Facebook have finally removed the 20% text rule on ads. Sort of.
For as long as I\’ve done Facebook advertising, Facebook has had a 20% text over an image rule. This is done to avoid \’JB Hi-Fi\’ style shouty text ads that Facebook\’s data shows their users are resistant to.
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Facebook has preferred for ads to not look like traditional ads. They\’ve preferred the ads look like part of the newsfeed and to not be a grating disruption to content consumption.
Facebook is all about keeping users on the platform, and a grating experience makes them leave.
So why then remove the 20% text rule?
My theory comes from a few factors being at play:
1. Facebook softened the rule on text a few years ago, where heavy text in ads would be financially penalised (high ad costs) or if they were too heavy on text, they wouldn\’t run at all.
I believe there is always a method to the madness at Facebook. I believe the data they gathered from that exercise lead to this change
2. That data may have shown that users still don\’t prefer high text ads, but they also may not be leaving. Users not responding well to ads incurs a financial penalty by the advertiser requiring more budget to appear higher in the news feed (for more results).
3. COVID economics as well as the ad boycott: Loosening the rules may get the percentage of advertising spend back that they need.
We have found that images with less that 20% text generally perform better
Facebook
I suspect the end result was that this is a profitable exercise for Facebook. So be warned, while Facebook will not for the time being, disapprove or penalise ads based on the amount of text in an image, their know their users do.
This means that the users response to your ad, will determine your ads success and therefore how much you are paying to show that ad to them.
High text in ads, will still be penalised, just by the users.
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