprovals rarely announce themselves, and a best seller can be out of Shopping ads for days before anyone notices the sales dip.
- “Every morning at 7, get the Merchant Center status summary. If disapproved products went up since yesterday, message me the new issues and the top five affected products by clicks over the last 30 days. Otherwise say nothing.”
- “Every Monday at 8, list my top 20 products by clicks last week and flag any that are now disapproved or pending.”
- “Every day, check account-level issues and tell me immediately about any suspension or policy warning.”
- “Explain why product en~US~SKU123 is disapproved, and what I need to change.”
- “Which promotions are pending or disapproved?”
- “When did my scheduled product feed last fetch, and did it report issues?”
What it will not do without your approval
The Bot can prepare product changes (a price, availability, a title), local and regional inventory, promotions, shipping settings, return policies, and account changes. All of them are writes that go through the approval and workspace controls in MCP Ads. Several Merchant Center actions are worth a slow read before you approve: disabling a program or unclaiming the homepage stops listings serving, deleting a data source removes the products only it supplies, and deleting an account cannot be undone.
A practical rule: let the Bot diagnose freely, and fix recurring problems at the source (your store or feed) rather than by patching products one at a time through the API.
Honest limits
Fixing an issue does not clear it at once: Google re-reviews products, and approval can take time after a change. A Bot that re-checks the next morning will tell you whether it held.
Product changes made through the API belong to the data source you make them in. If the same product comes from a scheduled file feed, the next fetch can bring the old values back, which is another reason to fix the feed itself. And the performance view covers clicks and conversions as Merchant Center reports them; for cost and ROAS, pair it with the Google Ads Shopping reports.
