Nearly Half of Meta Creator Ads...

Creator ads fall short across best practices

The report also analyzed the total length of creators’ ads.

Across Meta and TikTok, only 45% of creator ads were between 15 and 60 seconds long, which are considered best practices for the platforms. Creator ads that stayed within the length recommendations saw a 10% increase in video completion rate. 

Creators also aren’t using the “safe zones” within social apps properly, according to CreativeX’s findings. Safe zones are areas in the middle of the screen that are not cut off by a platform’s features including likes, comments, and call to actions. Meta and TikTok recommend that advertisers place the most important information within the safe zone, but few brands and creators actually do, according to CreativeX. Only 3% of creator ads use safe zones compared with 12% of brand ads. Placing information in a safe zone can lead to a 19% higher video completion rate. 

“There are real constraints that are algorithmically determined for these platforms,” said Leng. “This is not about changing the creator’s idea or their message, it’s about putting in a container where the user can actually fully enjoy that message in a way that plays by the rules of that platform.”