In a move which will no doubt be welcomed by Facebook advertisers everywhere, Facebook has removed its restrictions on text in your Facebook image ads, which was previously limited to no more than 20% of the ad image being covered by text.
These text restrictions have long been a bone of contention for advertisers, often requiring the complete reformatting or redesign of their ads in order to comply with the rules, while at the same time, Facebooks enforcement of the rule has been seen before as inconsistent at best. As such, many a sigh of relief has no doubt been heaved.
Why Text Limit?
Traditionally, Facebook has claimed that the text limit was a usability issue, and that their user data showed that visitors disliked ads with too much text. In 2018, it did change the rule to allow for more text, but with the penalty that ad reach would be restricted based on by how much the text limit was exceeded.
The new update however, removes all restrictions, and therefore ads with more than 20% text will be shown as usual, to the same number of people as any other ad.
They do say that ads with less text still perform better, and recommend that advertisers keep text “short, clear and concise,” but it is now up to individual advertisers to decide how much text to include, without worrying that it will impact the reach of their ads.
Testing The Limits
Of course, the obvious next step would be to test out exactly how users do react to different text limits, a threshold which may differ according to the audience type and product or service being advertised.
To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebooks 20% recommendation was in fact spot on in terms of a sweet-spot in engagement, but no doubt as people begin to test the limits of the unrestricted text, we will see some studies emerging regarding whether or not this is the case.