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Ads on Reels: where Facebook and Instagram Reels ads appear, the specs and the setup

Facebook ads on Reels and Instagram ads on Reels are full-screen 9:16 ads shown between organic reels, and Meta's Ads Guide lists video, image and carousel specifications for both. Facebook has two further placements: in-stream ads that play before, during or after a reel, and overlay ads that sit on a creator's reel as a banner. Advantage+ placements include Reels by default; with manual placements you tick or untick Facebook Reels and Instagram Reels in the ad set.

Last updated 13 October 2026

Facebook ads on Reels: the placements Meta lists

Facebook ads on Reels run in three placements, not one. Everything below is from Meta's own pages as they read on 13 October 2026. The pages are undated and Meta edits them often, so check the live version before a production run.

Meta's list of ad placements puts Facebook Reels and Instagram Reels in a group called Stories, status and reels, and two more in a group called In-stream ads for reels.

The Reels placements Meta lists, and what each one is
Placement	What Meta says it is
Facebook Reels	A full-screen vertical ad between organic reels, reached from Feed or the Reels tab.
Instagram Reels	A full-screen vertical ad between organic reels, in the app and on desktop and mobile web.
Facebook in-stream reels	A 5 to 15 second video ad before, during or after a reel, including some approved partner live streams.
Ads on Facebook Reels	An overlay on a creator's reel: a banner at the bottom or, for a single image, a sticker towards the top.

On in-stream ads for reels, Meta says there are skippable ads, with a viewing period of up to 5 seconds, and non-skippable ads of up to 15 seconds, and that the first one tends to arrive about a minute into a video. A tick box in the placements section excludes the skippable kind.

Overlay ads still exist. Post-loop ads, the short video that played after a reel had looped, are less clear. Meta's page about ads on Reels carries a notice that post-loop ads stopped being available from November 2025 and that the placement now delivers overlay ads. The Ads Guide's video page for the same placement still printed post-loop specifications on the day we read it. The two disagree; the help page is the one with a date on it.

Instagram ads on Reels: where they appear

Instagram ads on Reels appear inside the Reels viewer, between organic reels. Meta's Reels ads page says a person has to tap into that viewer first, from the Reels tab, from Reels in Explore or from a reel in feed, and that ads are not shown on audio pages.

Meta's steps for creating Instagram Reels ads add that an approved ad can also appear in the Reels tab of public Instagram profiles belonging to people aged 18 and over. People can like, comment on, save, share and skip a Reels ad as they can any reel. Instagram has no overlay or in-stream placement in Meta's list.

Formats, specifications and safe zones

Video is the format Meta pushes, but the Ads Guide publishes image and carousel specifications for both Reels placements too. Carousels behave differently here: on Facebook Reels, the Ads Guide says the cards mainly appear as a row of product tiles under the main ad, and that the tiles only carry links when the creative comes from a catalogue.

Meta Ads Guide specifications for Reels ads, read on 13 October 2026
	Facebook Reels	Instagram Reels
Video file	MP4, MOV or GIF, up to 4 GB	MP4 or MOV, up to 4 GB
Video ratio and size	9:16, 1440 × 2560 px	9:16, 1440 × 2560 px
Video length	No maximum	Up to 15 minutes
Image file	JPG or PNG, up to 30 MB	JPG or PNG, up to 30 MB
Image ratio and size	9:16, 1440 × 2560 px	9:16, 1440 × 2560 px
Minimum image size	600 × 600 px	500 px wide
Carousel	2 to 10 cards, 9:16, at least 1080 × 1920 px	2 to 10 cards, 9:16, at least 1080 × 1080 px
Primary text	40 characters	44 characters
Headline	55 characters	Not listed

Overlay ads are a different shape. The Ads Guide's image page for Ads on Facebook Reels asks for a 1:1 image of at least 1080 × 1080 pixels, 60 characters of primary text and a 10 character headline, and advises against putting text on the image because it is shown small.

The safe zone is the same on every full-screen Reels page: leave roughly the top 14%, the bottom 35% and 6% on each side free of text and logos. Meta's Safe Zone page adds three things. Ads Manager has a Safe Zone guardrail you can toggle on to see the area. On screens taller than 9:16, Meta may zoom the creative, cropping the edges, or show it with black bars. And a Reels ad that carries a disclaimer should keep the bottom 40% clear. Our Meta ad sizes guide turns those percentages into pixels.

Instagram has extra content rules. The Ads Guide says Reels ads there should not contain licensed music, face or camera effects, GIFs or product tags, and should not reuse reels published before 15 October 2021.

How to select or exclude Reels placements in Ads Manager

Placements are set at the ad set level. With Advantage+ placements, which is the default, Meta's Reels ads page says both Facebook Reels and Instagram Reels are included. To choose them yourself, these are Meta's steps for choosing placements.

01
Open the Placements section of the ad set
With an awareness, traffic or engagement objective, hover over Advantage+ placements, click Edit and select Manual placements. With leads, app promotion or sales, click Show more settings, then Edit beside Placement controls.
02
Tick or untick the Reels boxes
Facebook Reels and Instagram Reels sit under Stories and Reels. The in-stream and overlay placements are separate entries in Meta's list. If a box is missing, Meta says that placement is not available for your objective or ad type.
03
Decide on limited spend
Allow limited spend to excluded placements lets Meta put up to 5% of the budget into each placement you excluded when it expects better results. Unselect it for a strict exclusion.
04
Give Reels its own file
At the ad level, the Reels ads page says you can upload creative built for Reels and assign it with placement asset customisation, or choose Use existing post to promote a reel you have already published.

Two things to know before excluding. Meta says that excluding a placement in any ad set triggers Advantage+ off, and its page on alternatives to excluding placements says a placement that cannot show your format is left out automatically, so there is no need to untick Reels only because you have no video. Meta's Reels ads page also recommends selecting six or more placements.

Sound and captions

Reels default to sound on. Meta's Reels ads page says an ad plays with sound unless the viewer has turned sound off, and the Ads Guide marks sound as optional but strongly recommended and captions as optional but recommended. The Facebook Reels video page also says auto captioning is not supported there, which suggests adding captions to the file yourself.

For music, Meta points to its royalty-free Sound Collection. For image ads, the Reels ads page says Advantage+ creative can add a track from Meta's royalty-free library, or you can pick up to five songs yourself. Our post on Advantage+ creative enhancements covers how to review what is switched on.

What Meta claims about Reels ad performance

These figures are all Meta's, from its Reels ads page, with the footnote Meta attaches to each. None is independent.

79% of people surveyed said they had bought a product or service after watching Reels. Footnote: research Meta commissioned from GWI in 2023, among 6,758 heavy short-form video viewers aged 16 to 64 in seven countries who use Reels at least weekly.
Twice the delivery to the Reels placement for campaigns that included 9:16 video with audio and key messages in the safe zone. Footnote: a global trend from March to May 2024 across 4 million campaigns opted in to Reels.
34.5% lower cost per result than image ads for the same kind of video. Footnote: Meta's analysis of 15 split tests of Reels-only campaigns in e-commerce, retail and packaged goods, small and medium businesses included, with no date given.
5% lower cost per result and an 11% higher conversion rate when partner-made 9:16 video with audio was added to a normal campaign. Source given: 15 A/B tests run from May 2022 to April 2023 in Germany, Spain, Indonesia, the UK and the US.

Read them narrowly. The survey sampled people who already watch Reels every week. The 34.5% figure compares video with still images inside Reels only; it says nothing about feed. And on the same page Meta encourages advertisers to opt in to Reels with whatever asset they have. Your own split test is the evidence that counts; our guide to testing ad creative explains how to run one.

What to do with this

Leave Reels in your placements unless you have a reason to remove it. An image ad is eligible, and Meta leaves out placements your format cannot use.
Make a 9:16 version at 1440 × 2560 pixels with the text inside the safe zone, and assign it to Stories and Reels so nothing is cropped for you.
If you have video, add sound and captions to the file, and put the message early. Our post on Facebook ad creative lists Meta's other creative advice.
Check the ad preview for each Reels placement before you publish, overlay included.

Sources

All pages were read on 13 October 2026.

Questions people ask

Where do Facebook ads on Reels appear?

Meta lists three Facebook placements. Facebook Reels ads are full-screen 9:16 ads between organic reels, Facebook in-stream reels ads are 5 to 15 second videos that play before, during or after a reel, and Ads on Facebook Reels are overlay banners on a creator's reel. Meta's help page says post-loop ads stopped being available from November 2025.

Where do Instagram ads on Reels appear?

Instagram ads on Reels appear between organic reels once someone has tapped into the Reels viewer from the Reels tab, Explore or a reel in feed. Meta says they can also appear in the Reels tab of public profiles of people aged 18 and over, and are not shown on audio pages.

Can I run image ads on Reels, or only video?

You can run image ads. Meta's Ads Guide lists image and carousel specifications for both Facebook Reels and Instagram Reels: a 9:16 JPG or PNG at 1440 × 2560 pixels, up to 30 MB. Meta's own figure is that 9:16 video with audio had a 34.5% lower cost per result than image ads in 15 split tests of Reels-only campaigns.

How do I exclude Reels placements in Meta Ads Manager?

In the Placements section of the ad set, switch to manual placements (or Show more settings, then Placement controls) and untick Facebook Reels and Instagram Reels under Stories and Reels. Meta may still spend up to 5% of the budget on each excluded placement unless you unselect Allow limited spend to excluded placements.

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