Video Ad Specs for Feed Placement Ads: The Complete Guide

Video ad specs for feed placement ads are not the same as specs for a full-screen vertical placement like Stories or Reels. A feed placement shows up inside a scrolling list of posts, next to photos, text updates and other videos, so the safe aspect ratio, resolution and crop behavior are different from a video built to fill the entire screen. Get the specs wrong and your ad gets cropped, your captions run off the edge, or your hook sits in a zone the platform covers with UI elements.

What counts as a "feed placement" (and why specs differ from Stories or Reels)

A feed is a vertically scrolling list of mixed content: photos, text posts, shared links and video ads, all competing for the same space. Because the frame around the video is set by the feed layout rather than the video itself, feed placements are usually squarer than full-screen placements. Stories, Reels and TikTok's main feed, by contrast, hand the entire screen to the video, which is why those are built in 9:16.

This matters for specs because a video cropped tightly for a 9:16 full-screen placement will often lose its edges when squeezed into a 1:1 or 4:5 feed frame. A product shot that was perfectly centered for a vertical screen might get a logo or call-to-action button clipped once it's resized for feed. Specs aren't just technical trivia here — they decide what the viewer actually sees.

Video ad specs for feed placement ads, platform by platform

There's no single universal spec, but most feed placements converge on a small set of starting points. Use the table below as a baseline, then always check the current spec page of the specific ad platform before a big launch, since exact pixel limits can be adjusted by each platform over time.

For a closer look at LinkedIn's own feed rules, including file size limits and recommended durations, see Video Ad Specs for LinkedIn Feed Ads and the companion LinkedIn Video Ad Size Guide.

Aspect ratio and safe zones for feed video ads

Aspect ratio decides how much of your video the feed frame actually shows. A video shot or exported in 9:16 and simply dropped into a feed placement set to 1:1 will usually get center-cropped, chopping off anything near the top or bottom. The fix is to export a version specifically for feed, not to reuse the vertical file as-is.

• Keep the main subject (face, product, text) inside the middle 80% of the frame, leaving margin on all four sides.
• Avoid placing your logo or call-to-action button in the outer 10% of the frame, since some feed surfaces add their own UI elements over that area.
• If you're repurposing a vertical ad for feed, re-check captions and on-screen text placement rather than assuming the same positions still read well.
• Test both 1:1 and 4:5 where the platform allows it; 4:5 generally gives a slightly taller frame that can work well for product shots with headroom.

If you're building the vertical version first, the guidance in Vertical Video Ad Specs for Mobile and Subtitle Placement Tips for Vertical Video Ads is a useful reference for where to keep text clear of crop lines before you resize down to a feed ratio.

File, length and caption specs that affect feed performance in testing

Beyond aspect ratio, three practical specs decide whether a feed ad plays cleanly and holds attention: file format and size, length, and captions.

File format and export settings

MP4 with H.264 encoding is the safest, widest-supported format for feed placements across major ad platforms. Keep frame rate steady (24 to 30 fps is a reasonable starting point to test) and avoid variable frame rate exports, which can cause playback stutter inside a feed. For a step-by-step on export settings that hold up across platforms, see Safe Export Settings for Vertical Video Ads — the same principles about bitrate and encoding apply when exporting for feed ratios too.

Length

Feed placements technically allow longer videos than Stories or Reels, but a feed ad is competing with everything else in the scroll, so shorter usually performs better in testing. A reasonable starting point is 15 to 30 seconds for a direct-response feed ad, trimmed down from a longer master cut if needed. Treat any specific duration recommendation as something to test against your own audience rather than a fixed rule.

Captions and sound-off design

Because autoplay in feed is commonly muted by default, the first few seconds need to work without sound. Burned-in captions, bold on-screen text for the hook, and visual cues that explain the offer without audio all help here. This is also where feed ads overlap with native placements: both rely on blending into the surrounding content rather than looking like an obvious interruption, which is covered in more depth in Video Ad Specs for Native Ad Placements.

Feed vs. Stories, Reels and other vertical placements: what actually changes

It helps to separate what stays the same across placements from what changes specifically for feed:

• Aspect ratio changes: feed leans toward 1:1 or 4:5; Stories, Reels and TikTok's main feed lean toward full 9:16.
• Safe zones change: feed needs margin against the frame edges for the feed layout itself; vertical placements need margin against platform UI like captions bars and action buttons.
• Sound-off design does not change: both feed and vertical placements benefit from captions and visual hooks that work muted.
• Core message and offer structure does not change: a hook, a problem, a benefit, proof and a call to action still apply whether the frame is square or vertical.
• Pacing can change slightly: feed viewers are scrolling past other content, so an immediate visual hook in the first second or two matters as much as, if not more than, in a vertical placement.

In practice, most advertisers don't build a completely separate creative for feed. They take the same underlying script and visuals and re-export the frame to fit, which is why having a clean master video with generous margins around the subject makes multi-placement work much faster.

Common feed spec mistakes to avoid

• Reusing a 9:16 vertical export as-is for a 1:1 or 4:5 feed slot without re-checking crops.
• Placing a call-to-action button or key text too close to the frame edge, where feed cropping or UI overlays can cut it off.
• Skipping captions because the video has a voiceover, then losing the message when it autoplays muted.
• Exporting at a low bitrate to save file size, which can look fine on a large screen but soft or blocky on a small feed thumbnail.
• Treating feed as an afterthought and only testing one aspect ratio, missing out on placements that would have performed differently with a better-fitted crop.

Building feed-ready ads without re-editing every size by hand

The usual bottleneck with feed specs isn't knowing the numbers — it's the manual work of re-cropping, re-captioning and re-exporting the same ad for every ratio a campaign needs. FrameNotion is built around that problem: paste a product or website link, and FrameNotion AI writes and renders a 30-second vertical ad from scratch, complete with hook, problem, benefit, proof, offer and call to action, with word-by-word captions baked in so it works on mute. Every ad also comes out as 4:5, 1:1 and 16:9 automatically, which covers most feed placements without a separate re-edit.

If text or colors need adjusting after export — say, a call-to-action that got close to a crop edge in the square version — FrameNotion takes change requests and updates the existing ad rather than starting over. You can see finished examples at examples made with FrameNotion or check how the process works before trying it on your own product page.

A quick pre-launch checklist for feed placement specs

1. Confirm the exact aspect ratio supported by the feed placement you're targeting (1:1, 4:5 or 9:16).
2. Export at a resolution that starts at 1080 pixels on the shorter side, in MP4 with H.264 encoding.
3. Keep the subject and any text inside the middle 80% of the frame to survive cropping.
4. Add burned-in captions and a visual hook that reads clearly without sound in the first few seconds.
5. Trim to 15–30 seconds as a starting point, then test longer or shorter versions against your own results.
6. Preview the final export inside the actual placement before launch, not just on a desktop timeline.