Facebook opened the door for advertisers to experiment and lately adjusted the infamous 20% ad text rule. Let’s take a closer look.
With the older version, advertisers could only embed overlying text within 20% of an image. To do this, an automatic 25-rectangle grid supposedly measured two things:
- The image itself
- The amount of overlying text
Further explained in an article from Instapage, inconsistency from the grid system doomed the rule from the start. Instead of measuring the amount of overlying text, the grid measured text positioning. Soon becoming a mountain of frustration for advertisers. So, what does this actually mean?
Scenario Time
It’s time to promote your product, and you have an awesome image to use. Advertising through Facebook is a no-brainer, but you’ve hit a roadblock. You want an overlaying text to read “this could be yours! click below, learn more.” You want the sentences stacked, but Facebook rejects it because of the 20% rule. Cue the frustration.
You’ve messed around with the wording, font, size, and stood on your head. Nothing is working. Finally, you reluctantly separate the sentences. “This could be yours” now reads across the top of the image while “click below, learn more’ rests at the bottom. This new ad is approved and you’re about to explode. POSITIONING WAS THE KEY!
However, the Big Question is Why
As a data collecting giant, Facebook gathered research proving audiences have a distaste toward text filled advertisements. Advertising is everywhere and as exposure builds, audiences are becoming immune.
According to Hubspot, “4 out of 5 people have left a web page because of a pop-up or auto-playing video ad.”
But what does that have to do with Facebook ads? If it looks like an ad, audiences get turned off. In response, Facebook created advertising guidelines like the 20% ad text rule to nurture the idea of selling an experience with attractive photos.
Today, Facebook no longer rejects ads with more than 20% content. Instead, the old 20% ad text rule became an image text rating.
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- Okay – ads run normally
- Low – slightly lower reach
- Medium – much lower reach
- High – ads may not run
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Essentially, the greater amount of text, the less visibility, whereas the lesser to no text provides higher visibility.
