Text overlay is any wording placed on top of an ad’s image or video: a headline, a price, a short claim or burned-in captions. It is separate from the primary text, headline and description fields that Meta displays around the creative.
How text overlay works
For years Facebook ran what advertisers called the 20% text rule. Images where text covered more than a fifth of the area were rejected, and later shown to fewer people, and Facebook offered a grid tool to check them. Meta retired that rule several years ago, so ads with more text are no longer refused for that reason alone.
What stayed is the reasoning behind it. Meta’s own creative guidance still says that images with less text tend to do better, because a picture crowded with words looks like an advert in a space where people came to see friends, creators and things they like. The delivery system learns from how people respond: if a text-heavy image is scrolled past, it costs more to show.
Overlay also interacts with placements. In Stories and Reels the interface covers the top and bottom of the screen, so wording placed there can be hidden. In a small right-hand column ad, a sentence that looked fine in your design tool can become unreadable. One creative can appear in many places, and the overlay has to survive all of them.
Why it matters
Used well, a few words on the image do real work. They name the offer in under a second, show the price, or carry a video’s message for people scrolling with the sound off. A short line such as “Free UK delivery over £40” can stop the right person far more effectively than the same words in a caption they never expand.
Used badly, overlay hides the product, makes the ad look cheap and gets cut off on mobile. There is a UK compliance angle too. The ASA expects significant conditions on an offer to be clear and not hidden in small print. A headline promising “50% off” with the conditions in tiny grey type on the image is the kind of thing that attracts complaints, and Meta’s own advertising standards apply on top.
Common mistakes
- Turning the image into a poster. Paragraphs of text on a single image ad rarely get read.
- Repeating the caption word for word on the image, which wastes the space.
- Low contrast Such as white text on a pale photo, which fails on a bright phone screen and for people with low vision.
- Text in the danger areas of vertical placements, where the profile name or button covers it.
- Tiny legal lines on the image instead of clear terms on the landing page and in the ad copy.
- No captions on video Which leaves silent viewers guessing.
How to act on it
Decide what the image must say on its own, then cut it to a few words: the offer, the product or the problem you solve. Put it where the eye lands first, in a size and colour that reads easily on a phone held at arm’s length. Keep it inside the safe zone for vertical placements, and check the preview for each placement in Ads Manager before publishing.
Then test. Run the same visual with and without overlay, or with two different lines, and compare click-through rate and cost per result once each has had enough impressions to judge. Reviewing creative like this is a routine part of my Facebook ads management service.