Facebook quietly scrapped a long-standing rule earlier this month that limited the space that text could occupy in ads to 20%.
The social network did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Social media consultant Matt Navarra shared the notification some advertisers received from Facebook last week in a tweet.
It read, in part, “We will no longer penalize ads with higher amounts of image text in auction and delivery. As of Sept. 7, we will begin gradually removing external material and sources that indicate that we enforce high levels of text in images.”
The social network added that it still finds that images with less than 20% taken up by text perform better.
Andrew Hutchinson of Social Media Today shared the old language from Facebook’s help page: “To create a better experience for viewers and advertisers, ads that appear on Facebook, Instagram and the Audience Network are screened based on the amount of image text used in your ad. Based on this review, advertisements with a higher percentage of image text may not be shown. Please note that exceptions may apply to certain ad images. For example, exemptions apply to book covers, album covers and product images.”
The social network previously provided a text overlay tool for advertisers to ensure that text did not take up more than 20% of their ads.
