Getting an ad rejected or auto-cropped because of the wrong dimensions is a small mistake that wastes real budget, especially once a campaign is already live. This page collects the sizes, formats and character limits we use day to day when building campaigns for clients, covering the platforms most UAE businesses actually advertise on. Specs change as platforms update their ad units, so treat the numbers below as a reliable starting point and always confirm against the platform’s own specs page before a final export on a high-stakes campaign.
Getting this right matters most on paid campaigns, where a wrongly sized asset is either rejected outright or force-cropped by the platform in a way that cuts off a headline or a product shot. It is a quiet, fixable cause of wasted spend that has nothing to do with targeting or bidding strategy.
What image and video sizes do you need for Google Ads in 2026?
Responsive display ads perform best when you supply multiple aspect ratios rather than a single size, since Google assembles the combination that fits each placement. As a baseline, prepare a landscape image at 1200×628px, a square image at 1200×1200px, and a square logo at 1200×1200px alongside a landscape logo at 1200×300px. Keep file sizes under 5MB and stick to JPG or PNG so the assets are accepted without recompression artefacts.
For YouTube, skippable in-stream ads are typically built at 1920×1080 (16:9) for standard placements, with a vertical 1080×1920 (9:16) version recommended if you also want the ad eligible for Shorts inventory. Search ads carry no imagery at all: budget for up to 15 headlines at 30 characters each and up to 4 descriptions at 90 characters each, since Google rotates combinations automatically to find the best performer.
What are the current ad specs for Meta (Facebook & Instagram)?
Feed placements on Facebook and Instagram are optimised for a 1:1 square image at 1080×1080px, though a 1200×628px landscape crop is still accepted and used for some legacy placements. Stories and Reels are full-screen vertical formats, built at 1080×1920px (9:16), and any text or logo should sit inside the middle 80% of the frame so it is not covered by the platform’s own UI elements, such as the profile name or call-to-action button.
Video should be exported as MP4 or MOV. Feed video can technically run long, but engagement drops sharply after the first few seconds, so we cut feed video to under 15 seconds wherever possible and Reels to the same length for consistency across placements. On copy length, primary text is generally readable up to around 125 characters before it is truncated with a “see more” link, and headlines are capped at roughly 40 characters, so lead with the offer or hook rather than context.
How do LinkedIn and TikTok ad specs differ from Meta and Google?
LinkedIn Sponsored Content typically uses a 1200×627px (1.91:1) landscape image or a 1200×1200px square, and video can run either vertical (9:16) or square (1:1). LinkedIn technically allows video up to 30 minutes, but for cold-audience prospecting we keep it under 30 seconds, since the platform’s feed is consumed more slowly and deliberately than Instagram or TikTok. Intro text is readable up to around 150 characters before truncation, and headlines are capped near 70 characters.
TikTok is the strictest about format: every standard in-feed ad must be vertical, 1080×1920px (9:16), with a file size limit of roughly 500MB and a runtime the platform accepts up to 60 seconds, though 9 to 15 seconds consistently performs best for top-of-funnel awareness campaigns. Spark Ads, which boost an existing organic post rather than uploading a new creative, follow the dimensions of the original post and are worth testing separately from standard in-feed ads because they tend to carry more trust with viewers.
Across every platform, the same principle holds: design for the smallest common screen first. A headline that reads clearly on a phone in portrait mode will always read clearly on a desktop feed, but the reverse is rarely true, and most UAE ad impressions are still served on mobile.
Keeping this page useful
We update these specs whenever a platform changes its ad units in a way that affects how we brief designers on client accounts. If you are running paid media with us, you will get platform-ready assets sized correctly from the brief stage rather than working backwards from a rejected upload. If you are building creative in-house and want a second pair of eyes before a campaign goes live, our PPC and Google Ads team is happy to sanity-check a batch of assets on a short call.
Bookmark this page if you brief creative in-house regularly. We would rather you check back here for the current numbers than guess and find out after spend has already gone live.