The six parts of an ad, and which ones go missing
Photo, logo, headline, price, button, legal line, and where each one fails on a small size.
In shortMost display and social ads are built from six parts: the photo, the logo, the headline, the price or offer, the button and the legal line. Across a set of sizes, they fail in a predictable order. The legal line goes first because it is the smallest and sits at the edge, then the price on the narrowest sizes, then the logo in the tall ones where the platform draws over the top. Checking those three on every size catches most of what ships wrong.
On this page
When we break an ad down to lay it out again in another size, it almost always comes apart into the same six parts. Naming them made the work easier to check, and it showed that the mistakes in a finished set are not random: each part fails in its own place, on its own kind of size.
The six parts
Arc 01.
- 1Photo
- 2Logo
- 3Headline
- 4Price
- 5Button
- 6Legal line
| Part | Its job | Where it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Photo | Shows the product | Cropped to a strip on banners |
| Logo | Says whose ad it is | Under the profile icon on Stories; squeezed on small sizes |
| Headline | Says the one thing | Cut by the frame, or too small to read |
| Price or offer | Says what it costs | Dropped or shortened on the narrowest banners |
| Button | Says what to do | Pushed off the edge by a longer price |
| Legal line | Qualifies the claim | Lost at the foot of small sizes; under the bottom band on Stories |
What each part is for, and where we see it go wrong most often.
The order they go missing
The legal line is first, every time. It is the smallest part, it sits at the outer edge, and it is the first thing someone shrinks or drops to make room. It is also the one that matters most to an approver: the FTC’s guidance asks for a needed disclosure to be close to the claim it qualifies and to work on every device the ad runs on.1
The price is second, on the narrowest sizes, where a mobile banner has room for one line and the price competes with the headline for it. The logo is third, on tall sizes: on Instagram Stories, Meta asks you to keep the top 14% of the frame free of logos and text, because the profile icon is drawn there.2
What to check, in order
Checking those four on every size takes minutes, and it is where the expensive mistakes in a set almost always are. The photo and the button are rarely wrong in a way an approver misses; the small print, the price and the logo often are.
Do the four checks in that order, across the whole set, rather than all four on one size before moving to the next. Looking at the legal line on every size in a row makes the one size where it is missing stand out; looking at every part of one size at a time makes the eye tire before the small banners.
eonik reads a master as these parts, lays every size out around them, and checks each page against your brand’s rules, pinning anything that is missing where it is missing.
What to check before an ad goes out →Sources
- .com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising, US Federal Trade Commission, March 2013. Disclosures close to the claim, on every device the ad runs on, including space-constrained ads.Checked 26 Oct 2026
- Image ad specs on Instagram Stories, Meta Ads Guide. 9:16, 1440×2560, and the 14% / 35% / 6% safe zone.Checked 25 Oct 2026
- Success Criterion 1.4.3, Contrast (Minimum), W3C, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2. 4.5:1 for text, 3:1 for large text, and logos exempt.Checked 26 Oct 2026