Welcome to the wonderful world of Facebook ad specs! Facebook ads are one of the best ways for companies to reach a wider audience, and there are a few technical pieces of creating ads, like learning and following the ad specs.

More and more, Facebook is an image-heavy social media platform. To stand out, your ads and images need to be high-quality and spot on — this is why learning the right Facebook ad specs for your specific ads is so important.

The ratios and overall size of the content you place in your ads are probably one of the most important aspects of creating an ad on Facebook. If you’re trying to design the perfect ad for a dentist’s office and someone’s head was cropped off, there’s going to be an issue. Or what about an ad for a restaurant, but the photo of the main dish is blurry? That’s no good.

But the question is: How do you prevent this kind of thing? It’s actually fairly simple; follow the guidelines below for all of your Facebook ad specs.

HELPFUL TIP: Always remember you also have Facebook’s Ad Guide as a companion if you need it! You can even make mockups right on the ads guide. They’ll often update it before they even tell us they’re changing the sizes, so keep it bookmarked.

Video ads

Most video ads have the same dimensions, but this can be tricky for videos that are shot at a wide-angle and don’t compress to a Facebook ad size well. Facebook does its best to make all videos look good – horizontal, vertical, square, and full portrait – but paying attention to the dimensions of your video before uploading will save you some frustration.

Facebook video ad specs

• Newsfeed text display: 125 characters
• Thumbnail specs: Less than 20% text displayed in thumbnail
• Video specs: Recommend H.264 compression, fixed frame rate; 9:16 to 16:9 video ratio; minimum dims 120×120
• Format: Most file types supported
• File size: 4GB Maximum, 240 minutes maximum

Sound and captions are recommended for Facebook video ads, but no pillar boxing or letterboxing allowed.

Most Facebook image ads

There are lots of different types of ads you can run on Facebook, but according to their stats collected in 2019, lead generation ads are the most popular (and, ostensibly, the most successful). Despite so many different kids, when most static image ads appear on your feed, they have the same specs.

The exceptions to this are carousel, slideshow, and event response ads – these have slightly different Facebook ad specs.

Ad specs for most Facebook image ads

• News Feed Text Display: 125 characters; when a link is included, link description has an extra 30 characters displayed with a 20 character headline
• Thumbnail Specs: More than 20% text on the image will reduce delivery and raise costs
• Photo Specs: Highest resolution possible with a 1.91:1 to 4:5 ratio; pictures will be resized to dims of 476x248px with a link and 500×300 without
• Image Dimensions: 476x248px
• Format: JPEG or PNG only
• File Size: 30MB

Offer ads (carousel)

The best thing about offer ads is that they come in three different forms – image, video, and carousel. Since we’ve already covered image and video, we’ll cover Facebook ad specs for carousel ads in this section.

Offer ads are discounts and deals you can offer to your customer base (or potential customer base). They often pop up as “get offer” snippets in newsfeeds and sometimes don’t require an email or phone number to claim (but they can).

Carousel ads can be a combination of video and photos, and both of these have slightly different dimensions than other types of video and photo ads.

Ad specs for carousel offer ads

• Image Specs: Minimum resolution of 1080×1080 with a 1:1 ratio
• Image Dimensions: 476x248px
• Image Format: JPEG or PNG only
• Image File Size: 30MB
• News Feed Text Display (both image/video): 125 characters; when a link is included, link description has an extra 25 characters displayed with a 20 character headline
• Thumbnail Specs (both image/video): More than 20% text on the image will reduce delivery and raise costs
• Video Specs: Recommend H.264 compression, fixed frame rate; 9:16 to 16:9 video ratio; minimum dims 120×120
• Video File Size: 4GB
• Video Format: Most file formats accepted
• Video Length: 240 minutes

To run a carousel-style Facebook ad, you need a minimum of two cards (images/videos). A maximum of 10 is allowed in these ads.

HELPFUL TIP: Whenever possible, always minimize the text in your images. Facebook does not take kindly to ads with a lot of text. Some advertisers have even found that sometimes ads with less text aren’t approved. In many cases, you can appeal, but save the text for the blurb at the top if you really need to say something.

Page post engagement specs (text ads)

These ads are often underutilized because, quite frankly, images are more engaging. However, don’t underestimate the power of a text post engagement that hides sneakily and carefully among friends’ posts! These are affordable ways to engage an audience, especially the one you’re just starting to warm up.

Maximum characters: 500

This is roughly three lines of text. We recommend using all 500 characters if you need them, but don’t put fluff in just to reach the character limit.

Right column ads

These are the ads you see to the right of your Newsfeed. They’re desktop only and are often blocked by adblocker extensions and software, so they’re not as popular as they once were. Still, the CPC is really great, meaning they’re always worth a shot.

Facebook right column ad specs

• Newsfeed text display: 125 characters
• Thumbnail specs: Less than 20% text displayed in thumbnail
• Format: Most file types supported, JPEG and PNG recommended
• Aspect Ratio: 9:16 to 16:9 with allowance for cropping to 1.91:1 when a link is included
• File size: 30MB

In-stream video ads

Quick, digestible niblets of ads. These videos are confined to a very small time frame to be as engaging as possible. Great for retargeting audiences!

Facebook in-stream video ad specs

• Newsfeed text display: 125 characters
• Thumbnail specs: Less than 20% text displayed in thumbnail
• Format: Most file types supported, MP4 and .MOV recommended
• File size: 4GB
• Maximum length: In theory, there isn’t one less than 240 minutes, but 5-15 seconds is strongly recommended
• Sound and high resolution strongly recommended

Instant articles ads

These ads are ones Facebook has been experimenting with, and there are video and still image versions. An article pops up on Facebook’s internal browser for an incredibly quick load-time. These articles also have the option of including ads in the content, and ta-da… you have instant article ads!

Facebook instant article ad specs (image)

• Newsfeed text display: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters (3-6 words)
• Link description: 30 characters
• Strongly recommended dimensions of 1,200 x 628 pixels, minimum 600×600
• Thumbnail specs: Less than 20% text displayed in thumbnail
• Format: Most file types supported, PNG and JPEG recommended
• Aspect Ratio: 9:16 to 16:9 with allowance for cropping to 1.91:1 when a link is included
• File size: 30MB

Facebook instant article ad specs (video)

• Newsfeed text display: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters (3-6 words)
• Link description: 30 characters
• Thumbnail specs: Less than 20% text displayed in thumbnail
• Format: Most file types supported, MP4 and .MOV recommended
• Aspect Ratio: 9:16 to 16:9 with allowance for cropping to 1.91:1 when a link is included
• Video max length: 240 minutes
• File size: 4GB

Marketplace ads

Marketplace ads are pretty sweet and are great for advertising local businesses and services, especially carpet cleaning, house cleaning, and other do-it-for-you services. You can run either still image or video Facebook Marketplace ads.

Facebook Marketplace ads specs (image)

• Newsfeed text display: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters (3-6 words)
• Link description: 30 characters
• Strongly recommended dimensions of 1,200 x 628 pixels, minimum 600×600
• Thumbnail specs: Less than 20% text displayed in thumbnail
• Format: Most file types supported, PNG and JPEG recommended
• Aspect Ratio: 9:16 to 16:9 with allowance for cropping to 1.91:1 when a link is included
• File size: 30MB

Facebook Marketplace ads specs (video)

• Newsfeed text display: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters (3-6 words)
• Link description: 30 characters
• Thumbnail specs: Less than 20% text displayed in thumbnail
• Format: Most file types supported, MP4 and .MOV recommended
• Aspect Ratio: 9:16 to 16:9 with allowance for cropping to 1.91:1 when a link is included
• Video max length: 240 minutes
• File size: 4GB

Audience network ads

These ads are unique in the sense that they aren’t actually on Facebook, but rather Facebook’s website partners. These ads may appear on other websites as banner ads, side ads, or various other locations.

While Facebook doesn’t disclose these partner websites, they promise they’re only credible and useful websites for advertisers. And like a few other types of ads, there are video and still image versions.

Facebook Audience Network ads specs (image)

• Newsfeed text display: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters (3-6 words)
• Link description: 30 characters
• Strongly recommended dimensions of 1,200 x 628 pixels, minimum 254×133
• Thumbnail specs: Less than 20% text displayed in thumbnail
• Format: Most file types supported, PNG and JPEG recommended
• Aspect Ratio: 9:16 to 16:9 with allowance for cropping to 1.91:1 when a link is included
• File size: 30MB

Facebook Audience ads specs (video)

• Newsfeed text display: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters (3-6 words)
• Link description: 30 characters
• Thumbnail specs: Less than 20% text displayed in thumbnail
• Format: Most file types supported, MP4 and .MOV recommended
• Aspect Ratio: 9:16 to 16:9 with allowance for cropping to 1.91:1 when a link is included
• Video max length: 121 seconds with a minimum of 10 seconds
• File size: 4GB

Sponsored message ads

These are a new-ish type of ad that only works on people you’ve already engaged with. Basically, you choose your message to send, and a sponsored message ad will send to a group of potential clients you’ve already engaged in.

Facebook sponsored ads specs

• Newsfeed text display: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters (3-6 words)
• Link description: 30 characters
• Recommended dimensions of 1,200 x 628 pixels, minimum 254×133
• Thumbnail specs: Less than 20% text displayed in thumbnail
• Format: Most file types supported, PNG and JPEG recommended
• Aspect Ratio: 9:16 to 16:9 with allowance for cropping to 1.91:1 when a link is included
• File size: 30MB

Messenger ads

These types of ads pop up in the Messenger inbox when a user is scrolling. These ads aren’t necessarily targeted towards audiences you’ve engaged with, but rather they are meant to warm up audiences as they scroll through their Messenger inboxes. Sometimes these ads also appear at the top of the Messenger app.

Facebook Messenger ad specs

• Maximum displayed text: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters (3-6 words)
• Recommended dimensions of 1,200 x 628 pixels, minimum 254×133
• Thumbnail specs: Less than 20% text displayed in thumbnail
• Format: Most file types supported, PNG and JPEG recommended
• Aspect Ratio: 9:16 to 16:9 with allowance for cropping to 1.91:1 when a link is included
• File size: 30MB

Collection ads (instant experience)

These ads are better seen than described. They are an excellent way to display multiple products or different angles of one product. They’re kind of a mini-way to shop on Facebook, but when clicked, they will take the user off-site to make the actual purchase.

Collections ads allow for mixed media, which is great for showcasing both products and services. They can be done in video or still images.

Facebook collections ads specs (images)

• Newsfeed text display: 90 characters
• Headline: 25 characters (3-6 words)
• Recommended dimensions of 1,200 x 628 pixels, minimum 600×600
• Format: Most file types supported, PNG and JPEG recommended
• Aspect Ratio: 1:1 for square pictures (the subset photos) and 16:9 for the main landscape photo
• File size: 30MB

Facebook collections ads specs (videos)

• Newsfeed text display: 90 characters
• Headline: 25 characters (3-6 words)
• Recommended dimensions of 1,200 x 628 pixels, especially for featured landscape
• Format: Most file types supported, MP4 and .MOV recommended
• Aspect Ratio: 1:1 for square pictures (the subset photos) and 16:9 for the main landscape photo
• Video length: 120 minutes max, recommended maximum of two minutes
• File size: 4GB

The final word on Facebook ad specs

Phew, that was a lot of Facebook ad specs to cover. And that’s kind of the point — Facebook wants to give you, the digital marketer or business owner, tons of options for how your ad is displayed.

Facebook continues to add new types of ads and play around with formats to find the most effective options available. The same goes for you. Test out different placements (using the correct Facebook ad specs for you ads, of course!), and see what works.