Frequently Asked Questions & Support

A safe zone is the central viewport of your 9:16 vertical video or image that remains completely unobstructed by native platform UI overlays — such as usernames, captions, audio stickers, like/comment buttons, share trays, and search bars.

If essential text, key talent, or logos are placed in the danger zones, platform algorithms like TikTok's OCR (Optical Character Recognition) cannot index your text properly, and users cannot read your hook, hurting retention, click-through rates, and algorithmic distribution.

For standard 1080×1920px TikTok vertical videos: Top margin: ~200px (10.4%) for search and tabs; Bottom margin: ~330px to 480px (17.4% – 23.4%) for captions and CTA pills; Right margin: ~250px (13%) for engagement buttons; Left margin: ~86px (8%) buffer. Recommended Safe Area: Center 740 × 1240 px box.

On Instagram Reels, organic feed posts require a top margin of ~13% (250px) and a bottom margin of ~16.6% (320px). For Paid Ads, the top margin increases to ~18.6% (357px) due to the 'Sponsored' header, and the bottom margin expands to ~26.6% (510px) to accommodate expanded CTA buttons.

YouTube Shorts has one of the most aggressive interfaces: Top margin: ~380px (19.8%) for sound, search, and menu; Bottom margin: ~390px (20.3%) for channel name, subscribe button, and title; Right margin: ~200px (18.6%) for like/dislike/comments/remix. Keep subtitles and text strictly centered.

Smart Zoom is an automated display feature where social apps slightly zoom in and crop 5% to 8% of the left and right edges on non-standard aspect ratios or different mobile screens. Always keep a safe horizontal padding from the outer edges.

A clickTag is an industry-standard JavaScript variable used by ad servers (Google Ads, DV360, CM360, AppNexus) to dynamically pass the campaign landing page URL without hardcoding links into your creative. Without a valid clickTag, the ad network cannot track clicks.

The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and Google Ads enforce a strict 150 KB initial payload limit to prevent slow page load times, protect user data plans, and ensure high ad viewability. All HTML, CSS, JS, and image assets combined in the zip must not exceed 150 KB compressed.

The <meta name="ad.size" content="width=300,height=250"> tag tells ad servers the exact dimensions of your creative before rendering, preventing layout shifts and slot mismatches in responsive publisher slots.

Google Ads strictly forbids client-side persistent storage such as localStorage, sessionStorage, and direct document.cookie access inside sandboxed ad iframes to comply with global user privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA).

The top performing standard IAB formats are: 300×250 (Medium Rectangle), 336×280 (Large Rectangle), 728×90 (Leaderboard), 160×600 (Wide Skyscraper), 300×600 (Half Page / Filmstrip), 320×50 (Mobile Banner), 320×100 (Large Mobile Banner), and 970×250 (Billboard).

No, never. CheckSafe.Zone is engineered to operate 100% client-side inside your browser via modern HTML5 Canvas, Web Audio API, and JSZip. Your files never leave your computer or touch any external server.

Yes. Because the entire processing engine runs locally within the browser, you can load the page once and run full safe zone checks and banner audits even without an active internet connection.

Download our free transparent PNG overlay masks from the PNG Templates Hub. Drag the PNG file onto the top video track in your timeline (Track V2 or V3), set opacity to 50-70%, edit your text inside the clear zone, and hide the track before final export.

Our Aspect Ratio Calculator automatically computes exact pixel dimensions, scaling multipliers, and letterbox padding bars when converting between 9:16, 16:9, 1:1, and 4:5 resolutions.

The clickTag Generator automatically formats error-free clickTag code compatible with Google Ads, CM360, and IAB standards with support for single or multiple landing page exit URLs.