Catalogue Ads for Stories and Reels: 9:16 Done Right

Most product catalogues are full of square photos. Stories and Reels are tall, full-screen and covered in interface. Put the two together without a plan and you get one of two results: the product cropped at the edges, or a small square floating in a blurred or coloured background with the price lost behind the “Shop now” button.

This post covers what Meta does with catalogue images in 9:16 placements, the safe zones to design around, and how to lay out catalogue creative for the format.

What Meta does with your square images

Meta’s documentation for Advantage+ creative for catalog explains the behaviour. A setting labelled image touch-ups in Ads Manager fits images to each placement based on what Meta predicts will work best, and it’s on by default. If there’s no native image for the placement’s ratio, the image may be cropped, padded, or both. Meta also says that when you opt in, 9:16 and 4:5 images in your catalogue can be used to show full-screen images in supported placements.

So you have two options:

Let Meta adapt square images. It costs nothing and often works for simple packshots with space around the product. It fails on tall products, wide products and anything with text near the edges.
Provide images made for the ratio. More work, but you decide what the shopper sees.

Before choosing, look at your own ads. In Ads Manager, preview several products in the Stories and Reels placements. If the product or price is cut off, option 2 is worth it.

The safe zones

In Stories and Reels, the platform draws its own interface over your image: the profile name and “Sponsored” label at the top, the call-to-action and caption at the bottom. Meta’s Ads Guide for Stories suggests keeping text and logos out of:

roughly the top 14%,
roughly the bottom 35%,
roughly 6% on each side.

On a 1080 x 1920 canvas, that’s about 270 pixels at the top, 670 at the bottom and 65 at each side. What’s left is the middle of the screen, and that’s where the product name and price need to be.

The bottom zone is bigger than most people expect. A square catalogue design with the price along its bottom edge, scaled up to fill a story, puts the price right under the call-to-action button.

Designing 9:16 catalogue creative

A 9:16 layout isn’t a square one stretched. It’s a different composition.

Stack, don’t spread. In a square, a name on the left and the price on the right sit side by side. In 9:16 there’s no width for that. Stack the product, then the name, then the price, down the middle.

Make the product bigger, not the background. The extra height should go to the product. A small packshot in a huge field of colour wastes the format.

Keep the price in the middle third. It’s the part of the screen nothing covers. If your design has a sale badge, keep it below the top safe zone too.

Leave the bottom calm. The bottom 35% can hold colour, pattern or a brand mark that doesn’t matter if it’s covered. It shouldn’t hold anything the shopper needs to read.

Use larger type than you think. Stories are seen at arm’s length and in a hurry. Text that’s readable in a 1:1 feed post can be too small in a story.

Check long product names. A name that fits on two lines in a square may need three in a narrow column. Set names to shrink or truncate, and preview the longest ones.

Getting 9:16 images into the catalogue

If you design 9:16 catalogue images, they need to reach Meta per product, from the same feed, at the right price. That’s what a catalogue creative tool does: render one image per product from a template, then send those images to the catalogue.

In our DPA Creative Editor, each of the 43 starters comes in square 1:1, portrait 4:5 and story 9:16, and switching format re-lays out the design for that ratio rather than stretching it. Story layouts keep their text inside the safe zone above, and the editor draws that zone as a guide while you design. You publish one format per feed at a time, so pick the format that suits the placements that feed’s ads mostly run in.

Checklist

Previewed current catalogue ads in Stories and Reels placements
Decided: let Meta adapt square images, or provide 9:16 images
Text and logos kept out of the top 14%, bottom 35% and 6% at each side
Product name and price in the middle of the screen
Type size checked on a phone, not a monitor
Longest product names previewed
Sale details shown only on sale products

For the design side of catalogue ads more generally, see DPA templates: catalogue ad layouts and when to use each, and for every size and field limit in one place, Meta catalogue ads specs.

Frequently asked questions

What size are Stories and Reels catalogue images?

Stories and Reels are full-screen 9:16. Meta's Ads Guide recommends 1440 x 2560 pixels for Stories image ads. 1080 x 1920 is also 9:16 and is widely used.

What is the safe zone for Stories ads?

Meta's Ads Guide suggests leaving roughly 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom and 6% of each side free of text and logos, because the profile details and call-to-action button cover those areas.

What does Meta do with square catalogue images in Stories?

With image touch-ups on, which is the default, Meta fits images to the placement. If there's no image in the right ratio, it may crop the image, pad it, or both.

Catalogue ads for Stories and Reels: 9:16 without cropped products