Facebook Have Changed their 20% Text Rule for Adverts

Creating a good ad to share online is hard enough at the best of times. You have to find the perfect image and phrase the text just so, but now Facebook have made it even harder.

Social Media Today

We all know that ads with only a little text tend to work best online. The image catches our eyes and then we pay just enough attention to read what it's about and decide whether we want to bother with it. As a result of this businesses do need to think carefully about what is pictured in the ads and how much text they use. In the past Facebook used to help businesses work out how much was too much with a helpful grid and it made sense, even if it was a little infuriating. Now Facebook have removed this grid and aren't informing businesses how much text is okay overlaid on an image before they try and upload it.

This doesn't mean that Facebook have removed all help though as they are giving some vague guidelines when you try and upload your ad image. There are now 4 categories of text overlay:

• Image Text: OK
• Image Text: Low
• Image Text: Medium
• Image Text: High

As you may well guess, OK is the category you want your ad to be classed in. This means that you have little to no text; this might be a watermark or a logo as these both class. If you then try to add more text or an extra logo, watermark or number on the ad then it will count as more words. If for whatever reason you need more words and they can't go into the status above the ad then try and keep your image in the low category.

The problem with these categories is once you move past OK, less people will see your ads. Facebook will not display an ad properly if they think it's something that people won't want to see. This could be a problem and as it is people are having to work out for themselves how much is too much. Until we have strict guidelines then it's probably best to stick to one small piece of text per ad rule.

Of course some types of ad aren't restricted by these rules as otherwise they wouldn't be able to post ads at all. These include; film posters, book covers, album covers, full product images, posters for music/comedy/sporting events, text based businesses, app/game screenshots, legal text and infographics.

There are quite a few types of ad that don't count so if you need to use a lot of text then see if your ads fit into one of those categories. If not then good luck.

Does this new change affect you? Let us know in the comments below.