Marketers Take Note: Facebook is Changing Its Ad Format Next Month

Over on the Facebook Business blog, The Social Network has announced that - starting from August 19th - mobile News Feed ads will be compressed in order to "match the look and feel of the new Facebook design introduced earlier this year".

The key changes are as follows:

• Fewer lines of primary text will show on mobile News Feed- Now only 3 lines of primary text will show on Facebook mobile News Feed, after which people will be prompted to click to view additional text
• Maximum media height for photos and videos will reduce to 4:5 on mobile News Feed - The tallest supported aspect ratio for images without links and for videos is now vertical (4:5). Media taller than 4:5 will be masked on Facebook mobile News Feed.

The changes, as noted, align with the introduction of 'FB5', Facebook's app redesign which it first unveiled at its F8 conference earlier in the year.

In addition to this, Facebook notes that the changes will "drive increased ad effectiveness and make it easier to use the same assets on Facebook News Feed and Instagram feed". The change, in this sense, is largely related to establishing more presentation uniformity across Instagram and Facebook, in order to maximize cross-promotional potential. 

Essentially, from August, if you're looking to maximize your Facebook ads, you'll need to make those first three lines super-snappy, while you'll also need to keep the image height change in mind in your formatting to ensure optimal presentation. 

And given the competition for attention in News Feeds, this is a key update to note. If you know anyone who uses Facebook ads, make sure they know about the coming change.