How Long Should Facebook Ad Copy Be? Data From 9,839 Ads
Short, medium or long copy: we compared 9,839 Meta ads that ran 60+ days in Europe. How long each kind ran, and how ideal length changes by industry and country.
adthief.ai · · 5 min read
"Keep it short, nobody reads on Facebook." "Long copy sells, the people who read are the people who buy." Both pieces of advice get repeated with total confidence. We checked them against the ads that actually keep running.
We sorted 9,839 Facebook and Instagram ads from 5,185 brands that each ran for at least 60 days in Europe by the length of their post text, and compared how long each group ran. The answer is less exciting than either camp would like, and more useful.
How we measured
- Source: Meta's public Ad Library, collected every night by adthief.ai.
- Which ads: ads shown in Europe that had been running for 60 days or more, in six industries (supplements, beauty, fashion, home, pets, food and drink). One record per creative.
- Snapshot: 31 October 2026.
- Length groups: we counted the words in each ad's main text. Short is under 30 words, medium 30 to 99, long 100 or more.
The caveats: every ad here is a survivor, so we compare winners with winners. We can't tell you how many short or long ads failed. Meta publishes no spend or sales for commercial ads, so a long run is our stand-in for "profitable". The headline under the image is not included; this is the post text above it.
The overall answer: length doesn't decide it
| Copy length | Ads | Share | Median days running |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short (under 30 words) | 2,655 | 27% | 68 |
| Medium (30 to 99 words) | 4,298 | 44% | 67 |
| Long (100+ words) | 2,886 | 29% | 66 |
Among ads that last, all three lengths are common, and they run almost exactly as long: 66 to 68 days at the median. There is no length that wins on its own.
That doesn't mean length is irrelevant. It means the right length depends on what you sell and where. The next two tables show how much.
By industry: product decides length
| Industry | Median words | Short | Medium | Long |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supplements | 86 | 12% | 44% | 44% |
| Food and drink | 80 | 17% | 41% | 42% |
| Pets | 76 | 22% | 36% | 43% |
| Beauty | 74 | 17% | 46% | 36% |
| Home | 66 | 24% | 42% | 35% |
| Fashion | 33 | 45% | 37% | 18% |
(Shares are rounded, so some rows add up to 99% or 101%.)
The spread is large. A typical long-running supplement ad has 86 words; a typical fashion ad has 33. Only one supplement ad in eight is short, while almost half of fashion ads are.
The pattern follows the product. Things you swallow, eat or put on your skin need explaining: ingredients, effects, who it is for. Clothes and jewelry are judged with the eyes, so the picture does the work and the text stays short.
Two industries show a real difference in run time by length:
| Industry | Short: median days | Medium | Long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home | 86 | 67 | 66 |
| Pets | 101 | 66 | 72 |
In home and pets, the short ads that survived kept running much longer than the rest. Both are categories where a video can show the product working, or the animal enjoying it, without words. In the other four industries, the three lengths are within two days of each other.
By country: market decides length too
| Main market | Ads | Median words |
|---|---|---|
| The UK | 4,519 | 66 |
| Ireland | 323 | 59 |
| Spain | 367 | 57 |
| Portugal | 134 | 57 |
| Denmark | 123 | 57 |
| Germany | 1,448 | 54 |
| Italy | 498 | 51 |
| The Netherlands | 330 | 51 |
| France | 354 | 50 |
| Austria | 158 | 49 |
| Romania | 206 | 48 |
| Sweden | 204 | 44 |
| Poland | 180 | 42 |
| Belgium | 183 | 41 |
| Greece | 183 | 39 |
UK ads are the wordiest in Europe, and the gap is bigger inside industries. UK supplement ads have a median of 103 words against 70 in Germany. UK pet ads have 95 against 54 in Germany.
A UK ad translated word for word will usually be longer than what runs in the target market. Cutting it is part of localising it.
A few smaller markets show a length effect, but the groups are small, so treat these as hints:
- Poland: 68 short ads ran a median of 123 days, against 66 for medium.
- Austria: 32 long ads ran a median of 124 days, against 93 for short.
- Sweden: 39 long ads ran a median of 74 days, against 65 for short.
- Germany: no difference at all (78 to 79 days for every length).
How to choose the length for your ad
- Start from the product. If people need to understand it before they buy (a supplement, a treatment, a service), write enough to explain it. If they judge it by looking (clothes, decor, food photos), keep it short and invest in the visual.
- Start from the market. UK and Irish audiences see longer ads; Belgian, Greek and Polish ads are much shorter. Look at what runs in your country first.
- Write the first line as if it is the whole ad. On most placements, only the first line or two shows before "See more". Long copy works only if that opening earns the click.
- Make two versions. For every new angle, one short (a hook, one benefit, the offer) and one long (the problem, the proof, the objections). Same visual. Let the results pick.
- If you can demonstrate it, try very short. In home and pets, short ads that worked ran far longer than the rest.
- Use structure in long copy. Short paragraphs, line breaks and simple bullets (emoji work well here) make 150 words easy to scan.
For how those first lines are built, see our data on ad hook patterns. For a broader look at what long-running ads share, read the long-running Meta ads study.
To see the ads behind these numbers, by industry and country, browse the free top ads pages.