Instagram ad campaigns are still the easiest and most effective way to reach your intended audience. Over 60% of Instagram users log in at least once daily. It only trails one site for daily use, Facebook. 

Instagram’s ad revenue will bring in 30% of total ad revenue by the end of 2020 according to Sprout Social.

Before you start with your ad campaign, we want to share the best practices while creating them to ensure you have images correctly formatted, resolutions limits set properly, and videos sized correctly. Here is our list for single image ads, video ads, carousel ads, and story ads.

Specifications for Instagram Single Image Ads 

• File type: .jpg or .png
• Maximum file size- 30MB
• Image size: Instagram recommends you upload the highest-resolution image available that meets ratio requirements (i.e., horizontal, square, or vertical). No minimum resolution
• Minimum image width- 500 pixels
• Minimum aspect ratio- 400×500
• Maximum aspect ratio- 191×100
• Aspect ratio tolerance- 0.01
• Two rows of text will be displayed

Specifications for Instagram Video Ads

• Video formats- .mp4 or .mov – recommended, many more acceptable
• Recommended resolution: Upload the highest-resolution video available that meets file size and ratio limits
• Source ratio- 1.91:1 to 4:5 (horizontal 16:9, square 1:1, vertical 4:5)
• Minimum video dimension- 500 pixels
• Maximum video file size- 30MB
• Video Captions- optional
• Video Ratio- 400×500, max. 191×100
• Video Duration- 1 to 120 seconds
• Two rows of text will be displayed
• Video thumbnail images that consist of more than 20% text may experience reduced delivery

Specifications for Instagram Carousel Ads

• Number of cards: 2 (minimum) to 10 (maximum)
• File type: jpg or png (image) or .mp4 or .mov (video – recommended, many more acceptable)
• Maximum video file size: 4GB
• Video Duration: 60 seconds maximum
• Recommended image resolution- at least 1080 x 1080
• Carousel Ratio: 1:1 
• Two rows of text will be displayed
• Headline- One row of text will display
• Images that consist of more than 20% text may experience reduced delivery

Specifications for Instagram Stories Carousel Ads 

Carousel ads are available in story format too. IG stories carousel automatically pulls 1, 2 or 3 cards out of the 10 cards in one carousel ad. And gives viewers the option to tap “Expand Story” to view all.

• Minimum number of cards- 2
• Maximum number of cards- 3
• Ratio- 9:16
• Recommended resolution- 1080×1920
• Maximum video duration- 15 seconds 

Expandable Stories Carousel ads show the first 3 cards automatically but gives users the option to “keep watching” to view the remaining cards. 

• Maximum number of cards- 10
• Ratio- same as news feed
• Images should contain less than 20% text
• Maximum video duration- 60 seconds 

Specifications for Instagram Slideshow Ads

• File type: jpg or png for images; wav, mp3, m4a, flac and ogc for sound files
• Minimum Image Width: 600 x 600 pixels, max. 1080 x 1080 – any images or videos you use that aren’t square will be cropped to meet that format
• Text limit: Two rows of text will be displayed
• Image Duration: up to 50 seconds / image

Specifications for Instagram Stories Image Ads

• Use: jpg, png
• Maximum file size: 30MB
• Recommend image size: 1080 x 1920 pixels
• Images that consist of more than 20% text may experience reduced delivery

Specifications for Instagram Stories Video Ads 

• Use: mp4, mov
• Maximum file size- 4 GB
• Recommend image size- 1080 x 1920 pixels
• Resolution- 720p
• Source ratio- 1.91:1 to 4:5 (horizontal 16:9, square 1:1, vertical 4:5)
• Video length- 15 seconds