Facebook Ads Grid Tool – How To Create Ads To Meet Facebook’s 20% Text in Images Exposure Rule

Facebook Ads Grid Tool

In this article you’ll learn how to locate, and use, Facebook Ads Grid Tool.

One thing I’m experiencing here at Bipper Media is the explosive growth of Facebook advertising.  Among it’s many benefits are the ability to drill down your demographic targeting such as setting a ‘mile radius’ around a certain city, home value demographics, and even the ability to target fans of a particular Facebook page.

But one thing you may have noticed, if you are actively creating Facebook ads that is, is the limitation with how much text you can have on a particular image.

The rule, known simply as the “20% text limit for an image ad”, restricts the amount of text you can include on ad.  And meeting this requirement, much to the surprise of new advertisers, can be challenging.

Let me show you a real world example of dealing with Facebook’s 20% rule on text exposure with one of our clients.  First I’ll show you a disapproved ad – because it far exceeded the 20% text exposure rule.

Disapproved Facebook image ad:

And now here’s the same image uploaded to Facebook’s grid tool – and I’ve clicked on the boxes that include text:

Notice the red arrow pointing to the 44% – this means, the image I’m using has 44% of text copy on the image ad.  This ad would get disapproved almost immediately when creating the ad.

Facebook Ads Grid Tool – Approved Image Ad:

Now here’s the same image, except I’ve gone in and removed the amount of text on the image ad so that it meets Facebook’s 20% text copy rule:

That’s a huge difference isn’t it?  But this image now meets the 20% text exposure rule.

So the moral of the story is, any image that you use in your Facebook ad has to achieve your branded message mostly through the use of imagery – not text copy.  This means you have to get creative with your image ads in order to a) get your marketing message across, and b) meet the 20% text rule from Facebook’s ad polcy.

How To Use Facebook Ads Grid Tool

Luckily, Facebook created the Facebook Ads Grid Tool that makes it easy to determine how much text is exposed on your image ad.  Here’s how you use the Facebook Ads Grid Tool to see if your image meets Facebook’s 20% text exposure rule:

1)  Visit the grid tool here.

2)  Click the “choose file” button.

3)  Find the image that you’ll be using for you ad and upload it.

4)  Once the image uploads, you’ll then see the image overlayed with a grid.  Now you simply click the grid boxes where you have text on the image.  As you click the grid boxes, notice to the right hand side the changing percentage number.  This number shows you how much (or what percentage) of text you have on your image.  If the number exceeds 20%, then its back to the drawing board (or photoshop) to remove the overage in text.

The 20% rule applies to all images being used in a Facebook ad.  You may find that you’ve been able to upload an image that does not meet the 20% text rule and your ad actually get approved.  But don’t get too confident about your momentary success, because I’ve found that within a day or so, eventually the system finds the overage in text and will disapprove your Facebook ad.

So how has your experience been with Facebook’s text rule for image ads?

Do you find the “grid tool” to be useful in creating your Facebook ads?

Let us know in the comments.

Additional Facebook Advertising Resources:

Facebook’s ad copy policy

Facebook’s grid tool for determine text exposure