Hook rateThe first three seconds decide whether the rest of the ad exists.

What is hook rate?

Hook rate is the number of people who watch past the opening of a video ad, divided by the number of times it was shown. On Meta it is usually worked out as 3-second video plays divided by impressions. It is not a column Meta or TikTok names; it is a ratio advertisers build from the platforms' own view counts.

It measures one thing: whether the opening earned attention. It says nothing yet about whether the rest of the ad persuaded anyone, which is why it is read alongside click-through rate and cost per result, not instead of them.

How do you calculate hook rate on Meta?

In Ads Manager, add the 3-second video plays column and divide it by impressions for the same ad and the same dates. Divide by impressions, not reach: one person can be shown an ad several times, and dividing by reach makes the figure look better than it is.

Compare hook rates between ads in the same account and the same placements. A Reels placement and a feed placement behave differently, so a fair comparison keeps them apart.

How do you calculate hook rate on TikTok?

TikTok counts views its own way. TikTok Ads Manager counts a 2-second view when a video plays for at least two seconds in one impression, and a 6-second view when it plays for six seconds, plays in full if shorter, or earns an engagement in its first six seconds. Source: TikTok Ads Manager help.

So the closest match to a Meta hook rate is 2-second views divided by impressions. The 6-second rate is a useful second read, but remember that an engagement can count as a 6-second view, so it is not a pure measure of watch time.

What is a good hook rate, according to published benchmarks?

Published benchmarks are other people's accounts, not yours, so read them as a range to place yourself in rather than a target. The most detailed recent set comes from an agency's own data: Biddyco's 2026 study of 479 top-spending Meta video ads, from 17 US accounts it keeps anonymous between June and August 2026, found a median hook rate of 20.9% (3-second plays divided by impressions), with the middle half between about 14% and 30% and the top tenth at 45% or more. Source: Biddyco.

Those are Biddyco's figures for its own clients' ads, all US accounts and all on Meta. A different market, product or placement mix will land somewhere else. Put a new ad's hook rate next to that range only to see whether it is roughly normal, then judge it against your own best ads on the same placements.

What is hold rate, and which formula should you use?

Hold rate is the next read after hook rate: of the people who stopped, how many stayed. It is built on Meta's ThruPlay count. Meta defines a ThruPlay as the number of times a video was played to completion, or for at least 15 seconds: completed plays for a video of 15 seconds or less, and at least 15 seconds for a longer one. Source: Meta Business Help Center.

Two formulas are in use, and they give very different numbers. Vaizle gives the hold rate formula for Facebook ads as ThruPlays divided by 3-second video plays, the version most guides use. Source: Vaizle. Others divide ThruPlays by impressions instead, which measures holding from the whole audience rather than from those who stopped.

Biddyco uses the second. The same Biddyco study found a median hold rate of 4.6%, which it measures as ThruPlays divided by impressions; roughly 22% of the people who reached 3 seconds went on to a ThruPlay, and the top-spending ads did not have meaningfully higher hook or hold rates. Source: Biddyco. So a hold rate of 20% and one of 5% can describe the same ad. Whichever you choose, write the formula next to the number and never compare figures built on different ones.

What do Motion's 2026 benchmarks say about hooks?

Motion, a creative analytics tool, publishes the largest benchmark set. Motion's Creative Benchmarks 2026 covers 578,750 creatives from 6,015 advertiser accounts and $1.29B in spend, over a window from September 2025 to January 2026. Source: Motion's methodology.

It measures winners, not hook rates. Motion counts an ad as a winner when it spends at least 10 times its account's median creative spend, with a $500 floor, and finds a hit rate of about 5% overall, from 3.8% for the smallest accounts to 8.2% for the largest; spend, not return on ad spend, is its measure of success. Source: Motion. Motion's 2026 benchmarks report hit rates by the kind of opening, such as 9.29% for offer-only hooks and 8.74% for confessions, rather than an average hook rate. Source: Motion's Thumbstop Pulse.

So a hook-rate tier credited to Motion's 2026 benchmarks did not come from that report. What the report does suggest is that the kind of opening matters: a plain offer or a candid admission gave an ad better odds of earning real spend in Motion's data than many other openings did. That is vendor data about its own customers, useful as a direction to test rather than a rule.

What does hook rate tell you that sales do not?

It arrives first. A new ad can show a clear hook rate within a day or two, long before it has enough purchases to judge. That makes it the fastest way to sort a set of new ideas: openings that nobody stops for can be replaced in days instead of weeks.

Read it with the next number in the chain. A strong hook rate with weak clicks means the opening works and the middle or the offer does not. A weak hook rate means the idea never got a hearing, however good the rest of the ad is.

How do you improve hook rate?

Open on the moment that matters to the viewer, not on the brand. The problem the product solves, the result it gives, a surprising detail or a question the viewer is already asking: each works better in the first second than a logo or a slow introduction.

Make the first frame readable with the sound off, with large captions that say the idea. Put a person or the product in the first frame. And test openings against each other on the same body, so you learn which one works and why. Our UGC ad hooks and TikTok ad hooks collections give 40 opening lines each, and take eight concept ads apart.

How do you test hooks without remaking the whole ad?

Keep the body and swap the opening. Cut three to five versions of the same ad that differ only in their first three seconds: a different first line, a different first frame, or the same line said by a different person. Run them side by side on the same budget and audience, and after a few days the hook rates tell you which opening earns attention.

Change one thing at a time. If the new version has a new opening, new music and a new offer, you cannot tell which change moved the number. Small, single changes build a record of what your audience responds to, and that record makes every future ad better.

Write down what each winning hook did differently. Over a few weeks a pattern appears, such as questions beating statements or faces beating products, and that pattern is worth more than any single winning ad.

Can a hook rate be too good?

Yes, when the opening promises something the ad does not deliver. A shocking first frame or a misleading claim stops the scroll and then loses people at the click, and in the UK an opening that misleads can also break the advertising rules. The best hooks are true: they say the most interesting real thing about the product, first.

We read hook rate first on every drop we deliver as part of our ad creative subscription, then build the next week's openings on what held attention.