How to Work Around Facebook’s Ad Text Limit in 2020

Have you ever set up an ad for your brand on Facebook, only to have the ad rejected?

We’ve all been there.

It seems as though Facebook changes its ad regulations with the wind, but one factor that hasn’t drastically changed is its image text limit.

The Challenge of Facebook’s Ad Text Limit

If you’ve ever advertised on Facebook, you are probably familiar with the platform’s vendetta against text-heavy ads. Although it’s true that strong visuals make better ads, imagery doesn’t always tell the full story on its own. Sometimes, image text truly is necessary.

Cue advertiser frustration.

If you feel like you just can’t trim enough text off of your ad to please the Facebook gods, fear not. There is a tool you can use to beat the system, and it doesn’t require a ton of extra resources or an in-house creative team.

It’s called Animoto and it can help you workaround Facebook’s image text rules. Here are three steps you can take to ensure your ad will meet their limits.

Determine Your Ad Text Rating

In an effort to create a better ad experience for its users, Facebook reviews each ad based on the amount of text it includes. (You may have heard this called the 20% Rule, but that hasn’t been the case since mid-2016.)

It rates the amount of text as OK, Low, Medium, or High. Based on the image rating, your ad’s reach could be reduced. If there is too much text, your audience might not even see it.

The good news? You can run your ad images through the Text Overlay Tool to see its text rating and determine whether or not you need to make any changes.

It’s also important to note that Facebook does make a few exceptions to the text rule, depending on what’s being advertised. You can see if you qualify for an exception here.

Try Editing the Ad Text

If your ad gets a High text rating, the easiest way to solve this issue is to decrease the font size on the image. If that doesn’t do the trick, try altering the post copy (the text that accompanies the ad image) so it communicates your message without needing text on the image.

It may take a bit of wordsmithing, but that’s what we advertisers do, right?

If that still doesn’t get you an OK or Low text rating, it’s time to pull out your new secret weapon – Animoto.

Transform Your Static Ad Into a Video

Facebook optimizes for video, and only the preview image has to follow the image text rules. That means you can use as much text as your heart desires.

The best news? You don’t need any previous video experience to make a killer video ad if you use the right tools – like Animoto. If you’re familiar with Canva, it’s like that, but for video.

Animoto has a lot of different ready-made templates, or you can create your own from scratch. It’s drag-and-drop editor is easy to use, and Animoto is highly customizable, so your video is cohesive with your brand.

Want more eye-catching transitions? No problem. Want to change the music? You got it. You can upload your own files, or take advantage of Animoto’s database of more than a million stock photos and videos.

The options are endless, and the entire editing process takes place in your browser.

Once you finish your creation, you can preview the video. It will play your video from beginning to end so you can see if you need any final tweaks. If you are happy with it as-is, you can then produce the video in one click and download your video file.

Voila, a video ad sure to get a stamp of approval from Facebook.

With a video ad, you now have even more options for placement on Facebook – newsfeed, stories, in-stream video, and more.

If you want to utilize video ads, but aren’t sure you can make them on your own, our team of experts is here to help. Drop us a line and let’s chat.