What is Hook rate?
Hook rate is the percentage of people who are still watching a video ad three seconds after it begins, measured as three-second views divided by impressions.
Updated
Hook rate isolates the first three seconds, which is where most video ads are lost. It is a useful diagnostic precisely because it separates two failures that look identical in the top-line numbers: nobody watched, versus they watched and did not care.
If hook rate is low, the problem is the opening frame — it is not stopping the scroll. That is usually fixable without reshooting anything: a different first second, an on-screen line that names the product immediately, a tighter crop. If hook rate is healthy but conversions are not, the problem is further in, in what the ad argues or what the landing page does next.
The judgement to keep is that a hook exists to earn attention for something worth seeing. On premium products especially, an opening that shows the product properly usually outperforms a clever misdirect, because the people it stops are the people who might actually buy. Attention you cannot convert is a cost, not a win.
How Hook rate is calculated
Hook rate = (3-second video views ÷ Impressions) × 100
A worked example
A video ad is served 1,20,000 times and records 30,000 three-second views.
- 3-second views = 30,000
- Impressions = 1,20,000
- (30,000 ÷ 1,20,000) × 100 = 25%
Hook rate = 25%.
Common mistakes
- Optimising the hook in isolation. A hook that stops the scroll but misrepresents the product buys expensive, unqualified attention.
- Comparing hook rate across placements. Reels and Feed behave differently enough that a blended number is not meaningful.
- Assuming a low hook rate means the video is bad, when the opening frame is often the only thing that needs changing.
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