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A good pilot shows that your storefront agent can answer the kinds of briefs you want to win, not just that a campaign can reach the ad server. Keep execution small: one ad server, one or two buyers, a handful of real brief and response pairs, and one no-spend campaign. Give the storefront agent enough inventory, signals, pricing and selling guidance to make those briefs interesting.
Where Semicola is today. You can save a Google Ad Manager connection (your network code), but Semicola doesn’t read inventory from GAM or traffic orders to it yet. Before any GAM connection can be saved, Semicola must configure its GAM service account on your environment, and you add that account as a user in your GAM network; until then the connection form says it isn’t configured. Everything in this checklist that happens inside Semicola (products, signals, material, pricing, rules, practice briefs, sandbox test runs) works now. The GAM trafficking and GAM delivery steps don’t, and are marked below.

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What the publisher needs

  • A verified Seller account with your name and brand domain (Listing page, or save_seller and set_storefront_operator_domain).
  • A Google Ad Manager connection. Add Semicola’s service account as a user in your GAM network with the access needed to read inventory and traffic the test campaign, then save the connection with your network code. Not available yet: Semicola configures the service account first, and GAM reads and trafficking aren’t built.
  • A separate sandbox advertiser in GAM for the no-spend test, never a live or default advertiser. Not available yet: Semicola can’t create or map a GAM advertiser. Inside Semicola, the no-spend test runs through a sandbox advertiser instead (see Sandbox).
  • Representative inventory. The properties, placements, formats and channels needed for the briefs you want to test, as products (save_wholesale_product). Don’t limit the pilot to a generic run-of-site package if that isn’t what you want to sell.
  • Useful signals. Turn the audience segments and contextual targeting you already use in GAM into signals (save_signal), enough to show how the offer changes for different briefs. See Signals.
  • Useful sales material. Enough for the agent to explain who you reach, why your properties and editorial contexts matter, which formats or sponsorships are distinctive, and what proof supports those claims. A media kit, audience cards and case studies are more useful than a media kit alone (save_material; see Library).
  • Pricing it can apply. The currency and the price guidance that matters for the pilot: target prices or floors, when each applies, and any audience, context, format or sponsorship premium or minimum spend the test briefs should trigger. Record them as playbook pricing facts (hard_floor, default or guidance) and product floors. One generic CPM isn’t enough if the offers are meant to differ. See Playbook.
  • Basic selling choices. Which advertisers you don’t accept, which creative formats are allowed, and whether you want to approve the media buy or creative before it runs (AI Business Rules, save_business_rules, with mediaBuyApproval and creativeApproval set to manual).
  • Real brief and response pairs. Three to five recent briefs you actually received, with the proposal you sent for each. Pick examples that show different demand (broad reach, a valuable audience, contextual relevance, a distinctive sponsorship) and a declined or no-fit brief if you have one. Sanitize them if you need to, but keep the objective, audience or context, market, flight, budget, important constraints, recommended plan, price logic and why it fit. Mark pricing or availability that is no longer current. Import each as an RFP (save_rfp with origin: "imported") and attach what you sent (attach_response). Use made-up briefs only when real ones aren’t available.
  • One test buyer. Decide who takes part. The no-spend campaign runs from a sandbox advertiser and goes through your media buy approval gate like any other buy.
  • A billing choice. Decide whether Semicola or you bill the buyer. If you bill directly, an admin on the buyer’s account accepts direct billing on its connection to your storefront before a paid campaign.
  • Discovery plus one executed test. Check that the storefront agent returns relevant, differentiated products for each agreed brief. Then take one proposal through campaign creation, creative review, trafficking and a simple delivery report. Today the executed test runs as a sandbox media buy with simulated delivery (save_test_run); GAM trafficking isn’t available yet.
Direct billing doesn’t change the inventory setup. It changes who sends the invoice, not how inventory is connected or merchandised.

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Read the response like a buyer

Run the real briefs again as practice RFPs and compare each answer with what you actually sent. Ask five questions:
  • Does it reflect the buyer’s objective and constraints?
  • Does it make a specific case for you, using relevant audience, context, selling points or proof, not generic reach language?
  • Is the plan coherent: the right products, formats, price, currency, flight and budget?
  • Does it clearly say what’s missing, unsupported, or a reason not to answer the brief?
  • Could you send it after a quick factual review, rather than rewriting it?
If not, fix the missing inventory, signal, price guidance or material, then re-run the same brief (save_rfp with append_turn) and grade it (record_feedback). See RFP lifecycle.

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Only add these if the pilot uses them

  • Public buyer discovery. Listing on the marketplace is a separate step; a named-buyer pilot can start privately.
  • Live GAM advertiser routing for paid activity. Not available yet.
  • Paid delivery. Confirm the direct-billed buyer can be invoiced, or finish Semicola billing setup, before moving from no-spend testing to paid media.

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What Semicola helps with

Semicola turns your products, signals, material, pricing and rules into the storefront agent’s answers, gives buyers an agent to buy through, and runs the test from brief to report. You supply the inventory choices, commercial terms, creative rules, GAM access and approvals.

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The pilot is complete when

  • The storefront agent produces relevant, differentiated products for the agreed briefs, not the same generic package every time.
  • The products use the expected inventory, signals, formats and pricing.
  • The proposal answers the buyer’s objective, explains why the plan fits, gives clear terms, and doesn’t invent support you haven’t supplied.
  • The no-spend campaign and creative reach GAM under the sandbox advertiser. Not possible yet; today the sandbox test run is the closest check.
  • Your approval choices are followed.
  • Delivery can be read back in a simple report.
For full setup, see Seller onboarding and Inventory sources.