Meta ad formats
Two versions every time, so the platform can place wherever it performs and the buyer can turn on both.
The short version
Is this for you? For feed assets that die in Stories and a buyer who cannot choose a placement. A crop is not a version; if that is all you have been getting, the platform has been optimising with one hand tied. Not if you are not running Meta placements; this is the format discipline for a buyer choosing placements, and with no spend behind it there is nothing to place.
What leaves your plate. Both placements composed from the start rather than cropped from one file, so switching a placement on is the buyer's lever to pull, not a decision we quietly made for them.
What starts working. A buyer who can turn on every placement on day one, and a platform finally given something real to optimise between.
The smallest way in. A free audit: three fields, and a written reading back, usually within about three working days. It commits you to nothing.
What to read next. The five levels to see where this fits, or the casework to see it done.
Both placements get their own composition
Both versions ship, by default
Feed and Story go out together as standard, because Meta optimises placement when it has something to place; give it one asset and you have decided for it, badly. The exception is honest: a campaign deliberately pinned to a single placement, or one leaning on Meta's own automatic adaptation with eyes open, does not need the pair. Everywhere else, shipping one is shipping half.
The buyer controls placement, and we make that possible
A media buyer should be customising placements and switching both versions on. That is only an option if both exist. Delivering one file quietly takes a lever out of their hands and then shows up as an underperforming campaign.
A crop is not a version
The safe areas are not a guideline, they are where the interface puts its own furniture: the profile row, the caption, the sticker tray, the swipe affordance. Stretching one asset across both placements does not lose margin, it loses whatever was in the margin, and that is usually the call to action.
The composition gets rebuilt for each placement
A story is held in one hand at arm's length and a feed post is scrolled past. Same message, different distance, different type size, different place for the eye to land first.
Two aspect ratios, set twice
The two aspect ratios and what they cost
4:5 for feed, 9:16 for story and reels, checked against Meta's current placement guidance in Ads Manager rather than assumed, because the accepted ratios and safe zones move. Copy that fits one rarely fits the other at the same size, so it gets set twice rather than scaled once.
Delivered ready to run
Both versions named so a buyer can tell them apart in an ad account at a glance, at the specification the platform actually wants, with the text-free master kept so a third placement costs an export and nothing more.
Shipping one asset is shipping half a campaign, and the missing half is usually the one with the button in it.
A crop is not the second half; it is the first half with the button cut off.
What changes for you
A buyer who can switch on every placement on day one, and a platform that has something to optimise with.
Related: Ad creative · Attention and eye path · Vertical video editing · Hooks and variants
Send what is running and we will read it as an ad account, not a showreel: angles, variants and where spend is leaking. The reading comes back in writing.
Request your free audit.
Three fields, and a written reading back: a fit snapshot, two or three prioritised opportunities, and a recommended next step.
A person reads the channel and writes the audit by hand: a considered read typically takes three working days. That is the usual shape, not a promised turnaround. We use these details only to reply to you: no lists, no lurking.
What you will get
A fit snapshot: where your channel stands, and whether we are a match.
Two to three opportunities: specific, prioritised, yours to keep.
A recommended next step, even if that step is not us.
The audit is free and commits you to nothing: nobody follows up with a call you did not ask for.
The casework shows all of this done.
The case studies are the same work with the numbers, the sources and the dates attached.
See the casework →