Safe Zones for Mobile Ads: a complete guide for making optimized creatives

Digital marketers, social media managers, and designers face a common issue when making ad creatives: user interface buttons often hide key elements. To overcome this challenge, we’ve created a simple guide on Safe Zones in mobile ads to help you avoid constant editing and ensure your ad elements stay intact. If you are looking for the latest ad specs for 2025, check out our detailed guide here. But first, let’s start with the basics.

The concept and importance of Safe Zones for ads

A Safe Zone is an area on a screen where icons, comments, likes, hashtags, account names, and CTAs don’t overlap important content elements. Typically, this zone is located in the centre of the frame, staying whitin its boundaries.

Why safe zones matter in ad design?

1. Placing logos, CTA buttons, and the main text in the Safe Zone guarantees a better appearance and saves essential elements from being cut off. This makes the ad more user-friendly and easier to engage with.
2. Following Safe Zone guides increases the likelihood of user interaction, boosting reach and overall ad performance.
3. Messages without cropped elements appear more professional, build trust, and increase your brand’s value, helping retain audience attention.

Different advertising platforms have their own parameters. Let’s dive into the technical requirements for Safe Zones on Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat.

Meta Safe Zones (Reels, Stories)

For Ad Reels and Stories, avoid having textual and creative elements on the edges (top, bottom, sides) to make the published content more persuasive. If a disclaimer is needed in Reels, it is recommended to leave about 40% of the lowest part clear for text. Remember the 1080×1350 pixels area so that your Reels will be viewed in the feed.

Meta Ads Manager offers a special Safe Zone restrictor feature, allowing you to see whether elements in Reels and Stories will be overlapped by interface components. You can see our recommendations for Safe Zones below.

TikTok Safe Zones

TikTok’s safe area is determined by vertical, horizontal, and square videos, and the length of the advertising caption. The platform encourages vertical videos with a resolution of more than 540×960. Below we share accurate templates of different In-Feed Ads formats with crucial elements not cut off.

YouTube Shorts Safe Zones

What makes Shorts special? The opportunity to adapt to the user’s device type without stretching or lengthening the content. CTAs and other icons usually appear in different corners of the screen, taking into account the type of advert and display size. To make text and visual elements visible, we recommend using the following safe-area settings.

Snapchat Safe Zones

Snapchat’s safe areas differ based on what type of advertising and attachments will be used. Ads displayed in “Spotlight” also have designated Safe Zones. Below, we provide a table with safe area parameters for creative formats at 1920×1080 resolution.

Creative	Safe Zone for Stories	Safe Zone for Spotlight
One image/video, multiple images/videos + no Webview attachments	top, bottom — 150 px sides — 54 px	top — 150 px bottom — 360 px
Single image/video, story ad with multiple images/videos + Webview attachment	top — 150 px bottom — 330 px sides — 54 px	top — 150 px bottom — 360 px
Single image/video, story ad with multiple images/videos + Deeplink	top — 150 px bottom — 330 px sides — 54 px	top — 150 px bottom — 360 px
Collections, including DPA	top — 150 px bottom — 450 px sides — 54 px	top — 150 px bottom — 516
DPA (non-collection)	top — 150 px bottom — 150 px sides — 54 px	top — 150 px bottom — 360 px

Snapchat uses a single, consistent Safe Zone for all ad types, ensuring that creatives will work smoothly with future ad formats as they’re introduced, and making adaptation to new Snapchat ad innovations easier and more efficient.

Recommendations for Improving Content Visibility and Engagement with Safe Zones

Making ads within Safe Zones will optimize the creative process and enhance the effectiveness of the launched ad campaign. Here are a few recommendations from our team that will help you stick to the above parameters:

1. Test ad creatives across multiple devices. This will ensure that the main components appear the same on a computer, tablet, or smartphone.
2. Take templates with grids. They will help to align the Safe Zone and save time on making creatives.
3. Stick to minimalism. Avoid overcrowding your videos with excessive text or visual effects. This helps the user quickly focus on the core message you want to convey.
4. Keep track of changes. Popular platforms frequently update their settings. Always double-check these parameters to guarantee their currency.
5. Analyze top-performing videos. Studying highly engaging and viral content will give you insights into how Safe Zones are used to highlight key messages. Use ad libraries to see how your competitors and industry leaders leverage these zones.
6. Leverage visual guides. Adding boundaries or shaded areas in the background can help ensure your text, logo, and other important elements stay within the designated Safe Zones.

At Acquisition.mobi, we follow all the guidelines set by major platforms and create eye-catching, high-converting ads. If you’d like us to help you develop standout creatives, contact us at info@acquisition.mobi.