Hook
The hook is the first 1-3 seconds of an ad: the moment that earns attention and decides whether the rest of the ad gets watched.
What does Hook actually mean?
The hook is the opening 1-3 seconds of a video ad: the moment that decides whether a scroller stops or scrolls past. A large share of viewers drop off in this window. A great body and CTA can't recover from a weak hook.
Hook patterns that work: open with a question ('Why is this $4 cleaner outselling Sephora's?'), with a concrete claim ('I tried 12 supplements; only this one worked'), with a visual disruption (fast motion, unexpected scene), or with an immediate pain ('My acne came back after 30 years'). What doesn't work: brand logos, slow-build narratives, generic 'introducing our new product' openings.
Modern AI ad workflows treat the hook as a separate variable. advrt, for example, writes several hooks for every angle, and its live tests on Meta show which resulting ads beat your account's own baseline, so you aren't guessing from a score. AI generators have made this kind of hook testing far cheaper than it used to be.
Example
A skincare ad opens with a tight close-up of a person's skin (visual disruption) plus 'I gave up on my acne until I tried this' (concrete claim). The hook earns 4 seconds of attention before the product reveal.
When it matters
Hook quality is the single biggest determinant of TikTok and Reels CTR. Modern teams ship hooks in batches of 10+ and test them independently.
Related terms
Hook rate
Hook rate is the percentage of impressions that watch past the first 3 seconds. It's the cleanest measure of a video ad's opening attention.
Thumb-stop rate
Thumb-stop rate is the percentage of impressions that pause to engage. It's sometimes used interchangeably with hook rate, sometimes as the 1-second version.
UGC
UGC is creator-style content (testimonials, unboxings, demos) used as ad creative. Originally human-produced; now also AI-generated.
CTR
CTR is the percentage of impressions that result in clicks. It signals creative resonance and ad quality.
Reels
Reels is Meta's short-form video format on Instagram and Facebook: 9:16 vertical, hook-driven, 6-90 seconds.
Find out which ads actually win.
advrt builds ads around your real product photos, tests them live on Meta and judges each one against your own account. Free plan, no credit card.