Google Ads location targeting: when to choose Presence over Presence or interest
Part of Google Ads placements
The short answer
Google Ads offers two location options. Presence or interest, the default, reaches people who are in or regularly in a targeted area plus people who have shown interest in it. Presence reaches only people likely to be in or regularly in the area. A campaign that can only serve Canadian customers should switch to Presence.
Key takeaways
- Presence or interest is the default setting and adds people anywhere who show interest in a targeted place; Presence keeps only people likely to be there or regularly there.
- Location exclusions always work on Presence, so excluding the United States removes people likely located there, not people interested in it.
- On the Display Network Google may infer a location from the page itself, so a placement about a Canadian city can carry a Canada campaign to readers in another country under the default setting.
- Google calls location targeting its best effort and says 100 percent accuracy is not guaranteed, so the Matched locations view is the only proof of where ads served.
What is the difference between Presence and Presence or interest in Google Ads?
Every Google Ads campaign that targets a place also answers a quieter question: who counts as being in that place. Google's advanced location options page (opens in a new tab) gives two answers. Presence or interest, the default and the option Google recommends, reaches people who are likely to be in or regularly present in the targeted location, as well as people who have shown interest in it. Presence reaches only people who are likely to be located, or regularly located, in the locations targeted.
Definition
- Location of interest
- A place a person has shown interest in through Google's signals, such as search terms that name it, past searches, past physical locations, Maps searches, a custom search location, or the content of the page where an ad appears. It is not limited to the person's own country.
The word regularly matters. Google's page on how it determines geographic location (opens in a new tab) builds physical location mostly from IP addresses and, depending on settings, device location. A commuter who works in one city and sleeps in another can be regularly present in both.
| Option | Who can see the ads | When Google suggests it |
|---|---|---|
| Presence or interest (default) | People likely in or regularly in the targeted area, plus people who have shown interest in it, wherever they are | Recommended as a best practice on Search and Demand Gen; Google says most campaigns notice fewer impressions without it |
| Presence | Only people likely in or regularly in the targeted area | A sensitive vertical with strict targeting limits, or a business that only wants people in specific locations |
| Location exclusion (Presence) | Removes people likely located in the excluded area; people located outside it may still see ads | The only exclusion behavior available; Google's API no longer accepts Presence or interest for exclusions in Search, Display, Performance Max or Shopping |
Which location option should a Canada only campaign use?
Start from what a person outside Canada could do with the ad. If the offer can only be bought, delivered or used by someone living in Canada, an impression in Michigan or Washington State cannot pay back, so use Presence. If someone abroad can buy for someone in Canada, as with gifts, bookings or hotel stays, interest has value.
| Brief | Setting | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Service used in person in Canada, such as a membership, clinic or repair | Presence | People elsewhere cannot use it; interest in a Canadian city adds cost without customers |
| Online store that ships only to Canadian addresses | Presence | A buyer must have a Canadian delivery address, so location of interest adds little |
| Travel, events or hotels in Canada sold to visitors | Presence or interest | Buyers plan from elsewhere and show interest in the destination before they arrive |
| Category with legal or policy limits by province or country | Presence | Google itself names sensitive verticals with strict targeting limits as a reason to choose Presence |
How does location targeting interact with placements?
A placement and a location are separate targeting layers, and Google's Display targeting overview (opens in a new tab) explains that each new layer narrows potential reach while extra items within one type broaden it. A placement list of Canadian news sites with Canada as the location therefore serves only when both conditions hold: the page is on the list and the viewer matches the location setting. A placement does not carry its own geography. A Toronto publisher read in Chicago is still a Toronto publisher.
The default setting adds a twist on the Display Network. Google says it may infer a location associated with a page or site, even from a whole site's context, when it believes this will help targeting. Under Presence or interest, a reader in Ohio on an article about Ottawa restaurants can count as interested in Ottawa, although Google itself notes that reading news about a city does not always mean interest in its businesses.
So a carefully built Canadian site list can still produce American cities in the location report: the list chose the pages, and the location option chose the readers. The placement targeting guide covers how placements combine with topics and keywords.
Which campaign types offer the Presence setting?
Google's advanced location options page says the options apply to the Search Network, the Display Network and Demand Gen, where Presence or interest is the default. The Demand Gen audiences overview (opens in a new tab) adds that location targeting is available at both campaign and ad group level, so two ad groups in one Demand Gen campaign can carry different locations.
The same page names Search, Display, Performance Max, Shopping and Hotel campaigns as the ones moved to Presence or interest targeting with Presence exclusions, and says hotel campaigns use only Presence. Video campaigns are not named on the page when checked on October 22, 2026, so open the campaign's location settings before assuming the option exists there. Display campaigns migrated to Demand Gen under the rollout Google began in June 2026 (migration guide) should have the option checked again.
How do you exclude a country in Google Ads?
A Canada only campaign does not need to exclude the United States. Google's exclusion page (opens in a new tab) says there is no need to exclude areas you have not targeted, except when a campaign targets by interest while excluding by likely location. That is the border case: Canada on Presence or interest with the United States excluded still blocks only people likely located in the United States.
Exclude a country from one campaign
- Open the campaign settings. Go to Campaigns, select Settings and expand the Locations section for the campaign.
- Search for the country. Type the country name in the search box and select Exclude next to it, or use Advanced search for regions and cities.
- Save and check the map. The excluded area appears under Excluded locations, and Show locations on map draws it with a red outline.
- Set the location option. In the campaign's location settings, open Location options and choose Presence when people outside the target area cannot buy.
- Repeat for each campaign. Location settings belong to each campaign, and Demand Gen can also hold them per ad group, so add the exclusion everywhere the brief needs it.
Three rules from the same page matter. When an area is both targeted and excluded, the exclusion wins. Since March 31, 2024, campaigns targeting all countries and territories are limited to 122 country level exclusions. Bulk entry takes up to 1,000 locations at a time, and the account limits page (opens in a new tab) caps a campaign at 10,500 location targets, targeted and excluded together.
How do you check where viewers were located?
Google's geographic performance page (opens in a new tab) describes two views in the Locations report. Targeted locations shows performance by the places the campaign targeted. Matched locations shows performance by where ads appeared, which Google says could be physical locations or locations of interest, and the Most specific location column gives the finest level used to match an ad.
Location review after the first week of a Canada only campaign
- The campaign's location option reads Presence, and the setting was checked after any Display to Demand Gen migration.
- The Matched locations view shows no American cities, or each one is explained.
- Rows labeled Unspecified are noted; Google says these occur when neither the IP address nor the search shows a recognized location.
- Totals below country level are not expected to add up, since Google says some impressions match only at country level.
- Any change to the location option is dated in the campaign notes, so before and after periods can be read apart.
Expect some leakage even on Presence. Google calls location targeting its best effort and says 100 percent accuracy is not guaranteed, and it may show ads in nearby related areas that cannot be targeted on their own. For how platforms outside Google read location, see programmatic geo targeting.
What does a border campaign setup look like?
Fictional example
A car wash membership campaign in Southwestern Ontario
A fictional chain of car washes in Windsor, Sarnia and London, Ontario sells monthly memberships that only work at its own sites. Its agency plans a Display and Demand Gen campaign for the Windsor census area, Sarnia and London, in English, on a site list of local news, community and car care publishers.
A Detroit resident who reads a Windsor news site, or searches for a Windsor car wash, cannot use a monthly membership, so the planner switches the campaign from the default to Presence. Commuters who cross the river every day stay in reach, because Presence includes people regularly in the area.
No United States exclusion is added, because the campaign never targeted it and Presence removes the interest path. After one week the planner opens Matched locations, finds a few rows in Michigan, notes them as border noise and schedules the same check for month end.
How does PlacementGraph help a plan built for one country?
Frequently asked questions
Does Presence mean the person is in the area right now?
Not only right now. Google describes Presence as people who are likely to be located, or regularly located, in the targeted area. Someone who commutes into a targeted city every weekday can match it while at home in a neighboring town. Location is estimated from IP addresses and, depending on the person's settings, device location, so it remains a best effort estimate.
Will switching to Presence lower impressions?
Google expects so. It says most campaigns notice a decrease in impressions when they leave the default option, and suggests changing it only to refine traffic. When customers must be in the area, the lost impressions could not have produced a customer anyway.
Can one campaign target Canada with Presence and the United States with interest?
No. The location option is set once for the campaign's targeted locations, not per location. A brief that needs Canadians by presence and Americans planning a trip to Canada needs two campaigns, each with its own locations and its own option recorded in the plan.
Do location settings change which websites are on a placement list?
No. Location settings decide which viewers may see the ad, and the placement list decides which pages may show it. A Canadian site stays on the list when its readers abroad are filtered out, and an American site with Canadian readers can still reach them.
Sources
- About advanced location options (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
- Target ads to geographic locations (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
- About targeting geographic locations (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
- Exclude ads from geographic locations (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
- About measuring geographic performance (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
- About targeting for Display campaigns (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
- Demand Gen audiences overview (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
- About your Google Ads account limits (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
Researched and written by PlacementGraph Research. Read how we research, source and update these pages. Corrections: diana@placementgraph.com.