Getting Familiar with the Text to Image Rule for Facebook Ads.

Since social media advertisers are no longer restricted by the 20% text to image rule for Facebook and Instagram ads, does that affect the performance of your ads? Keep reading to find out.

Just in case you are new to marketing on Facebook, let’s start from the basis. According to research carried out by the Facebook ads team to understand how all the elements of an ad affect the performance of such ad, they realised that images with less than 20% text performed better. That was how the text to image rule came about and remained effective until the implementation of some recent changes.

The latest policy the platform put out relating to the text to image rule was that they will no longer penalise ads with higher amounts of image text. They noted that they will gradually remove external material and sources that were once used to help advertisers achieve the previous rule. This news came after several users complained about their inability to access the Text Overlay Tool.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Identifying the Three Major Elements of Facebook Image Ads

Body Text

Popularly called the caption, this is an essential element. It houses all information that can’t go into the ad image due to compliance with Facebook ads best practices. Although there is no character limit when crafting body text, you need to discern when it’s more appropriate to use a long or short caption. If you find it challenging to create a body text for your Facebook or other PPC ads campaign, our guide will help you.

Ad Image

The success of your Facebook ads lies majorly in your ad image choice. This is the picture or creative you use to advertise your products or services. It could be pictures of your products, a video, a nicely designed artwork or whatever you deem fit. However, for you to get maximum results from your advertising effort, you must never overload your image with text. Even with the removal of the text to image rule, Facebook still recommends a very low amount of text on your image.

Image Text

This is where most Facebook advertisers make mistakes. No matter how beautifully put-together this is, your audience will look away if you can’t catch their attention with the first few words. According to Facebook, they recommend that if you ever need to use more words in your ad you should reduce the font. However, the downside of this is that smaller texts are not only less visible, but they are also less captivating.

Any image ad you intend to run on Facebook has one of the following: acceptable text overlay (within the 20% text to image rule), minimal text overlay (little or no text at all), or excessive text overlay (too many texts). 

Use these Best Practices in the Absence of the Text to Image Rule for Facebook Ads

Be Precise and Concise

When you craft the image text for your ad image, you only need relevant and brief information. Go straight to the point. Without wasting time and in a few words, your audience must see what you are trying to show them. This isn’t difficult at all. If you want to say something in 3 words, you can look out for a synonym or try to take out redundant and repetitive words.

Organise your Text

Never let your text be scattered all around your ad image. If you are working with a Graphic Designer, he/she could advise you on this and even help you create more appealing creatives. Try to put all your text in one area else even your 20% text can look more congested than it is.

Use Action Words

Either you add a call to action text or include words that drive action into your image text. There’s so much going on in the lives of your audience and sometimes if you don’t tell them what you want them to do, they’ll end up doing nothing. This is similar to what a finance coach once said, “people want to help you, but unless you tell them how to do so, they won’t.” If you need them to join an event, tell them and so on.

Grab Attention

We can’t overemphasise this. We live in a fast-paced world and even while scrolling on social media, people don’t have the time or patience to read through every single content or ads they come across. This means, your ads must catch their eye, causing them to stop for a moment, and take action.

Preview Ads

Before launching your ads, you must preview them. Doing this helps you see your ads the exact way your audience will see them on whichever device they use. You can find the preview feature in your Facebook Ads Manager so start making good use of this function to improve the outlook of your ads campaign.

In conclusion, since the owners of the platform control your campaign’s reach and cost, it is safer for you to abide by their best practices. As they will no longer be disapproving image ads that have over 20% text, it means there’s a high probability you’ll be spending your budget on an underperforming campaign. You really don’t want that. I trust you found this piece informative as well as enlightening, do leave us a comment and share this post with your friends/community.