How to fix: Geo targeting set to Presence or interest instead of Presence

TL;DR

Google Ads defaults Search campaigns to the "Presence or interest" location target, which serves ads to anyone interested in your locations even when they are not physically there. For locally-bounded service businesses this leaks budget on impressions that cannot convert. Switch every locally-bounded Search campaign to "Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations" — a one-click change at campaign level [1].

Why it matters

The default advanced location option in Google Ads uses both physical location and location of interest to decide where ads can appear [1]. In practice this means a plumber in Lviv with location target "Lviv" will also show ads to someone in Kyiv researching "plumbers in Lviv" for an article, a relative, or curiosity. The interested-in searcher will never become a customer for a local service business, but Google still bills the click and counts the impression against the campaign's auction budget.

The magnitude of the leak depends on geo-popularity. Tourist cities, regional capitals, and country names attract disproportionate interest traffic from outside the target area. On audited local-service accounts (home services, clinics, restaurants, brick-and-mortar retail), the share of out-of-area impressions on default-setting campaigns commonly runs 15-40% of total — directly recoverable conversion-rate improvement once filtered. Smart Bidding cannot rescue these accounts because the bidding signal it learns from includes the noise of non-converting interest traffic, so target CPA drifts upward over time.

The setting persists in real accounts because the "Location options" sub-menu is collapsed by default in the Locations settings panel, and the default selection on new-campaign creation is "Presence or interest". A merchant building a campaign from the standard new-campaign flow has no prompt to review the choice [2]. Many accounts have run on the default for years.

This rule applies narrowly. National-shipping ecommerce, SaaS sold remotely, and B2B with broad geographic acceptance should keep "Presence or interest" — the interest signal there represents legitimate purchase intent from users who will buy regardless of physical location. Apply only where the service is physically delivered inside the targeted area.

How to fix

1. Open the campaign's Location settings (Campaign → Settings → Locations → Location options). The Location options block may be collapsed by default — expand it.
2. Switch the 'Target' selector from "Presence or interest: People in, regularly in, or who've shown interest in your targeted locations" to "Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations" [1].
3. Leave the 'Exclude' selector on 'Presence or interest'. This way any geo you have explicitly excluded also filters out interested-in users, not just residents — preventing leakage from excluded regions [1].
4. Repeat for every locally-bounded Search campaign. PMax campaigns inherit the same location option logic via their audience signal and location configuration; review them too if the service area is locally bounded.
5. Verify after 7 days in the Locations report (Insights and reports → When and where ads showed → Locations). Filter to the affected campaigns. Out-of-target locations should show near-zero impressions; if they still accrue significant impressions, recheck that the change saved correctly and that no overlapping location target (e.g. a country added on top of a city) is widening the radius.

Common mistakes

• Applying the fix to national-shipping ecom. Removing the interest signal cuts off legitimate demand from buyers searching from any geography. Apply this fix only when service delivery is physically bounded.
• Changing only 'Target' but not reviewing 'Exclude'. The exclude side should stay on "Presence or interest" so excluded geos filter both physical and interested-in users.
• Forgetting to re-run learning checks. After the switch, Smart Bidding strategies (tCPA, tROAS, Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value) re-enter a short learning phase as the impression mix shifts; expect 7-14 days for performance to re-stabilize before judging the change.
• Confusing 'Location' with 'Location of interest'. The two terms in Google's UI describe different audience populations; do not assume "Presence" excludes residents who occasionally travel — Google still treats "regularly in" as inside the location.
• Applying account-wide without segmenting. Some advertisers have a mix of locally-delivered and remotely-delivered services on one account; review campaign by campaign rather than via account-level bulk edit.

FAQ

Will impressions drop? Yes, by design. The campaign stops paying for non-resident clicks. Conversion volume should hold steady or rise because the remaining impressions concentrate on convertible users.

Does this apply to PMax? Yes, conceptually — PMax campaigns use the same location targeting option logic. Review each PMax campaign's location settings independently.

Does Smart Bidding need to re-learn? Expect a 7-14 day re-learning window because the impression mix changes meaningfully. Avoid stacking other major changes (budget shifts > 20%, target CPA / target ROAS edits) during that window.

What if my service area is a radius around an address? The rule still applies. "Presence" means the user is physically within the radius — exactly what you want for a service-area business.

Is there any case to keep 'Presence or interest' for a local business? Rarely. One edge case is a tourist-facing local business (hotel, attraction, tour operator) where pre-trip planners search the destination before arriving. Even then, layer with audience signals rather than rely on interest-based geo targeting alone.

Sources

1. Google Ads Help — About location targeting. Describes the default "Presence or interest" behavior and the option to switch to "Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations" — the canonical source for the recommendation in this article.
2. Google Ads Help — Target ads to geographic locations. Documents the location targeting setup workflow and where the "Location options" sub-menu sits in campaign settings.
3. Google Ads Help — Glossary: location targeting. Definition reference for the location targeting setting used throughout this article.
4. Wikipedia — Google Ads. Background reference on the Google Ads platform, including its location targeting feature set.