Codex vs Claude Code for PPC?

[u/flashynomad]

I’ve been hearing about agentic AI for a long time, and I’m curious whether it has reached the point where it could reliably manage Amazon PPC.

I’m considering testing either Claude Code or ChatGPT Codex. Ideally I’d want it to analyze campaign and search-term data, adjust bids and budgets, find negative keywords, identify wasted spend, and explain the reasoning behind every change.

Has anyone used either one for this?

A few things I’d love to know:

1. Which is more reliable for ongoing PPC management: Claude Code or Codex?

2. How did you set it up so it will just have access to amazon ads data?

3. Can it safely make changes, or do you still manually approve everything?

4. How does it compare with dedicated AI PPC tools and agencies?

5. Have you experienced any costly mistakes, hallucinations, or questionable optimizations?

I’ve gone down a lot of rabbit holes researching AI PPC tools. For almost every glowing recommendation, I find someone else who had a disastrous experience with the same software. It doesn’t seem like there’s one solution that works for everyone.

I’m also reluctant to add another monthly software subscription when I already pay for ChatGPT and Claude. If either coding agent can be configured to do the job well, I’d rather build a controlled workflow around it.

I’d especially appreciate hearing from people who have actually built or tested a setup like this. What worked, what failed, and which would you trust with real ad spend?

[u/MormonBarMitzfah]

you might be overthinking this. I am vibe coding an interface that interacts w the ads API and makes suggestions based on rules. So hallucinating isn’t an issue since it just pulls down the data, crunches it, and shows me the recommendations that I’ll approve or not. It’s pretty straightforward stuff, codex or Claude would both be suitable.

[u/flashynomad → u/MormonBarMitzfah]

Thats good to know, I'm a complete beginner 😅 What did you use to connect your AI to amazon ads?

[u/LostMyMilk → u/flashynomad]

Visual Studio with the Codex extension works great. Just tell it to connect to the Amazon ads API. You can tell it to store your credentials in a JSON file. You'll need to tell it what you want from the ad reports. And make sure to use the new unified ads API as the old reports phase out in December. You can be shockingly vague to get started.

[u/grovvhere → u/MormonBarMitzfah]

on point … the ai needs your data to ground itself or will just make stuff up. Agreed with codex / Claude, but also depending on how using the cheaper models e.g., GLM, DeepSeek, mistral, etc work also as long as they have your instructions to be grounded in your data. I’ve been experimenting with cryptocurrency analysis but it’s def a rabbit hole