The hook is the opening moment of a video ad, roughly the first one to three seconds, designed to make someone stop scrolling and keep watching. It might be a line of on-screen text, a spoken question, a striking image, sudden movement or a sound, and its only job is to earn the next few seconds.
How a hook works
On Facebook and Instagram, video plays automatically as people scroll, often with the sound off in the feed. Each person decides almost instantly whether your ad deserves attention, and most do not. The hook is what tips that decision.
Hooks that tend to work fall into a few patterns:
- The problem, named plainly. “Boiler pressure dropping again?” speaks to someone who has that exact problem today.
- The result first. A finished garden, a restored sofa or a clean set of accounts on screen before any explanation.
- A direct call-out. “If you run a café, watch this” filters in the right viewers and politely filters out the rest.
- Something unexpected. An odd angle, a product being dropped or a person mid-sentence breaks the rhythm of the feed.
Because many people watch muted, the hook usually needs on-screen text that makes sense without sound, placed inside the safe zone so the app’s buttons and captions do not cover it. You measure whether it worked with hook rate: the share of impressions that become 3-second views.
Why it matters
Most Meta campaigns pay for impressions. If nobody stops, you pay for screen time that does nothing. A better hook makes every pound of the budget work harder, because more of the people you pay to reach actually take in the message.
The hook also does a second job now that targeting is broad. With Advantage+ audiences and similar settings, Meta relies heavily on who engages with an ad to decide who sees it next. That is the idea behind creative-as-targeting: a hook that calls out landlords in Manchester teaches the system to find more landlords, while a vague one leaves it guessing.
UK advertisers have one more reason to take care. A hook is part of the ad, so the CAP Code applies to it. Dramatic before-and-after shots for cosmetic treatments, weight-loss claims and “you won’t believe” openings that the rest of the ad cannot back up can breach the rules or Meta’s own policies, and an ad that is pulled earns nothing.
Common mistakes
- Opening with a logo animation or a slow fade-in. Brand recognition can come at second four.
- A clickbait hook unrelated to the offer. Hook rate rises, then people leave and the ad never converts.
- A hook that only works with sound.
- Text placed where the profile name, caption or buttons cover it, especially in Reels and Stories.
- Using the same opening for every audience and every stage of the funnel.
How to act on it
Write several hooks for each video rather than one. Keep the body of the video the same and swap only the first three seconds, so that any difference in results comes from the opening. Three to five versions is a practical number for a small account, run within a structured creative testing framework so you compare like with like.
Judge each hook on hook rate first, then follow it through to hold rate and to cost per result. The winner is the hook that brings in customers, not the one with the biggest attention figure. Keep a record of what worked so the next round of creative starts from evidence. Writing and testing hooks is a core part of the video, Reels and Stories ads work I run.