Ad specs / YouTube
YouTube Shorts ad size
A YouTube Shorts ad is vertical, 9:16 at 1080 × 1920 pixels recommended and 720 × 1280 minimum on Google's video ad specs page, up to 3 minutes long — only the first 60 seconds play in the Shorts feed, and under 60 seconds is recommended. Google's reference overlay for vertical video keeps 15% of the top, 35% of the bottom, 4.4% of the left and 17.8% of the right clear.
| Orientation | Vertical video recommended; horizontal assets serve with blurred top and bottom |
|---|---|
| Recommended resolution | 1080 × 1920 pixels (Google's video ad specs page) |
| Minimum resolution | 720 × 1280 pixels; 480 × 640 SD accepted, not recommended (Google's video ad specs page) |
| Aspect ratio | 9:16 (Google's video ad specs page) |
| Length | Google's Shorts ads page says video ads can be up to 3 minutes, of which only the first 60 seconds play on the Shorts feed, with an overlay at 50 seconds to watch the rest on the watch page, and recommends under 60 seconds. Further down it says you can use 6–60 second video for Video Reach campaigns and 10–60 seconds for other campaign types, such as Video Action, App and Performance Max; Google's video ads specs and format requirements page also lists 6–60 seconds for Shorts in Video Reach. The two figures differ: up to 3 minutes against 60 seconds |
| File type | .MPG (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4) recommended; .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, .FLV, .MPEG-1, .MP4, .MPEGPS, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm and HEVC (H.265) also accepted; audio-only files (MP3, WAV, PCM) can't be used (Google's video ad specs page) |
| Maximum file size | 256 GB (Google's video ad specs page) |
| Description | Shorts ads show the channel name and description; descriptions are limited to 90 characters, and text past 1 line on mobile and 2 lines on desktop and TV is truncated |
| Call-to-action card | Google's Shorts ads page: Shorts ads on mobile have a call-to-action overlay card that can show headline text, and it recommends providing both a 40-character headline and a 90-character description in campaign setup |
| Call-to-action button | Appears 3 seconds in for Performance Max, App and Demand Gen campaigns, 10 seconds in for Video View and Video Reach campaigns |
| Right-hand panel | Google: it includes like, dislike, comment and share buttons |
| Safe zone | Google's one vertical overlay for video ads, on its video ad specs page; it gives no Shorts-only zone |
Download as a template: a transparent PNG or SVG for your editor.
Source: Google Ads Help — YouTube Shorts ads: asset specs and best practices, as of ; the safe zone from Google's vertical safe-zone overlay (the transparent PNG template on its video ad specs page), as of . Platforms revise specs without notice; check the source before you build a template on it.
Related reading
Check a file against this size in the free ad size checker, and see what YouTube’s buttons and captions cover in the safe zone checker. Terrads composes each placement for its own frame, instead of cropping one master down to it.