Hook rate is the percentage of a video ad’s impressions that turn into a view of at least three seconds, calculated as 3-second video plays divided by impressions. It tells you how well the opening of a video stops people scrolling, which is why it is also called the thumb-stop ratio.
How hook rate works
Meta records an impression each time your ad appears on screen and a 3-second video play each time the video runs for at least three seconds. Meta does not supply a hook rate column, so you create it in Ads Manager as a custom metric: 3-second video plays divided by impressions, shown as a percentage. Save it to a column preset and it appears beside every video ad.
A worked example: an ad shown 40,000 times that collected 10,000 three-second plays has a hook rate of 25%. A second version of the same video with a new opening, shown 38,000 times with 6,800 plays, has a hook rate of about 18%. The first opening is doing a better job of stopping people.
The figure varies by placement. In Reels and Stories the video fills the screen, so people are already looking at it; in Feed it competes with everything around it. Use the placement breakdown to compare like with like, rather than reading one blended number.
Why it matters
Hook rate is one of the earliest signals you get about a new ad. An ad set spending £20 a day may need a week or more to gather enough purchases or enquiries to judge, but its hook rate settles after a few thousand impressions. That makes it a practical way for a small UK account to spot a dud opening before it has eaten much of the budget.
It also tells you where a problem sits. A low hook rate points at the first three seconds. A healthy hook rate with poor results points further down: the middle of the video, which hold rate measures, the offer, or the landing page. Without that split, it is easy to rewrite the whole ad when only the first shot needed changing.
Common mistakes
- Comparing hook rate between Feed and Reels without separating placements.
- Treating it as the measure of success. An opening that shocks people into stopping but brings no buyers has done nothing for the business.
- Calling a winner from a few hundred impressions.
- Chasing it with clickbait openings that the rest of the ad cannot honour, which also risks breaching the CAP Code.
- Comparing a two-second clip with a full-length video. Very short videos count their plays differently and distort the figure.
How to act on it
Build the custom metric once and review it weekly for every live video ad. Rank your videos by it and set your own threshold: anything well below your account’s usual figure needs a new opening.
When a video underperforms, keep the body and re-cut only the first three seconds. Try starting on the result, the product in use, a person speaking straight to camera, or a plain question in large text. Run the new hook alongside the original and compare hook rate, then hold rate, then cost per result.
Finally, read hook rate together with ThruPlays and conversions rather than on its own. Keeping that full chain in view is how I run Facebook video, Reels and Stories ads for clients.