The Placement and the Technical Requirements
They may still be the new kid on the block when it comes to marketing tools
but is clear from the beginning that Story Ads have the potential to be
extremely engaging and profitable for businesses. Don’t be too alarmed by
the fact that Story Ads have a whole set of technical and creative
requirements of their own. Let’s break it down, one by one, so that it doesn’t
seem all that daunting:
● For the best image quality, it is recommended that you keep your content
at an image ratio of 9 x 16, and a size of 1080 x 1920 pixels.
● Video content should be kept at a maximum of 15 seconds and not a
second longer, with a 4:5 vertical aspect ratio and a minimum width of
approximately 600 pixels. The recommended file formats to use include
either .mov, .mp4 or .gif. Your video file size should be kept at a maximum
of 4GB.
Oh, and here is another similarity which Story Ads share with the
conventional newsfeed ones, which is that your videos should contain only
the bare minimum when it comes to texts. Even more so when it comes to
images. Having too much text involved is going to penalize your ad
distribution (this will happen when your texts are 20% or more of the
image).
Instagram Stories have a whole different kind of aesthetic appeal, which is
apparent if you compare them to the regular newsfeed ads side by side. When
it comes to Instagram Story Ads, the content should be kept fun. Filters and
stickers, for example, are acceptable with Story Ads, but the only catch is that
you need to add these features in yourself using video editing tools
(Photoshop is a good choice), and then upload the completed file to your Ads
Manager platform.