Ad Placement Specs And Safe Zones

The short version

This post gives the export dimensions and safe zones for the ad placements Playad renders, and explains the two things that actually matter behind them: which aspect ratios you need masters for, and where the platform UI will cover your creative.

Ratios Matter More Than Pixels

Most placement confusion comes from treating every placement as a separate size. It is not. Platforms scale your asset; what they do not do is change its shape.

That reduces the problem considerably. Across every placement below there are only six distinct ratios, and one of them covers a majority of modern inventory.

9:16 — vertical full screen. Stories, Reels, Shorts, TikTok. The highest-volume shape in social advertising.
1:1 — square. Feed, and the safest fallback when you only make one asset.
4:5 — vertical feed. Takes more screen height than square in a scrolling feed.
1.91:1 — horizontal link format.
16:9 — horizontal video.
2:3 and 3:4 — Pinterest standard and Meta carousel.

Export above the target dimensions and let the platform scale down. Scaling up is where quality is lost.

Safe Zones Are The Part That Breaks Creative

A safe zone is the margin the platform's own interface occupies: the profile row, the caption, the CTA button, the progress bar. Anything you place there is covered at delivery, and it will look correct in every preview you check beforehand.

This is the most common way a technically correct asset fails. The file is the right size, the ad is approved, and the headline sits underneath the CTA button on a phone.

Two rules cover most of it:

Keep text, logos, faces, and prices out of the safe zone entirely.
Design the vertical formats bottom-heavy in the middle, not the edges. The bottom margin is consistently the largest.

Note the asymmetry. Meta Reels reserves far more at the bottom (420px) than the top (220px), and Pinterest Idea ads reserve more on the right (195px) than the left (65px). Treating safe zones as an even border produces creative that fails on exactly the placements with the most inventory.

Reference Table

Dimensions Playad exports for each placement, with the safe margins applied.

Platform	Placement	Dimensions	Ratio	Safe zone
Meta	Feed (1:1)	1080 × 1080	1:1	None
Meta	Feed (4:5)	1080 × 1350	4:5	None
Meta	Feed (1.91:1)	1080 × 565	1.91:1	None
Meta	Stories (9:16)	1080 × 1920	9:16	top 250px, bottom 250px
Meta	Reels (9:16)	1080 × 1920	9:16	top 220px, bottom 420px, left 35px, right 35px
Meta	Carousels (3:4)	1012 × 1350	3:4	None
YouTube	Shorts (9:16)	1080 × 1920	9:16	top 180px, bottom 180px, left 32px, right 32px
YouTube	In-Stream (16:9)	1920 × 1080	16:9	top 84px, bottom 84px, left 150px, right 150px
TikTok	Stories (9:16)	1080 × 1920	9:16	top 180px, bottom 320px, left 32px, right 32px
Google	Horizontal (1.91:1)	1200 × 628	1.91:1	None
Google	Vertical (4:5)	1200 × 1500	4:5	None
Google	Square (1:1)	1200 × 1200	1:1	None
Pinterest	Standard ad (2:3)	1000 × 1500	2:3	None
Pinterest	Idea ad (9:16)	1080 × 1920	9:16	top 270px, bottom 440px, left 65px, right 195px

Aspect ratio is the durable part of this table. Exact pixel requirements and safe areas are set by each platform and change without notice, so confirm against the platform's own specification before a launch that depends on precise placement:

How Many Masters You Actually Need

You do not need fourteen assets. For most advertisers the working set is three:

9:16 for all vertical full-screen inventory, designed to the tightest safe zone among the placements you run.
1:1 or 4:5 for feed. Choose one and use it consistently rather than splitting production across both.
1.91:1 or 16:9 where horizontal is required.

Design the vertical master to the strictest safe zone you will use rather than to each placement separately. It costs a little usable area and removes an entire class of production work.

Checking Before You Launch

View the creative at phone size, not on a monitor. Text that is readable at desktop scale often is not on a device.
Confirm the important element survives the crop at every ratio you export.
Check the bottom third specifically. That is where the interface sits and where errors concentrate.
Confirm the file meets the platform's current size and duration limits, which change more often than the ratios do.

Common Mistakes

Designing to the canvas edge and losing text under the interface.
Building a separate asset per placement instead of a master per ratio.
Upscaling a small source file to meet a dimension requirement.
Treating safe zones as a symmetric border when the bottom margin is consistently largest.
Approving creative from a desktop preview only.

Practical Rule

Design masters by ratio, not by placement, and design the vertical master to the tightest safe zone you will run. Confirm exact requirements against the platform's own specification before any launch that depends on them.