Advertisers can now reach users who may be searching for specific products or services in a particular location even though the searcher is not physically in the specified location.
The new location targeting options are available within the Settings tab of each campaign. Screenshot of the new location setting options below:
The first location option, “to show ads to people in, searching for, or viewing pages about your targeted location” will target users who are physically located in your targeted locations or who included keywords of your targeted location within their search query. In the example above, the ads will show to people in Pittsburgh, PA, in addition to users who included keywords about Pittsburgh, PA even if they are physically located in a different area.
The second location option, “to show ads to people in your targeted location” will only show to users within the targeted location. Using the same example, if a user searches “flower shops in Pittsburgh” while in New York City, the user will not see an ad from this advertiser because the actual physical location of the searcher is in New York City.
These location setting options are similar to that of Google AdWords, which made a similar change to location intent earlier this year. Bing Ads also updated their location targeting to include DMA regions last month.