Facebook & Instagram Ad Video Formats: Sizes, Durations, and Rules to Follow

A video creative in the wrong format loses pixels to an automatic crop, or worse, gets its delivery limited for a reason nobody understands. This guide covers the exact dimensions of the three video ad formats on Facebook and Instagram, and the rules that actually get a creative rejected — including some that have nothing to do with what you'd expect coming from Amazon Ads.

The price that's forbidden on Amazon is almost mandatory here

This is the point that trips up the most multi-platform sellers: video ad rules don't carry over from one platform to another. Amazon rejects any mention of price, promotion or urgency in a listing video. On Meta, it's the opposite — a price, a discount, a clear call to action ('Shop Now', '20% off today') are normal advertising levers, and even recommended. What Meta forbids instead doesn't appear on any Amazon checklist: it's about what the creative assumes about the person watching it, not what it says about the product. More on that below.

The 3 Meta video ad formats

Facebook and Instagram share the same ad engine, and therefore the same video placements. The specs below are read directly from the engine that enforces them at generation time, not copied from an external doc that could be out of date.

The 3 reasons a Meta video creative gets rejected or throttled

Meta doesn't always spell out the exact reason for a rejection — a generic email, sometimes a throttled ad account with no explanation. Here are the documented reasons that come up most often for a product video:

• Prohibited content (profanity or a sensitive topic).
• A claim that assumes a personal characteristic of the viewer (health, weight, debt, age, religion, orientation, relationship status). The most common rejection reason on Meta: never an accusatory 'you'.
• Unproven health claim or miracle result. Meta rejects cure promises or guaranteed numeric results just as hard as Amazon does.

Reasons that don't block delivery but penalize reach

These pass review, but Meta reduces the reach of creatives perceived as follows:

• Reference to commercial music. Use royalty-free tracks only: unlicensed music is a frequent rejection reason.
• Vague superlative. Rarely rejected on its own, but it doesn't convert: replace it with a concrete, measurable benefit.
• Implicit comparison with competitors. Tolerated if factual and provable, rejected otherwise. Needs a manual check.
• Simulated interface element (fake close button, fake notification, fake player). Forbidden: the creative must not imitate the platform's UI.
• Clickbait phrasing. Rarely rejected on its own, but Meta throttles delivery on creatives perceived as sensationalist.
• Category subject to special ad authorization on Meta (alcohol, gambling, crypto, CBD, credit, dating, adult products). Not a creative rejection — check the ad account's authorization before launching.

The checklist before publishing a Meta video ad

• No line assumes a personal characteristic of the viewer — no accusatory "you" about their health, weight, age or finances.
• The product is identifiable within the safe zone of the format (outside the top/bottom band on Stories and Reels) from the first second.
• Price, promotion and call to action are accurate and verifiable — allowed here, but not if false.
• No unproven health claim, no numeric "guaranteed result," no implicit before/after.
• No fake interface element embedded in the creative (close button, notification, video player).
• Alcohol, gambling, crypto, CBD, credit, dating, adult products: confirmed the ad account has the required authorization for that category.
• Burned-in captions — 85% of viewing happens muted on mobile.

How to produce this video

The real trap isn't creative — it's reusing a video built for Amazon as-is. A script written to respect Amazon's ban on price and urgency is a script that underperforms on Meta, where those same elements are what converts. Conversely, a direct, action-oriented Meta script would get an Amazon listing rejected instantly. The two rule sets are nearly opposite, not variants of each other.

That's why a single generic script isn't enough: generation has to know the destination before writing a single line, not just the aspect ratio. That's the mechanism behind Klippads — the compliance engine changes depending on whether the video targets Amazon or Meta, detailed on the pricing page.

FAQ

Can you put a price or a promotion in a Facebook ad video?

Yes, unlike an Amazon listing video. A price, a discount or real urgency ('last days of the sale') are normal advertising arguments on Meta, as long as they're accurate.

What's the best video size for Instagram Reels?

1080×1920 pixels, full-screen 9:16. A 16:9 video boxed in with black bars performs noticeably worse than a native vertical format.

Does an Amazon carousel-format video work as-is on Meta?

Technically, the file can be cropped, but the script will likely fail Meta's rules, and vice versa — the two sets of constraints are largely opposite (see above). The aspect ratio alone isn't enough to adapt a creative from one platform to another.