guides
Headline vs Primary Text — Where Does Your Hook Go?
Headlines compete with the CTA strip. Primary text competes with See more. Different jobs, different best practices.
Headlines and primary text do different jobs. Treating them as interchangeable is one of the most common ad copy mistakes, and it shows up across every Meta and TikTok placement.
Primary text sits above the creative on Meta Feed-style placements, with 125 visible characters before See more. Its job is the hook plus the offer. It earns the eye-stop and gets the user to consider tapping. The CTA strip is below the creative, so primary text isn't competing with the platform's call-to-action — it's competing with the user's scroll velocity.
Headlines sit below the creative, immediately above the CTA strip. The 40-character visible window is competing directly with the platform's CTA button. The job of the headline is to bridge the visual content to the action. "See exactly where your copy clips" is a working headline. "We help marketers" is not — it's competing with the CTA without earning the click.
The pattern that performs across both Meta and TikTok: write primary text as a hook + payoff. Write headline as a transition to action. Don't repeat the hook in both fields.
Primary = above the image, fights See more. Headline = below, fights CTA.
Different jobs, different lengths
Spec context
| Field | Hard max | Visible before truncate | Warn at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary text | 500 | 125 | 110 |
| Headline | 255 | 40 | 27 |
| Description | 200 | 30 | 27 |
Source: https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide · Last verified 2026-04-15.
The two-field rule
If you can't tell which field a sentence belongs in, it probably belongs in primary text. Headlines should be small enough that there's no ambiguity — verb-led, action-led, transition language.
FAQ
- Should the headline restate the primary text?
- No. They're sequential, not redundant. Primary text earns attention; headline earns action.
- What about TikTok — does it have a separate headline?
- TikTok uses a 40-character display name, but it doesn't function the same way as a Meta headline. The TikTok caption does both jobs.
- Can I leave the headline blank?
- Some placements allow it; most don't. When allowed, blank headlines hurt CTR because the CTA strip looks empty.
- Why is the headline window only 40 characters?
- Because the headline strip on phones is narrow. Anything longer truncates with an ellipsis.