Facebook removes the 20% text limit on ad images.
How many times have you created the perfect ad copy for your Facebook marketing campaign, and how many times it got disapproved by Facebook?
I have faced this issue a ton of times, and glad about this change.
Recently, it has been noticed that Facebook’s 20% text limit on ad images has been relaxed. Some prominent media buyers on Facebook reported that their images were no longer getting disapproved for additional text content on the image.
When was it noticed?
Starting this week, many buyers have reported that Facebook Ad images are no longer being disapproved due to additional text content (more than 20%). In fact, as per sources, some buyers have already received a direct update from Facebook regarding the rule change:
BIG news for Facebook advertisers:
Facebook is killing its ‘<20% text in image’ rule for ads
Source: Facebook pic.twitter.com/nP18BSLP7L
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) September 22, 2020
Some buyers already noticed that the text overlay tool page was redirecting before the news broke. The Facebook documentation has now caught up to the recent change and has been updated as well. Now it doesn’t purposely say that you have to keep text content at 20%. Instead, it mentions that they have found that images with less than 20% content perform better.
What was the “20% limit on ad images rule”?
The rule was initially put in place by Facebook to reduce the excess text noise in the Facebook News Feed. As earlier, there weren’t multiple ad units in play as they are now. The feed used to get filled with text and images, making it difficult for the users to differentiate. It resulted in cluttered and bad user experience.
With the platform now evolving, it is no longer a distraction for the users, and Facebook rolled out varied ad types that are far flashier. With text on images, identifying them as ads, many users used to scroll right by them. It provided feedback to Facebook that users didn’t like the text on the images as the impression levels on ads with a lot of text content (more than 20%) were considerably lower than the ads with lesser text content.
This caused the origin of the 20% text limit on ad images. In fact, Facebook even offered a rating system to warn advertisers:
While there isn’t any formal statement released by Facebook on the matter, the media buyers are clearly enjoying this update.
What do you think about this change? Let me know in the comments below!