If you’re going to advertise on Instagram, you’re going to want to do it properly. This means building your ads to the optimal sizes and meeting all of Instagram’s specifications.
Instagram has become incredibly popular as a social network platform in recent years. Facebook clearly saw its potential, adding Instagram to its pre-existing Facebook Business Network. As Facebook emphasizes on its Instagram Marketing page, there are:
- 1 billion+ Instagram accounts worldwide active every month
- 500 million+ Instagram accounts worldwide active every day
- 80 percent of accounts follow a business on Instagram
- 500 million+ accounts use Instagram Stories every day
There are a surprisingly large number of advertising options, so it is easy to make a mistake. We’ve listed the various types of ads below.
Instagram Ad Sizes and Specifications:
Instagram Image Ad Sizes
The most common type of Instagram ad is undoubtedly the Instagram Image ad. Instagram advertisers have one advantage over most other social media networks. Users typically see just one Instagram post at a time – so an Instagram image post gets to hog the screen, rather than having to fight for real estate with other posts.
There are three types of Instagram image ad from which you can select: Instagram landscape image ad, Instagram square image ad, and Instagram vertical image ad.
Source: mailchimp.com
Instagram Landscape (Horizontal) Image Ad
Landscape images are wider than they are tall. Television and movie screens are landscape, as are traditional computer monitors. Back in the days when people printed out their holiday snaps and other pictures, most photos were horizontal. Likewise, most newspaper pictures (apart from headshots of individual people) were printed in a horizontal format.
Although you can use a phone or tablet in landscape mode, it’s not the traditional way that most people hold their portable devices. This means that most people now view landscape posts in the vertical format, with the image shrinking vertically so that the whole landscape width can fit into a narrower vertical column.
However, there can be a good reason for using a landscape image in your ads. As the name indicates, it is the ideal ratio for presenting scenery shots (i.e., landscapes) and visions of grandeur. Similarly, you use landscape to show images of large events, e.g., shots of a concert audience or a political rally. Imagine how less of a spectacle the battle scenes in Games of Thrones would look if they had been filmed vertically (simply focusing on a close-up of a single character at a time)
The formal sizes and specifications for Instagram landscape images ads are:
- minimum resolution: 600 x 315 pixels
- recommended resolution: 1200 x 628 pixels
- proper aspect ratio: 1.9:1
- the format should be either JPG or PNG
- maximum image size: 30MB
- recommended caption length: 125 characters
- maximum caption length: 2,200 characters
Instagram Square Image Ad
The square image on Instagram is something of a hybrid between landscape and vertical images. It often depicts more of a close-up centered image than the other types.
A square image appears as a longer image than a horizontal image (on a device typically held vertically), but shorter than a vertical image.
It is ideal for ads featuring a close-up shot of your product. It is also good for shots that might otherwise be vertical but would have wasted space at the top and bottom.
The formal sizes and specifications for Instagram square images ads are:
- minimum resolution: 600 x 600 pixels
- recommended resolution: 1080 x 1080 pixels
- proper aspect ratio: 1:1
- the format should be either JPG or PNG
- maximum image size: 30MB
- recommended caption length: 125 characters
- maximum caption length: 2,200 characters
Instagram Vertical Image Ad
With vertical images being the default on Instagram, it is no surprise that you see many vertical pictures on the platform. Advertisers are no different, and many brands use vertical images as part of their marketing.
As the formal name for the vertical format – portrait – suggests it is particularly suited to photos of individual people. Many people don’t take advantage of the extra length, however, and take images better suited to the square format. If you’re going to use vertical image ads, make sure you include something of interest at the top and bottom sections of your picture, not just blank space.
The formal sizes and specifications for Instagram vertical images ads are:
- minimum resolution: 600 x 750 pixels
- recommended resolution: 1080 x 1350 pixels
- proper aspect ratio: 4:5
- the format should be either JPG or PNG
- maximum image size: 30MB
- recommended caption length: 125 characters
- maximum caption length: 2,200 characters
Instagram Video Ad Sizes
Video is becoming increasingly popular on Instagram. Nowadays, even the cheapest smartphone can take a few minutes of high-quality video.
Video can still be tricky because there are many different file types and compression ratios. However, Instagram has issued clear guidelines of what you can upload to their platform. Just as with images, video can be uploaded horizontal (like your television), square, and vertical.
Source: later.com
Instagram Landscape (Horizontal) Video Ad
Landscape video is the traditional format, used in cinemas and television since the invention of the moving picture. It is particularly suited to landscape vistas and sweeping action shots.
Obviously, any video intended to be used on the big screen will be shot in a landscape ratio. Likewise, if you include clips from your television ads, they will also be landscape.
The bulk of videos uploaded to YouTube are still landscape.
The formal sizes and specifications for Instagram landscape video ads are:
- minimum resolution: 600 x 315 pixels
- proper aspect ratio: 1:91:1.
- recommended video formats include MP4 and MOV
- max video size: 4GB.
- Max video length: 120 seconds.
- Video max frames: 30fps.
Instagram Square Video Ad
Square ads are a somewhat unusual format, in that they are not a natural video size. You have to take a landscape or vertical video and crop to a square size in your video editing software. Buffer compared various video sizes and discovered that square video takes up 78% more real estate in a person’s mobile newsfeed than does landscape video. Buffer also found that square video outperformed landscape video in views and engagement. Perhaps more importantly, from an advertiser’s point of view, Buffer found that it costs 33% less to get someone to engage with square video on Instagram.
Of course, you must be careful when cropping your video. You don’t want to leave anything meaningful out of shot when constructing your square video. Square video also has less space to add graphics or calls to action.
The formal sizes and specifications for Instagram square video ads are:
- minimum resolution: 600 x 600 pixels
- proper aspect ratio: 1:1.
- recommended video formats include MP4 and MOV
- max video size: 4GB
- max video length: 120 seconds
- Video max frames: 30fps
Instagram Vertical Video Ad
A few years ago, vertical videos would have been unthinkable. Snapchat changed that, and much video that originates from mobile devices is now shot vertical.
Advertisers may not always shoot their videos on mobile devices, but they know that most people using Instagram watch videos on their phones, and most don’t bother to change over to landscape just to watch a video. So quite a few advertisers deliberately make vertical videos.
Sometimes you’ll notice that the focal part of video appears horizontal or square, but the entire video file is vertical because the advertiser uses the bottom part of the video for text – perhaps some copy and a call to action.
The formal sizes and specifications for Instagram vertical video ads are:
- minimum resolution: 600 x 750 pixels
- proper aspect ratio: 4:5.
- recommended video formats include MP4 and MOV
- max video size: 4GB
- max video length: 120 seconds
- Video max frames: 30fps
Instagram Stories Ad Sizes
Source: wave.video
Instagram Stories are becoming increasingly popular. These are, by nature, vertical. They offer many opportunities for advertisers, including additional filters, stickers, markers, GIFs, and the ability to swipe up to a clickable link.
As with Instagram itself, you can use both images and videos within your Instagram Stories.
The formal sizes and specifications for Instagram Stories images are:
- minimum resolution (Instagram Stories images): 600 x 1067 pixels
- recommended resolution (Instagram Stories images): 1080 x 1920 pixels
- proper aspect ratio: 9:16.
- all image formats should be either JPG or PNG
- max duration: 5 seconds
- max image size: 30MB
The formal sizes and specifications for Instagram Stories videos are:
- minimum resolution (Instagram Stories video): 720 x 1280 pixels
- recommended resolution (Instagram Stories video): 1080 x 1920 pixels
- proper aspect ratio: 9:16.
- all video formats should be either MP4 or MOV
- max video size: 4GB
Instagram Carousel Ad Sizes
Source: voymedia.com
The Carousel ad option allows brands to feature images (or videos) of multiple products in one ad. Users can swipe through the various slides of a carousel ad to see the various items offered. Like Instagram Stories, carousel ads can comprise a mix of still images and videos.
Carousel ads have dots at the bottom to indicate to users that there is more than one image/video.
The formal sizes and specifications for Instagram Carousel images are:
- recommended resolution (Instagram Carousel images): 1080 x 1080 pixels
- proper aspect ratio: 1:1
- all image formats should be either JPG or PNG
- max image size: 30MB per image
- you can use 2-10 images/videos per ad
The formal sizes and specifications for Instagram Carousel videos are:
- minimum resolution (Instagram Carousel video): 600 x 600 pixels
- recommended resolution (Instagram Carousel video): 1080 x 1920 pixels
- proper aspect ratio: 1:1
- all video formats should be either MP4
- max video size: 4GB per video
- max video length: 60 seconds
- you can use 2-10 images/videos per ad
Don’t forget that you will also need a thumbnail image, also following the 1:1 ratio (and with text covering no more than 20% of the image space)
