Meta Text Recommendations (2025 Guide)

Are you working with Facebook advertising and have encountered the issue of your ad containing too much text? Then you have come to the right place. In this blog post, I will explain the two main things you need to know about advertising on Facebook, as well as the text amount recommendations that Facebook uses.

Table of Contents

• What is Meta’s 20% text recommendation?
• How to avoid violating Facebook’s text recommendations
• Guide to setting up the 20% grid in Photoshop
• Example: Same text – different outcome

IMPORTANT: Whether you are boosting posts or using Facebook’s Ads Manager to create your adverts, you are still subject to all the recommendations listed below.

Learn more about how to approach Facebook advertising in their Ads Manager »

What is Meta’s 20% text recommendation?

Before 2020, Facebook had a rule known as the “20% rule” – this rule no longer applies, but it is still recommended to keep the amount of text on any given image below 20%. Previously, an ad would be rejected outright if your graphic contained more than 20% text. The rule did not exist just to annoy advertisers like you and me – but to help us provide a better user experience for those who see our ads on Facebook. Therefore, it is still recommended to follow Meta’s 20% text guideline.

Changes to the 20% text rule

At the end of 2020, Facebook’s 20% text rule was discontinued, meaning that an ad image with more than 20% text would no longer be rejected. Instead, Meta now states that ads with less than 20% text are more effective, and you may experience reduced delivery if this recommendation is not followed. Meta therefore recommends that advertisers keep image text short, clear, and precise to ensure that the message is delivered as effectively as possible.

Avoid too much text on your ad images

It can be challenging to narrow down your messages, but here are 3 tips on how you can avoid too much text on your ad images.

• If you need to include text on the image, try using fewer words and/or reduce the size of the text. However, be aware that if the text is too small, it may be difficult to read.
• Make sure that most of the text you use appears in the main body text rather than directly on the ad image.
• Avoid spreading text across the entire image.

Guide to setting up Photoshop for Meta’s text recommendations

• Open Photoshop
• Click on “Edit” in the top bar
• Click on Preferences (at the bottom of the Edit menu)
• Open “Guides, Grid & Slices”
• Here, set your preferences as shown below. NOTE: You must set it to “percent” and then set 20 and 1 in the other fields.

This means that when you enable the grid in Photoshop, the graphic will be divided so you can check the percentages in the same way that Facebook does. It is a slightly unusual method.

To enable grids, you need to:

• Go to the top menu under “View”
• Click on “Show”
• Enable “Grids”

Alternatively, you can also create a shortcut if you want to be able to toggle it on and off quickly.

Check if you meet Facebook’s text guidelines directly in your programme (using Photoshop as an example)

Traditionally, when you think of percentages, you think that the text on your graphic must not make up more than 20% of the entire image – as a whole. Unfortunately, that is not how Facebook views it. Two identical pieces of text, simply placed differently, can make the difference between complying with the recommendations or not. This is where we need to use our grid, which you (hopefully) have just set up using the guide above.

In the two images below, I have tried to illustrate how Facebook calculates the text on your ad.

(If you want to read more about standard image sizes on Facebook, you can do so here)

The grid you have set up in Photoshop can be used regardless of your image size, without needing to adjust anything. I am not entirely sure how this works in other programmes.

Imagine that each square in the grid makes up 4%, and you should try to keep under the 20% that Facebook recommends as the correct text amount for their ads. In the images below, I show how two almost identical images can be very different – in Facebook’s eyes. Both are screenshots of my Photoshop setup, so you can see my grids.

20% recommendation followed:

The green squares show where there is text. 5 squares times 4% – so we land exactly where Facebook prefers us to be.

20% recommendation NOT followed

Note that the size of the text has not changed. It has just been moved 50-80 pixels down. Suddenly we are at 40% text in Facebook’s view, even though there is actually no more text. The bottom image would most likely end up being deprioritised by Meta and could potentially cost you 2-5 times as much to get impressions. That is quick and easy money to save yourself 😉

Speaking of ad costs on Facebook – you can read more about it here: What does Facebook advertising cost? There are also a few tips on how to save yourself money!

If you do not use Photoshop, you can alternatively use Facebook’s own tool, which you can find here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay