Hook Rate
Hook rate measures how effectively an ad captures attention in its first moments, typically defined as the percentage of viewers who watch the first ~3 seconds of a video relative to total impressions. A high hook rate means the opening stops the scroll; a low one signals the creative fails before its message ever lands.
How it's calculated
For video, hook rate is commonly 3-second video views divided by impressions (or reach). Some teams use a slightly different numerator, so it's worth confirming the definition before comparing across reports. The metric isolates the very top of the funnel: did the creative earn a moment of attention at all?
Why it matters
A weak hook caps everything downstream. No matter how strong the offer or call-to-action, viewers who scroll past in the first second never see it. Diagnosing hook rate separately from completion rate and conversion rate helps pinpoint whether a creative is failing at attention, retention, or persuasion.
Image vs. video note
Hook rate is fundamentally a video metric tied to early-seconds retention. For static image ads, the closest analog is the thumb-stop ratio or simply CTR, since there is no playback curve to measure. Teams running image-only creative typically lean on thumb-stop and engagement signals instead.
Related terms
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