Every placement has its preferred shape, and a localized ad has to exist in each language and each shape you buy. Getting the list right saves you from producing formats nobody sees, or missing the one your best placement needs.
The short list
If you run paid social, three shapes cover most of what you need:
- 4:5 portrait for Facebook and Instagram feeds. It takes more of a phone screen than a square.
- 1:1 square as a safe second feed format that also works where 4:5 is not offered.
- 9:16 vertical for Stories, Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts.
Add 16:9 landscape if you run YouTube in-stream ads or placements on larger screens.
By platform
Platforms change their specs, so treat this as the current shape of things and check each platform’s own guidelines before a large production run.
| Platform and placement | Aspect ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Facebook and Instagram feed | 4:5 or 1:1 | 4:5 fills more of a mobile feed |
| Facebook and Instagram Stories | 9:16 | Full screen, interface at top and bottom |
| Instagram and Facebook Reels | 9:16 | Captions and buttons overlay the lower part |
| TikTok | 9:16 | Built for full-screen vertical video |
| YouTube in-stream | 16:9 | The standard landscape player |
| YouTube Shorts | 9:16 | Vertical, like Reels and TikTok |
| 2:3 | The standard vertical pin | |
| Display and wide banners | 16:9, 21:9, 8:3 | Wide placements on larger screens |
Safe zones in vertical formats
In 9:16 the platform puts its own interface over your ad: the account name and progress bar at the top, captions, the call to action and buttons at the bottom and side. Anything you put there may be covered.
A practical rule: keep headlines, offers and logos in the middle of the frame, away from roughly the top seventh and the bottom fifth. Preview the ad in the platform before launch, because each one draws its interface differently.
Crop or lay out again
There are two ways to get from one ad to many shapes:
- Cropping cuts a new frame out of the original. It is fast and safe when the subject is in the middle and there is little text. It fails when a headline sits near an edge, or when you go from portrait to landscape and lose most of the picture.
- Re-layout builds the ad again for the new shape: the product, headline and call to action are placed to fit. It keeps everything in view, but each result needs a check, because a new layout can move things where you did not expect.
For ads with text, re-layout usually wins. Cropping a 9:16 ad to 1:1 often cuts the headline in half.
Formats for localized ads
Formats multiply with languages. Three formats in five languages is fifteen files, and each one needs a check. Two habits keep that manageable:
- Export only the placements you buy. Every extra format is another file to check and pay for.
- Localize and resize in one pass. Producing each language in each format at once keeps the versions consistent.
The Ad Localizer resizer lays an image ad out again in up to 11 aspect ratios: 1:1, 4:5, 9:16, 2:3, 3:4, 5:4, 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 21:9 and 8:3, with or without translating the text. It does not offer 1.91:1, the classic link-ad shape; 16:9 is the closest. For video, dubbing and subtitles export 1:1, 4:5 and 9:16, not 16:9.
A checklist
- List the placements each campaign actually buys.
- Map them to the shapes in the table above.
- Design the original with text away from the edges.
- Produce each language in each shape you need, and no more.
- Preview every file in its placement before launch.
For more on preparing ads for other languages, start with what ad localization covers.