Google Discover Ads for Bike Shops: Putting Bike Brands in the Feed

Google Discover ads suit bike brands more than resellers. They run inside Demand Gen campaigns and do branding and light retargeting before spring and Black Friday, putting your bikes into the feed people scroll through on their phones. In the four bike shop accounts I’ve run over the last four years, bike brands lean on Discover and YouTube, while resellers lean on Gmail.

This post is part of the complete guide to Google Ads for bike shops.

What are Google Discover ads now?

Discover ads are ads in the Discover feed, the stream of articles and videos Google suggests on mobile. There’s no separate Discover campaign any more: Discovery campaigns were upgraded to Demand Gen in early 2024 (PPC Land), and Discover is now one of the channels you can choose inside Demand Gen, next to YouTube, Gmail and the Google Display Network (Google Ads Help).

Why do Discover ads suit bike brands?

Because Discover reaches people while they’re reading content. That’s a good moment to make a brand known, and a poor one for a price comparison. A bike brand wants people to see its bikes often enough to search for the name later; Discover helps with that, alongside YouTube.

A reseller is in a different position: its strength is the offer on bikes people can buy anywhere. For resellers, Gmail and Search usually do more with the same budget.

When should a bike shop run Discover ads?

Shortly before each peak:

• Before spring, ahead of the first sunny days, when bike sales jump in the accounts I run.
• Before Black Friday, using the quiet autumn months. Late September and October have low CPCs, while CPCs around Black Friday are about double.

How do you set up Discover ads for a bike shop?

Create a Demand Gen campaign and give Discover its own ad group:

1. Make sure conversion tracking works, then create a new Demand Gen campaign.
2. In the ad group settings, open Channels and choose Let me choose (Google Ads Help).
3. Select Discover only, and untick YouTube, Gmail, Maps and the Display Network.
4. Choose your audience: past visitors and customers for retargeting, or custom segments built from brand + type bike searches.
5. Add image ads, or a product feed from Merchant Center.

The steps are the same as for a Gmail-only ad group, explained in how to set up ads on Gmail. A separate ad group lets you decide how much Discover gets and judge it on its own results.

What images work in Discover ads for bikes?

Discover is a visual feed, so the image does most of the work:

• The bike as the main subject, large and in focus.
• Real riding, matched to the bike type: commuting in a city, a trail, a gravel road.
• One clear message: a new model, a spring range, a Black Friday offer.
• Bikes and large accessories only. Small parts rarely earn enough to justify the ad after delivery costs.

How do Discover ads compare with Gmail and YouTube?

Across the 12 online stores whose Demand Gen campaigns I manage (not only bike shops), Discover usually converts a bit worse than Gmail and YouTube. For a bike brand, there’s more to it: Discover’s job is to make the brand known, and the results show up later in brand searches. Judge it against your break-even ROAS at account level, including the brand searches it helps create later.

For how Discover fits into the full budget and year, read the complete guide to Google Ads for bike shops.