How to Avoid Too Much Text in Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are a great way to reach your target audience since Facebook has over 2 billion active users worldwide. To maximize your reach with Facebook Ads, there are specific quality guidelines that need to be followed. For example, Facebook will limit the reach of your ad if your photo or video contains too much text. This means that you could lose out on potential customers because of a factor that you can easily control. Instead, familiarize yourself with Facebook’s ‘Text in Ad Images Guidelines’ so you don’t make that mistake.

According to Facebook’s site, “We've found that images with less than 20% text perform better.” With all of the businesses running ads daily, Facebook has a pretty good amount of data on what types of posts perform well and which don’t. They are also interested in providing an appealing experience for their users, which includes showing advertisements with fewer words.

If you’re worried about the text in your graphics, Facebook has a handy tool that you can use to test it. When you visit the page, you can upload the photo you plan on using in your ad. Over to the right, you’ll see the different types of ratings that your photo can receive.

Here are some examples of the results in action.

When I upload the photo below, it received the green check rating saying the ad will run normally.

Sometimes, even photos that may have text can be completely cleared to run normally like the example below. However, don’t rely on this.

Here is an example of a photo with too much text. The picture is a menu, and understandably Facebook will flag it because of all the text it contains.

Understandably, you may want to include some text in your ad image to attract attention. Here are some tips on keeping text to a minimum:

• Talk to your audience in the text of the ad.

There are some exceptions to Facebook’s ‘No Text in Ads’ Rule, such as book and album covers. Make sure you fall under one of these exceptions before proceeding.