Here is the most common creative setup on Meta: one 1:1 image, uploaded once, running everywhere. Meta will accept it cheerfully. It will also stretch, crop, and letterbox that square into placements it was never designed for, where it competes against creative that was. Your Reels impression shows a small square floating in dead space while the ad above it fills the screen. You paid the same auction price for both impressions.
The fix is not "make more creative" in the abstract. It is a specific minimum: three assets per ad set, one per core format. That single production habit unlocks the full placement inventory with creative that actually fits each slot.
The rule: cover three formats
| Asset | Aspect ratio | Where it serves | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Static image | 4:5 (or 1:1) | Facebook and Instagram feeds, right column, marketplace | 4:5 takes more vertical feed space on mobile than 1:1, so prefer it for feed |
| 2. Feed video | 4:5 (or 1:1) | Feed video slots, in-stream | Around 15 seconds; front-load the message |
| 3. Vertical video | 9:16 | Stories, Reels | Designed native for full-screen vertical, never a crop of the feed asset |
Upload at the highest resolution you have (1440px wide or better; there is no benefit to downscaling), keep any text overlay short and legible at phone scale, and assume sound-off in feed: captions or on-screen text must carry the message without audio.
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Three-format lineup
Three phone mockups side by side showing the same campaign concept executed per format: a 4:5 static image in an Instagram feed frame, a 4:5 video in a Facebook feed frame with a caption bar visible, and a 9:16 vertical video in a Reels frame. Beneath each, a label with the aspect ratio. A bracket above all three carries the caption "one concept, three assets, every placement unlocked". The visual point is that the three are recomposed, not cropped from each other: the vertical version repositions the subject and text rather than zooming the square.
Why coverage matters more than preference
It is tempting to skip vertical video because "our audience is on Facebook feed anyway". That logic is backwards for two reasons.
First, placements are priced separately by the auction. Stories and Reels impressions frequently clear cheaper than feed impressions for the same audience, and a campaign that cannot serve there is locked out of its cheapest inventory. Second, delivery optimisation works with what you give it. When an ad set carries all three formats, Meta can route each impression to the format built for it, and your average cost benefits from the blend. One-format ad sets do not just miss placements, they surrender the option value.
The test: in Ads Manager, add the Placement breakdown to any campaign. If Stories and Reels rows are missing or tiny while feed dominates, your format coverage (not your audience) is usually the reason.
The safe-zone gotcha on vertical
Vertical placements overlay interface elements on your creative: username and progress bars at the top, CTA button, caption, and engagement icons at the bottom, and on Reels a right-hand rail of action buttons. Anything you place in those regions gets covered.
The working rule: keep all text, logos, and the product itself inside a central safe area. Roughly the top 15% and the bottom 20% of a Story are unsafe, and Reels is harsher still, with roughly the bottom third plus a right-side strip at risk. Design the 9:16 asset with those margins from the start. This is also why cropping a 4:5 feed video into 9:16 fails: the composition was never built around the safe area, so the headline ends up under the caption and the logo under the CTA button.
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Stories and Reels safe-zone diagram
Two 9:16 phone outlines side by side, one labeled Stories and one labeled Reels. On each, the unsafe regions are shaded (top strip for profile and progress UI, bottom strip for CTA and caption, and on the Reels frame an additional right-hand strip for the action rail) with the central safe zone drawn as a dashed rectangle. Sample creative inside shows a headline and product correctly positioned within the dashed area, with a ghosted "wrong" example beside it where the headline sits under the shaded caption region.
Then diversify inside the formats
Format coverage is step one of creative variety, and the cheapest step, because it is production work rather than new concepting. Once the three slots are filled, variety should come from the creative itself: different visual styles (polished brand asset vs casual customer-style video vs bold graphic treatment) and different message angles for different buyer motivations. That variety is what keeps creative fatigue at bay, because distinct executions decay on separate curves. And distinct executions serve distinct jobs, which is the subject of brand vs performance creative.
How to verify it's working
- Run the Placement breakdown after two weeks of delivery.
- Check that Stories and Reels now take a visible share of impressions.
- Compare CPM by placement: vertical inventory should be pulling your blended CPM down.
- Compare CTR by placement against the baseline reading habits: a placement with impressions but a collapsed CTR usually means the asset serving there is a crop, not a native design.
In Clearly
The verification step is where spreadsheets usually appear, and where a report does it for you. Connect Meta Ads in Clearly and the placement breakdown is a standing table: impressions, CTR, CPM, and results per placement, with period comparison, so you can see the share of delivery each placement takes and whether the vertical slots are earning their keep. Format gaps show up as exactly what they are: placements with no delivery, or delivery at feed prices.
Because the table persists in your report, "did the new vertical assets change the placement mix?" is a question you answer by glancing at the same view next month, not by rebuilding a breakdown.
The takeaway
Three assets per ad set: a 4:5 image, a 4:5 video, a 9:16 vertical designed inside the safe zones. That minimum unlocks every placement, lets the auction route each impression to creative built for it, and usually buys cheaper delivery than a single square ever will. Verify with the placement breakdown, then spend your creative energy where it compounds: variety of style and message inside those three slots.